Orchidea

Very nice large house/villa. Excellent hosts and very easy to contact, great response. We really enjoyed our stay. Well equipment, more than enough room, good kitchen. Quiet location, great views. Did not use the pool, a little too cool out. Internet worked good. Hosts were very helpful and showed us around the house, property, etc.

We (a family of 6) truly enjoyed our 3 week stay in villa Orchidea. The house is very spacious with three large bedrooms, a living room, open study and small kitchen. All appliances (big fridge/freezer combo, dishwasher, washing machine) are new and working well. The kitchen has little counter space, so we did most of our food preparations on the outdoor table. The pool is nice and refreshing, but it's deep and has only ladders, so it's not optimal for small children. We ended up putting a small blow-up pool on the terrace for our toddler. Inside the house there are several steps, a big open staircase and a wide-spaced railing on the top floor that might be problematic for toddlers, but our little one was navigating them quite well. The house was clean, however, as it is an old farmhouse, there are cobwebs, some mold spots and cracked walls. The 30 minute drive to Florence along winding and mountain roads offers some spectacular panoramic city views. There are some small towns along the way that provide basic shopping and restaurants, but for a bigger selection head to the city. The owner, Guido, was very approachable before and during our stay. We thank him for a great holiday.

We stayed 6 days with 3 kids and 2 grand parents. The house is about 4 minutes drive from the pool where other rentals are. It is really quiet and we enjoyed or stay. The house is really big and provided enough space for everyone. The owner has 2 guys nearby (actually living in the same house that is divided into 3 houses) so any issue was resolved promptly with a quick SMS message. The property was clean, we got bothered by ants in the kitchen but this is the countryside and it was promptly taken care of. Service was very good. The small village Bivigliano nearby has a little grocery store but you need to drive say 15 minutes to get a proper little (coop) supermarket. We found a few nice restaurants around and were able to visit San Gimignano, Lucca, Pisa and Florence for some of us. The pool was really enjoyable despite the 4 minutes drive (we hardly saw any other tenant). As an advice to the owner, I would add a small microwave oven and a toaster in the kitchen, and 2/3 fans given there is no air conditioning (it can get really hot in the summer despite the fact that the temperature drops nicely at night). The WiFi was not very good and I was able to fix it myself a few times (it is essentially an extender of the WiFi network in another house), meaning it was good when working but the connection would drop and I had to set it up again. Did not bother us too much. Overall a pleasant stay in Tuscany.

Beautiful location. Close to Florence, Borgo San Lorenzo and mugello (great for visiting the GP). Great view of the Tuscan hills from the shared garden. We stayed in the margherita apartment, it was well presented, a spacious size and had a small private outdoor area. We were slightly disappointed that there wasn't a view of the hills from this garden and no outdoor table and chairs in this area. The apartment also had no direct sunlight so felt a little cold and damp at night. This perhaps wouldn't be a problem during main summer months. If visiting again we would opt to pay more and stay in the Girasole apartment which is facing the hills and a sunny private garden area. A pool was in construction during our stay which ruined the view for us but will be a great addition in a lovely location for future visitors. We visited a great outdoor communal pool in Florence instead. Alwin was friendly and helpful. Always on hand if we had any issues and prompt in dealing with these. He spoke good English which was a bonus as we have never visited Italy before and so unfortunately our Italian is poor. Be prepared to do a lot of driving which can be a little hair raising but great fun. We had bbq's most nights enjoying the view, and also ate at a lovely family friendly restaurant 10mins away in Protalino. There is also a small shop here. We wanted to eat in a small village a few minutes drive, but the sports bar and restaurant here were both closed on the evening we chose. Both of these looked very nice. Due to no paths and having small children we had to drive but for those able to walk up steep hills would probably take about 30 minutes. A trip to Florence is a must and we would love to return in the future. Overall a fantastic trip