Casa La Columbaia is a well located, recently restored farmhouse in the Chianti region of Tuscany. The owner, Gianna Zanelli, is a high energy, friendly and extremely helpful young woman. Casa La Columbaia is about 40 minutes from Florence, less than an hour from Siena, 30 minutes from San Giminano, an hour or so from Lucca and Pisa. The farmhouse is spotlessly clean, well appointed (though in typical furnishings, not luxurious) and well maintained. There is a pool (seasonal), gated car parking and large areas of grass that my young grandsons were encouraged to play in. The farmhouse is surrounded by Gianna's family vineyards. While we were there she was observed in the fields helping her father with some chores. During the high season, Gianna and her mother host typical Tuscan dinners, make Tuscan bread and pizza at the farmhouse. She made museum reservations for us in Florence, and made suggestions about family friendly restaurants to take our small grandchildren to and tried for an extended period of time one evening to find us a restaurant that was open and from which we could get pizza to take out. She was also available to make reservations to any other type of restaurant, if you desired. She checked up to see what we liked or disliked about places she suggested to us.
Many of the agriturismos that I have researched have two bedrooms and a pull out couch for a larger group. One of the best things about Casa La Columbaia was that two of their apartments have 3 bedrooms and 3 baths which meant that for our family no one was relegated to the pull out couch and lack of privacy. From my research that type of set up is a bit hard to find. For a very large group it is possible to rent both halves of the house we stayed in and have 6 bedrooms. In the apartment we stayed in, Gianna also provided two baby cribs for my grandsons. There is also a "loft" area upstairs which could actually have another small bed put into for a child. It was an amazing place to stay--location was beautiful, owner super friendly and helpful (we loved how proud they are are of their restoration and their desire to share their farmhouse with us) and the apartment was large enough for 3 small children to have room to roam outside and run around inside without being fearful of them doing damage or getting hurt. The apartment has a fully equipped kitchen, including a washing machine.