Hotel Le Colline

“A very special experience and a model of Italian hospitality”

We stayed at Hotel le Colline for 8 nights and overall, we thoroughly enjoyed our experience. Our room was exactly as described, had all the amenities we needed for our stay and was clean. There is no lift, however the hotel only goes up 1 floor. The only issue we could identify was that there was… more

We stayed at Hotel le Colline for 8 nights and overall, we thoroughly enjoyed our experience. Our room was exactly as described, had all the amenities we needed for our stay and was clean. There is no lift, however the hotel only goes up 1 floor. The only issue we could identify was that there was a step up in the bathroom to reach the sink etc, which wasn't an issue for us but we could see this being a problem for others. Our room faced the hillside (away from the road) and we had no issues sleeping or experiencing quiet in our room. We initially chose the hotel because of its location, parking availability and pool & other facilities. The hotel met every one of these expectations. The walk to San Gimignano is approximately 35-40 mins uphill (don't follow Google Maps). You have to walk away from the town and along the main road (which can get busy with traffic with no footpath) for approx. 3-4 mins before making your way along very quiet country roads. This did not concern us, however we could see how this could be an issue for others. With regards to transport options, there's a few things worth noting: - There is a bus that runs from 6am to 8pm that calls directly outside the hotel about once an hour and costs about 1 to 2 Euros. The buses don't all look the same and can come anytime within a 10 minute window of the scheduled bus time, so make sure to keep an eye out for it! - Taxis are few and far between around San Gimignano and can cost 25-30 Euros for a 3 min drive. Because of this, we never used one. - The hotel offers a goodwill car pick-up and drop-off to / from San Gimignano & the hotel for 10 Euros, however the pick-up / drop-off time entirely depends on whether the driver is available, so you may have to wait a bit (the longest we waited was 45 mins, but we used it nearly every night we went into San Gimignano). We took several day trips in our car during our stay and never experienced an issue parking in the hotel car park or using the additional parking area opposite the hotel. When the weather was good, we took advantage of the pool area and hotel service, which was excellent, particularly the lunch & bar service (which was always extremely quiet as we were the only ones using it). The only downsides to this was that the pool is unheated and, unless the sun is out all day, it can be very cold. Additionally, the road noise does take away from the relaxation by the pool. The staff were extremely welcoming, attentive and friendly. We really appreciated their service while we relaxed and how helpful they were with local information & booking transport. They used Whatsapp to communicate with us throughout the stay which made it very easy. When we checked out, we had a few queries about our room service bill, but these were very quickly sorted out with no questions asked. Breakfast was an atypical Italian affair - lots of pastries, yogurt and cereal which were high quality and we enjoyed. There was also a small selection of other breakfast items (scrambled eggs, cold meats & cheeses). If you're expecting a more savoury breakfast, then you would have to travel to the nearest large city, as most of San Gimignano serves breakfast like this. Throughout our stay, the hotel itself seemed very quiet, with frequent turnover of guests as it seems most only stay 1 or 2 nights. Because of this, and because we were staying for 8 nights, we felt extremely well looked after by the staff, which made us feel very special and has left a great impression on Italian hospitality. If you are planning to stay in San Gimignano and looking for all of the above, we cannot recommend Hotel le Colline enough.

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