I feel sad that i can't visit Arezzo and hotel Le Capanne once again during Christmas and i just went back to read the Trip advisor's reviews .
We are a family from Greece that stayed at this hotel for 6 nights during Christmas 2008 . We are frequent travelers during the year (within Greece) and quite often abroad as well. We have stayed in Luxury hotels and in B&Bs as well.
We will always keep our stay in Le Capanne in our hearts and we have recommended it to all of our friends, Christmas is not the perfect time for Tuscany and the hotel didn't have other visitors . But everyone in this hotel tried to make our visit unforgettable. Just to mention that Locanda Dei Pilli (what a food in this restaurant !!!!) was fully reserved twice with locals , they opened the Osteria , cooked specially for us and the owner arranged a dinner for his friends there as well in order for us not to feel isolated .
If you have a car i strongly recommend this hotel . The building is very very nice , the family room given to us (2 room appartment) comfortable , the food is perfect , the hospitality is the best.
You can easily visit Sienna, Cortona , Florence . We will certainly come back.

This hotel and attached restaurant comes with a good reputation, so it was a bit disappointing to find neither entirely satisfactory.

The hotel is a 20 minute car drive outside Arezzo so we thought the standard must be pretty good to attract a clientele. However, the standard of our room was less than we expected for the price. Our room was a so-called “junior suite” and while it was quite spacious, I wouldn’t have called it a “suite”, having only two chairs and a very small table. It was pretty basic - we thought it would be a little more luxurious.

The attached restaurant Locanda dei Pilli has a good reputation, and was one of the main reasons we chose to stay here. But on the two nights of our stay it was closed. Closed Wednesdays and random other days apparently.

So we had to eat in the small Osteria L‘Angolo which allegedly uses the same kitchen. Despite their insistence that the food was home made, it has a commercial pre-prepared feel, particularly the pastas. They made no attempt to hide the fact that the desserts were stored in a commercial deep freezer. The semifreddo was topped with a raspberry and a cherry that were frozen solid. They told us that the menu changes daily - this also turned out to be false.

On the plus side, the hotel is very quiet, our bed was extremely comfortable and the breakfast was pretty good. If you make sure that the main restaurant is open and don’t get talked into a junior suite, you’ll probably be happy here.

Our stay at Le Capanne was truly a beautiful experience. It took us a while to find...even with our GPS...the signs for the hotel are quite small and it's down a dirt road so we kept thinking...surely it can't be down here. But, it was...and what a charmer. The ladies at the front desk, Christina and Gabriella went out of their way to help us plan our daily excursions to so many neighboring towns....Florence, Siena, San Gimignano, Chianti, Cortona, Panzano, Colle Val D'este, Volterra...and even more than I can remember. Their advice and suggestions made our trip so special. One night we came back to our hotel very tired and instead of dining at a restaurant, we went to the local supermarket and bought wine, cheeses, meats, olives and breads and asked if there was a place we could enjoy our impromptu dinner. Gabriella allowed us to use the area where breakfast is usually served and even brought us candles so we could enjoy our dinner by candlelight. It doesn't get better than that...it was one of our most memorable meals in Italy. The hotel itself is a 1,500 year old farmhouse and the only issue we had while there was with the shower pressure, but I guess this is to be expected in such an old dwelling. Also, another big issue in basically all of Tuscany when we were there (Sept/Oct) was mosquitos. The weather was unusually warm (mid 80's)...which is probably what brought them all out. But, overall our stay was amazing...we have so many wonderful memories...of Le Capanne and all the people who work there. They made us feel like family and we can't wait to return.

Initially locating Hotel Le Capanne is a bit confusing, but once you find the dirt road that takes you there....it is well worth the drive. Actually, Arezzo is close by and we easily found our way back and forth, but it is necessary to have a car.
The temperature at the end of August was in the mid nineties and the well maintained swimming pool was such a delight at the end of a very hot day of sightseeing.
The highlight was the outstanding dinner on the patio at their restaurant, Angolo. The chef is a nineteen year old gem. When I asked Stefano where he got his receipes, he said each course is his own original. The dinner was one of the best meals we had during our vacation.
In my opinion, La Capanne is a small hotel rather than a Bed and Breakfast. Parking, breakfast and internet were included in the hotel rate.. The grounds are well maintained, and the staff were all very nice and helpful.
As we peacefully ate our breakfast on the patio in the morning, we watched a shepherd walking by with his huge flock of sheep just outside the gate of the property. Coming from the city, that certainly was an added treat.