If you want to be transported back in time, this 17th century noble castle is the resort for you. The views of the Tuscan countryside from the hotel are transcendent and it truly is an experience like no other. If however, you’d rather modern comforts such as strong American air conditioning, don’t stay here. But you’d be missing out on a one of a kind experience.
My daughter and I stayed at San Ruffino as part of a travel/trip pkg. We read all of the reviews, looked at the photos, and did our research. It looked wonderful and exceeded our expectations. We arrived late in the evening after driving from Rome/Fiumicino airport. As noted by others, the gates are locked, but we made a quick phone call and a very helpful gentleman arrived in a golf cart and drove us (F1 style! 🏎) up to the castle and helped us with our bags. Great service!! In the morning, we asked another guest where we might find breakfast and found a feast for not only the stomach, but for the eyes. The view each morning was beautiful. Breakfast was a great combination of eggs, bacon/meat, fruit (a fabulous melon!), breads, pastry, and croissants that I still miss. Pour yourself some cappuccino or espresso & get an early start. The location is an easy drive to just about anywhere. We drove to Siena, San Gimignano, Volterra, Pisa, and Viareggio. We also used a Park & Ride option to Florence. The Reception office was very helpful with a map and suggestions, which was most appreciated. We loved arriving back home at our castle each night. What a welcome sight. Our room was an apt. with one bedroom, 1.5 baths, a small kitchen area, dining table, and large living room with a sleeper sofa. I have some back issues, but that sleeper sofa was not a problem and was very comfortable. There's plenty of storage in the room. I asked about where I might buy a hair dryer and one was kindly provided for me to use. I have only good things to say about our stay there and I hope to return again. …
Nice staff, especially the reception. This hotel is a typical Italian 3 star hotel; sure the photos on the their website are spectacular to look at, however these photos were taken years ago when they did the rebuild and since then there are many areas that are old and tired and not working ( couch in apt 10 is not white anymore, overhead shower in apt 9 didn’t work) we had to jimyrig it and the toilet always runs. We were there for 10 days and never got serviced, when I mentioned it to the director his response was “oh I thought we did service your room”. The internet is not continuous it comes and goes depending on how many people are using it. It’s worse at Il Poggio(their farmhouse next door). The laundry facilities are very weak. So, I guess what I’m saying is if you are expecting a 4 star castle you will be greatly disappointed for the price you pay. We were. Will will not be staying here again.…
When my son and husband walked up the drive towards the resort/castle, they were utterly amazed. It’s beautiful. Well kept landscaping, pool area, grounds in general and HUGE! We walked up to our two bed suite and were amazed, again!! Huge, 1000 square foot apartment with a jetted tub and full kitchen. It really was a home away from home. The hotel staff were all friendly and helpful. Breakfast in the attached restaurant was adequate. The location was gorgeous and easily accessible to Pisa, Volterra, the Ocean and Florence. The pool was nice and cool (especially since it was initially in the 90’s). We would go back there in a minute.
Enjoyed 8 nights at San Ruffino Resort in a Deluxe Suite. It was a two bedroom two bathroom suite with kitchen dining area and living room. The breakfasts were wonderful with delicious cappuccino overlooking the beauty country side. It’s closing soon for the winter season but I would encourage you to book time there in the spring.
This booking was a result of a travel package. The original size rooms offered were gone by the time I booked the trip; my room was upgraded to a suite. My friends and I arrived rather later than we expected. After a dinner at the Bistrot at the resort I was really too tired to look at the suite. The castle and it's grounds are quite beautiful. The Bistrot overlooks a small valley and there are also views of the town of Lari which sits on a nearly hill. To my surprise, the suite was really an apartment consisting of a large liveing room, kitchen and enourmous master suite with a jacuzzi tub, which did not work. One walked over a small bridge to get to another bathroom with a shower only and another bedroom which was large enough to sleep 3 or 4 people. The master bedroom had a beautiful muraled, coffered ceiling. There were terrazzo floors throughout. There are not enough lamps to illuminate rooms as large as these are so one felt as if one was constantly in the dark. I was hesitant to open the window shutters because of the bug issues I had. More on that below. Unfortunately, the room was not really clean. There were dead bugs everywhere in the bathroom and I later discovered after returning to the room later in the day, there were live bugs flying around. When I went to the reception area to make them aware of this, I didn't get much sympathy. I was told by Carlotta that these bugs are everywhere due to it being harvest time. She said that she had them in her house too. Carlotta assured me that my room would be sprayed while I was out. I came back the second day to bugs again. When I complained again to Carlotta I gor pretty much the same response. Allegedly my room was sprayed again. ToweIs are not changed every day; neither are the bed linens. I had read the reviews of this resort and was not expecting a luxury hotel, but I was expecting a clean, bug free room. Carlotta needs a bit of work regarding her customer service skills. This place could be a wonderful hotel with just a bit more attention to cleanliness and customer service. I do not think I would return.…
My husband and I had a wonderful time here. The castle is beautiful as are the grounds. The setting and view are spectacular. It seems like you are in the middle of nowhere, yet in just 10-15 minutes or less, you can drive to any number of villages in the area. We took days trips almost every day. It was quiet, beautiful and peaceful. Our room was spacious and clean. The linens are not changed every day here, and not all toiletries are provided but that was fine with us. It was very nice to have a restaurant on site. We loved the setting of the restaurant, which served very good food. The staff was great too, and very accommodating in both the restaurant and the castle. I'm surprised at some of the negative reviews - to me they are a little nitpickie - as when you travel you have to be flexible. Try to arrive before dark. We were delayed getting out of Rome, and wound up driving on country roads with a GPS that kept dropping! We made many wrong turns, but finally got there only to find the front gate locked. There is a sign with a phone number, which we did not see, but, at that point, we didn't know how to make a phone call to Italy from our phones anyway. Luckily some guests were going out, let us through the gate and called the hotel for us. Soon a nice young man with a golf cart showed up and took us to our room and directed us to the restaurant. We ordered a badly needed bottle of wine, which we started sipping before our delicious dinner arrived. All was well.…
Tuscany is beautiful, the park is great. The apartments rented on the location are really basics, In the one, we stayed the air conditioning was not efficient and very noisy! No internet. In one of the bathroom, we had bugs.
Before booking I did thorough research and was abundantly aware of some previous reviews where people thought they were pitching up at a 300 year old castle and getting all the bells and whistles of a commercial hotel. I very much doubt you will be too disappointed when you realise these are essentially self catering suites within a castle setting. You 100% need a car and there is a good supermarket 5-10 mins away, load up on all the good stuff you want to eat and drink. You know what, not everything is perfect here but just take a deep breath take in the amazing views and setting and realise in terms of an authentic Tuscan experience it's great and in my opinion for the time of year good value for money this is the reason I have rated very good.
This rating is of course based on our subjective impression, and since it turned out to be 2 out of 5 only, I will explain in detail what caused the deductions. The location itself is great: an old 17th century castle turned into a place for accommodation, on a hill overlooking typical Tuscan landscapes. We had booked a "deluxe suite garden" - giving us enough space for our almost-entire family, and a garden area on top of that. Upon arrival you leave your car behind as they are not allowed to park inside the the park/accommodation area (not entirely true as next to our garden area there were always cars - maybe employees'). If you are lucky enough to know that they have a golf buggy and a guy who will pick you up and help with the luggage...well then you are lucky. We didnt know, so instead we dragged everything ourselves and were given funny looks. No problem though. Check-in was easy, and we were shown our suite soon enough. It offered a large living area with an open kitchen / dining area, one bathroom connected to the living area (sink, toilet, bidet, shower), 2 sleeping rooms, one of them having an en suite bathroom (sadly enough not the master bedroom, but the one with 3 single beds) with sink, toilet, bidet, and jacuzzi tub. The furniture is simple and shows some signs of wear, specifically the sofa there - considerable damage done already, unfortunately, and the floor was not too clean when we came there either. The shower in the bathroom connected to the living room is far from luxurious, and the bidet there had issues with draining, too. Nevertheless it is sufficient to feel reasonably comfortable. The garden area for our deluxe suite garden was a gravel patched area next to the entrance of our suite, and had a plastic table with some plastic chairs on it - do not expect privacy here as people kept walking past, and someone must have brought a dog, too, as the dog left us a not so welcome souvenir, which still hadnt been cleaned away the day afterwards. Given the architecture of the building it is not surprising that the suite itself was rather darkish, but this need not be considered a bad thing - it comes with the place. There were enough lamps to light up the place with artificial light. Noise, however, was very bad: You could hear the people living one floor above our suite - the noise of their steps being greatly amplified; furthermore, the noise of the outside (not of our own - we had it switched off at all times) ventilation/air conditioning was audible even with windows closed - considerably disturbing night rest if you have sensitive ears (and making it impossible to open windows at night). The suite also repeatedly suffered from the smell of canalisation - did not last long, but did happen more than just once. NB: the living area was split in half by a single step, and the master bedroom had 3 steps to get into, two of them being extremely high (not a bad thing either, but might be good to know). Not sure how the other suites looked like, but ours (#6) was like that. About the terminology itself: we booked a deluxe suite garden - we got an apartment: there is no daily cleaning, no automatic refreshing of toiletries (had to ask, which worked, though. Need to mention that they hand these out in small plastic bags, which are absolutely impossible to open underneath the shower when wet, and more than just a bit difficult to open when dry), and according to the rules of the house you even need to make sure you wash dishes and remove your trash from the kitchen yourself. While this is not a problem in general, it is not mentioned on their own website, and not mentioned on other booking websites either, so be advised that you are not settling into a hotel despite the misleading term "suite". Part of our inventory seemed to be missing, too: we had no kettle or water cooker (mentioned as part of the kitchen) for example, or no hair dryer either (also mentioned as part of the bathroom equipment). The outdoor area focuses around the pool (kidney shape, sort of) with deckchairs and umbrellas. The towels are not included in the room price and need to be paid extra - somewhat irritating given the fact that we were already paying EUR 300 per night - for a suite that was not a suite but an apartment without room service/cleaning. The pool area and the pool itself: way too small for the number of people there, and not enough deckchairs, as simple as that. The pool itself was not too clean either - too many stones and too much earth. There is another pool adjacent to the area if you want to walk 5 minutes - that one is of similar size but rectangular - we did not try it, so cannot judge. The WiFi at the place is a roller coaster. At times it can work very well, but you have erratic drops, and it can vary a lot inside your suite as well - depending on where you plant yourself. The best spots in #6 are close to the left wall after entering the suite (the reception is behind that wall), and the kids' bedroom. The master bedroom practically doesnt have any signal at all, the rest of the living room works - or not. All in all (except for the dog poo which is really a no go and simply should not happen - we did not book farm holidays), these issues can certainly be considered trivial and minor were it not for the fact that their website and booking sites advertise differently: deluxe. suite. garden. None of this is correct, unless you take their pricing, which is certainly in the deluxe category. As such, our expectations were met with a reality that was simply not up to par - nevertheless we do not regret staying, we spent a lot of time away from the accommodation. This review is also not meant to scare potential visitors away, but everyone needs to understand that there is a lot of small print that is not properly represented online, as well as some details that need to be handled in order for this place to truly deserve its star rating - consequently and in a stable manner. Breakfast was not included in our booking, so we paid extra for it at the local bistro. Pricing here was moderate (10 EUR for adults, 5 EUR for kids aged 5-10). Choice was decent - tea, coffee, jams, some bread, cakes, a bit of ham and cheese, scrambled eggs, bacon - a continental setup. Good quality, but also included frozen products, for example berries (the freezer was right there and you could see from which pack it had been taken). No fresh juices, just ready made orange juice. As such: one point less for the inadequate maintenance and state of the suite, one point less for the subjective experience (pool area, dog poo, for example), and one point less for the severe misrepresentation of the accommodation itself: not a hotel suite, but de facto a self catering apartment - and you can get better for a lot less in Tuscany - including full privacy. Overall, we did not have this feeling of being overly welcome, and while a minor detail, we were not surprised that upon check out we were not asked whether we had liked our stay, if everything had been ok, or anything the likes. A real pity - could be much better if they really cared.…
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