30/08/2016
la nostra prima recensione da ospiti californiani - our first review from Californian guests
"What can I say about a quintessential, Tuscan farm house and experience. First off, the pics do not do this beautiful house justice. The interior and grounds are much more breathtaking in person. The hosts and property managers are bar none. Emanuele is an uber professional, very responsive (asked us the age of children, then had a crib waiting for us without having to ask). Guilia, the owner of the home is equally matched. When we first arrived she met us at the bus stop in Gaiole (tiny town close to the house), and lead us to her place about 5 minutes away. We asked Emanuele if we could have a private dinner prepared for us when we arrived since we were driving 5 hrs w/2 toddlers, arriving around 8pm. We were blown away when we walked up to the house and we could smell Italian food coming from our kitchen, music playing with a lovely lady, (who didn't speak any English), whipping everything together for us. They laid the outdoor dining table with candles, silverware/plates, WINE, BEER, a very large and full basket of fruit, I'm pretty sure I'm missing a few other items. It was exactly what we wanted and then some. The food was outstanding and the price was beyond reasonable. Guilia also purchased new ping pong table paddles, an inflatable swimming pool for our kids and a pump for it too. We had an urgent request for Guilia who lives in Rome that required her to drive from Rome to deliver something to us and then back again (over 4 hours of driving). We made this request late in the afternoon and Guilia arrived with her husband at 8pm to help us. I was in awe. Ok, enough about how awesome Guilia and her family are, more about the house: It's massive, like 3 apartments in 1 building. We didn't use every room because we were only 5. This is perfect for large families who want some form of privacy. The upstairs living room was my favorite because of the giant fireplace & huge oil painting of a man on the wall clearly from a different era. I believe there were 4 bedrooms and an office (w/daybed), and 3 bathrooms upstairs, downstairs was 2 bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms, plus the other living room and kitchen. It is very kid friendly (they even had built in gate at top of stairs), as each floor is relatively flat and open. The yard had a tree swing, hammock, lizards everywhere, apple tree, fig tree, cherry tree, grapevines (with grapes) decorating the patio and views to die for. Perfect for little kids who like to run around. A house cleaner was also provided. As I mentioned, there were lizards abound, as this is a "country" house, one should expect to see those types of things in the summer at least. Our only complaint is that we didn't have more people w/us to fill up the house."
