Chianti Villa Hotel with Bed and Breakfast Accommodation:Villa il Poggiale
Villa il Poggiale is an exclusive Villa Hotel in the heart of Chianti near Florence, offering a luxurious and comfortable b&b accommodation
What follows is an excerpt regarding our bed and breakfast from Sibila della Gherardesca's "La mia Toscana" (Sperling & Kupfer Editori, 2004)
From Florence I take the superstrada towards Siena and exit at San Casciano Val di Pesa. On the ring road around San Casciano I then go right towards Cerbaia-Empoli and, after three kilometres, I see on my left a row of cypress trees, like sentinels guarding the entrace to Villa Il Poggiale. Once a historic country house, it is today a Chianti hotel, which has retained its patrician elegance and all the charm of a family home.
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We first hear of the villa in Chianti in 1408, when it was purchased by the Corsini princes, after which it passed into the hands of various noble families, including the Ricasoli Rucellai. The present owners, the Florentine Vitta family, would spend their summers here until a few years ago, when the two brothers, Pussy and Tinto, decided to transform the villa into a sort of Chianti bed and breakfast/hotel where discerning visitors to Florence would feel at home. Here they are within easy reach of Florence and Siena and the vineyards of Chianti, but away from the buzz of city life, cocooned in an atmosphere of comfort and old world elegance.
Staying at Villa Il Poggiale bed and breakfast is not unlike being invited to a stately home belonging to friends, who can still afford to welcome guests in style. Where else would you find an "honesty bar", where guests can help themselves to drinks and then write down their room number and how many gin and tonics they have put away during happy hour? Or where guests are given the keys to the Chianti hotel accommodation so that they can come and go as the please?
The Chianti accommodation seems to have attracted a nucleus of remarkable people to run the hotel as it deserves. Hana is a very talented young cook from the Czech Republic, while Grazie and Anna are two Scottish sisters. Born of Italian parents, they lived in Scotland until their fifties, when they decided to set out on foot all the way to Tuscany with their four border collies, a journey taking three and a half months! They now live in an old farmhouse in the next village of Mercatale. Their strong Scottish accents, as they talk in fluent Italian, only enhances the Gosford Park aura of the place.
In the morning, a very cosmopolitan breakfast is served in the delightful breakfast room, this and everything else under the eagle eye of Caterina Piccolimini who manages the Chianti hotel with the charm and grace of an accomplished hostess. Guests tend to leave feeling they have made a friend for life. The bed and breakfast guests have access to the whole house and usually scatter among the various rooms, from the large frescoed drawing room with its comfortable armchairs to the smaller, more intimate sitting rooms where they can put their feet up on sofas. The Renaissance loggia looking out over the lawn with the fragrance of old roses wafting on the breeze invites guests to enjoy the garden and to recline among the shrubs and bushes lining the swimming pool.
No two bedrooms in the Chianti villa are the same, although all are frescoed or painted in warm pastels made from natural pigments, while the frabrics draped over the windows and four poster bed are hand woven by local artisans. Rather than bathrooms, there are lovely rooms, in earth tones with frescoed walls and painted doors, which happend to have tubs in them. The accommodation in Chianti hotel does not have a restaurant, but in the warmer months a light lunch is served by the swimming pool. There is something magical about Il Poggiale villa in Chianti, not least the prices which seem too good to be true!