Hotels near Equiturismo Podere Palazzone, Pomarance

I based my booking on reviews I had read and they were spot on. The hotel was excellent. Everyone was friendly and welcoming from the owner Luca to the lovely cleaners. The hotel was spotless and our room was an apartment with its own balcony. The apartment was well equipped with everything provided for us to cook if we chose to. Luca provided us with extensive information about where to visit, where to have dinner and much more. The breakfasts were fabulous. Luca’s wife baked her own cakes every day and there were always four different ones to choose from. The cooked part of the breakfast was different every day and there was always cheeses, salads, cereals, fruit, salamis and a variety of homemade delicious breads and pastries. There were also fruit juices and waters on tap plus the most delicious made to order coffees. We could not have been happier and would definitely recommend and visit again if in the area. The hotel was outside the city walls and although we could walk to Volterra it would have been up and down a very steep hill and take at least half an hour. We had hired a car so it was perfect and there were places to park free for the whole day.

The only reason I would consider giving 2 stars is for the views (from the hotel in general our room was overlooking the parking lot) but I couldn’t get myself to do it. By European standards this is definitely not a 4* hotel - 3 at most. The receptionist was not friendly at all upon arrival - no apology for us waiting at least 10 minutes for him to even acknowledge us, and then he practically laughed in our faces when we normally asked if we’re allowed to park down in the rocky driveway and in a very sarcastic tone said “yes, like everyone else” - wonder if that was because he saw our expensive car. The room was very outdated and dirty. Also, how does a 4* hotel only offer bed sheets as duvets in September which is not too warm at nights and has an old ragged cover to put on top of the sheets - there’s nothing you can put the cover into so we had to improvise (photos). We asked if there were any bed linens and were told that they don’t use them here - we think that that’s crazy unhygienic. The bathroom was just plain dirty and unkept. A wierd thing was happening in the room as well - when you turned off a light it would also turn of some sockets in the room that we were using to charge our devices. I wonder whether that was on purpose to save on energy costs. I have a video of this I wish I could post here. The breakfast was very low quality, nothing fresh, just standard cereal an yoghurt, pastries from a plastic bag (smthg like 7days) and AWFUL coffee from a machine (in Italy?!?). The pool area was dirty and unkept. In general we couldn’t wait to get out of there.