Recommendations for Home Base in Tuscany

Charlie D

New member
I will start as do most new users - "this place is wonderful"!!!

Now to my questions. My wife and I will be in Italy next September. We will start with 4 days in Rome using points (not the best but saves $1,000). Next we will go to Florence for 3 days - staying in the city. At that point, we will pick up a car to stay and travel in Tuscany for 6 days - turning in the car at the airport in Rome for the flight home the next morning. I would like recommendations on the following:

Florence - I would like any recommendations for attractive little hotels and/or B&Bs. I have Fodor's See It Florence and Tuscany but sometimes it's hard to get a real sense out of a book. Recommendations for great little wine bars would also be appreciated.

Tuscany - We would have already done Rome and Florence - but I still believe I would like to stay in a town, though it might be small. I am looking for:

- parking at or near the location
- breakfast at or near. At least coffee/espresso at the location with cafes near by.
- walking distance to restaurants, wine bars, etc.
- central to touring Tuscany.

My sense is that no answer is a bad answer relative to places to stay and destinations in Tuscany to tour - but I am looking forward to your suggestions.
 
Ciao Charlie D and welcome to our forum!

Glad you found and are finding all of the information on here useful - I realize there is a lot of info and sometimes it can even be hard to find, and I'm slowing trying to write articles with more useful/practical tips on them to make some of the most commonly asked questions easier to find. Hope in any case reading through all the different questions makes it easier to decide what to do and see ;-)

Anything that makes it possible to travel and come to Italy is worth doing, although I know many of those points programs set a whole bunch of caveats to make it a little more complicated. Saving is definitely needed, in every area, nowadays and there is no reason to turn them down - more $ for good meals and wine, right? :D

As far as your questions go - you won't have problems finding attractive B&Bs to choose from in either Florence or Tuscany. In Florence, I'd recommend one of these:
Antica Dimora Firenze
Casa dei Tintori
Casa del Garbo
Casa del Mercato (an apartment)
Casa Tornabuoni (an apartment)
Hotel Principe (a small family-run hotel)
Le Stanze di Santa Croce
Residenza Casanuova
Villa Antea

You can obviously also just browse more generally at a whole bunch of other options here:
http://www.florenceaccommodation.com/

As for Tuscany, you're right that there is really is a wide choice of places to stay at without being in a "bad" area. Tuscany is not that small but at the same time, many of the most popular destinations are within 1-2 hours circle in central Tuscany... so as long as you stay centrally, most everything is easy to get to. For this reason, I often recommend staying anywhere in the area between Florence and Siena, as well as the south of Siena - then from there you can head in any direction on different days and get to see beautiful towns and villages and landscapes in Tuscany.

It seems you're looking for a self-catering apartment where breakfast isn't included. Keep in mind that most will be in farm houses or villas outside of the main town, just because of the wider space available. Most are not that far away from any town, but might require a car. For these, I'd suggest you start by looking at
Fattoria Viticcio
Podere Casanova
Le Torri

Take a look, if there are some others that appeal to you and if you have any questions, just ask! We know many of the owners personally and have visited the properties so have first hand experience in details that might not come across the sites. And if something else appeals to you, then I might be able to give you other recommendations. Have fun planning and dreaming of Tuscany! :)
 
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