Best hotels in Tuscany
Italy isn't short of beautiful places to stay and some of the best hotels in Tuscany are also some of the best in the country. Not long ago now, a trip to rural Tuscany was either to rent a villa or stay in a draughty castle that had been turned into a “luxury hotel” with Medieval plumbing. How different things are now. Since its first cautious steps in the 1990s, the new Tuscan hotel scene has come on apace. Some of those who have opened stylish places to stay amidst the region’s cypress-studded hills are wine producers; some come from the world of fashion, while others arrived here from far-flung lands and simply fell in love with the place. The result is a varied offering that stretches from whole rural villages transformed into resort hotels to small boutique offerings within the walls of charming hilltop towns. Here we harvest some of the best hotels in rural Tuscany and Umbria.
How many days do you need in Tuscany?
Planning a trip to Tuscany can be overwhelming. Beyond the postcard picture of Tuscany’s Val d’Orcia, with its cypress trees and rolling hills. the dreamy Italian region is also home to emerald-coloured waters, secluded bays, dreamy islands and delicious food alongside stony villages steeped in history and exquisite culinary joints to visit.
We recommend booking a seven-day trip so that you can experience all that Tuscany has to offer. You'll want to enjoy your Tuscan country hotel, but leave plenty of time to explore Cortona and Siena, with stops at the legendary vineyards of Chianti and Montepulciano. For more inspiration, see our edit of the best things to do in Tuscany.
What is the best month to visit Tuscany?
We'd recommend visiting in spring (April to May) or early autumn (September) as the weather tends to be at its mildest during these months. June is also lovely if you want to see the sunflower blooms, with temperatures averaging 27C. Tuscany is always beautiful but the summer months (July-August) see increasing temperatures with the daily average maximum sitting at 30˚C.
How we choose the best hotels in Tuscany
Every hotel on this list has been selected independently by our editors and written by a Condé Nast Traveller journalist who knows the destination and has stayed at that property. When choosing hotels, our editors consider both luxury properties and boutique and lesser-known boltholes that offer an authentic and insider experience of a destination. We’re always looking for beautiful design, a great location and warm service – as well as serious sustainability credentials. We update this list regularly as new hotels open and existing ones evolve.
hotelCastelfalfi, Montaione
Beauty, comfort, and a vibe of breezy ease are axiomatic at Castelfalfi. Ditto flattering lighting and delectable food. At the whole-village resort, which sprawls over 2,700 acres and has 146 rooms, one main cobblestoned street leads down from the castle to a 13th-century church, a row of boutiques, gelaterias, and pizzerias, and the two hotel buildings. The older of the two – a repurposed 19th-century tobacco warehouse – sits opposite the 1980s-built low-slung main building, which has sublime valley views. This houses the Bar Ecrù & Lounge, one of four restaurants, as well as the indoor pool and spa. Along with outdoor pools and a Montessori children’s club, there’s a woodland adventure centre, a wine and olive oil tasting set-up, and isolated farmhouses operating as villas and apartments with pools. A key attraction is the activity program that offers over 40 experiences from archery, beekeeping, truffle hunting, falconry, and cookery to Pilates and yoga. Transformed by the Milan design company Caberon Caroppi, rooms are fragrant and understated, with a mix of textures – velvet, leather, marble – and a muted earthy palette, silky bed linen, and sculptural Paolo Castelli furnishings. Executive chef Davide De Simone ensures the partially farm-to-table menus include ingredients grown on the resort’s farms. Adrianne Pielou
Price: from around £540 per night
Courtesy Hotel Il PellicanohotelHotel Il Pellicano, Porto Ercole
$$$For 60 years Il Pellicano has been an icon of Italian hospitality. Opened on the wild slopes of Monte Argentario in 1965 by the English American couple Michael and Patsy Graham, it was purchased in 1979 by Roberto Sciò, who had been in love with the place ever since he first frequented it alongside the jet set of the time. The guest list has always been a strong point, but with the arrival of Roberto’s daughter, Marie-Louise Sciò, as new leadership, the hotel’s image has been refreshed, thanks in large part to the book Hotel Il Pellicano, which contains photos by Juergen Teller (in addition to earlier ones by Slim Aarons). The volume has helped to attract a new generation of bohemians from all over the world. This corner of Tuscany is far from Positano; here, there are no designer boutiques. Instead, those who travel here do so because of its slightly magical atmosphere paired with impeccable service, meticulous design, a Michelin-starred restaurant, a new boat, and a boutique that wonderfully expresses the style of the hotel and, more broadly, a certain vision of an Italian holiday. Sara Magro
Price: From around £530 per night
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Durston SaylorhotelRosewood Castiglion del Bosco, Montelcino
At Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco, suites and villas are authentically ancient from the outside and sensuous, modern and smart on the inside. Here, red wine is globally renowned among oenophiles and crafted at the working vineyard. The food – specifically the wild boar and truffle pasta – is last meal worthy. Among the guests you’ll find a mix of Italians, other Europeans and Americans dripping with good taste – including, at one point, former president Barack Obama himself. Such a crowd, blended with the fantastically attractive surroundings, immediately inspires connotations of cult tragi-drama White Lotus, though minus the simmering tension and murder mystery.
17th and 18th century villas have been restored to feel like an understated yet ravishing home rather than a hotel. Little touches ensure this: mismatched sun hats for guests, the framed photos and artworks and some surprisingly bold kitchen tiles, combined with colour schemes and hand-made ceramics, marble, antiques and fabrics that reflect the warm colours of the rolling Tuscan hills outside (best marvelled at from each villa’s private heated pool). The 42 suites – with 19 more reportedly planned – have toweringly high ceilings, wooden beams, tastefully pared-back four posters and roomy terraces to spread out on. They too feel homely, allowing you to dream that you are an Italian-American fashion heir for the duration of your stay. The majority of staff both on site and in the spa are local, and while such a prestigious location could be intimidating: instead the team ensures you feel constantly welcomed and catered for. Becky Lucas
Price: From around £1,100 per night
hotelBorgo Santo Pietro, near Siena
A beloved Tuscan institution that never gets old, Borgo Santo Pietro sits among some 300 acres of undulating organic farmland, woods and well-developed gardens in the Tuscan countryside. The main house appears to have been built at around the same time as the nearby Abbey of San Galgano, in the mid-13th century. By the time Borgo opened to guests in 2008, with just six rooms, it had been lovingly restored and elegantly decorated. Today, there are 22 rooms, eight in the main house (including the vast Santo Pietro Grand Suite, with its long first-storey balcony and sweeping views across the valley), the rest in individual cottages neatly aligned along a leafy avenue.
Food is an integral part of the experience. Trattoria sull’Albero delivers farm-to-table regional classics (plus superb Neopolitan-style pizza) in a wonderfully convivial space built around an ancient oak tree. Borgo’s fine-dining restaurant reopened in 2022 under a new name, Saporium, and a new executive chef, Ariel Hagen (who also oversees its sister restaurant in Florence). Steve King
Price: From around £1,000 per night
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hotelIl Salviatino, near Florence
$$Il Salviatino is the expression of the creative spirit of the eclectic Alessandra Rovati Vitali, who bought this 15th-century villa on the slopes of Fiesole, Italy, and transformed it into a workshop for her vision of beauty, elegance, style, and hospitality. Every corner of this aristocratic country residence is unique, filled with fine fabrics, artwork, and design pieces selected with a hostess’s touch. Meals are served with views of Brunelleschi’s dome, framed by the Italian garden and the 30 acres of private parkland. Six suites are nestled in former greenhouses: With retro portraits, bohemian sofas, and powder-pink terra-cotta floors, they bask in the natural light that animates every surface. The marble and wooden spa is bookable for two. Small but complete, it’s a haven of peace. Though located in Florence, Il Salviatino feels worlds away. Sara Magro
Price: From around £650 per night
ALESSANDRO MOGGI/La RoqqahotelLa Roqqa, Porto Ercole
It’s been eons since a new hotel graced Porto Ercole, a chic but discreet village on the Monte Argentario peninsula that’s home to Caravaggio’s tomb. The newcomer creating ripples on this part of the rock-strewn Maremma coastline is petite La Roqqa, a cliffside retreat whose distinctive coral-orange façade and secluded views of the Tyrrhenian Sea provide a forward-looking alternative to Hotel Il Pellicano, the area’s sine qua non grande dame since 1965. In the 55 rooms and suites, floor-to-ceiling windows let sunshine flood onto walls of sage green or Terra di Siena orange, which pop against crisp white bed linen. Designers Palomba Serafini, Milanese masters of uncluttered contemporary chic, have mixed midcentury pieces and Gaetano Pesce’s iconic Up chairs with ultramodern features, including an eye-catching white central staircase spiralling from the entrance. On the alfresco rooftop, Ferragamo-clad locals sip Negronis gilded by sunset rays in view of the 16th-century Forte Stella and harbour yachts below. Aperitivo hour turns into dinner at the outdoor Scirocco restaurant, where chef Francesco Ferretti knocks up fresh sea bass and other local seafood capped with Venetian grappa. Days spent lounging at the hotel’s smart Isolotto Beach Club are broken up by lunches of avocado and tuna salads paired with a local white. Or you can ask friendly staff to book you a Vespa tour along the rugged coast. It’s La Dolce Vita reimagined for the next generation. Erin Florio
Price: From around £400 per night
Dario GarofalohotelBorgo dei Conti Resort, near Boschetto
Located on a modest Umbrian backroad halfway between Perugia and Città della Pieve, Borgo dei Conti Resort can finally take its place among Italy’s great country hotels now that a top-to-toe redesign has made its pleasant but modest previous incarnation a distant memory. Unveiled in July 2024, the reboot draws inspiration from the deep, intense colour palette of two Renaissance painters with an Umbrian connection, Perugino and Raphael. Original details, including frescoed wall friezes, are complemented by fabrics and fittings that draw on Umbria’s still vibrant artisanal manufacturing traditions, among them smoky terracotta bathroom tiles and bedheads made from textiles woven on handlooms in Perugia. In the summer heat, the capacious outdoor infinity pool comes into its own, but the resort’s forest walking trails, two restaurants, and a spa that seems to go on forever make it a perfect long weekend destination even at the cooler extremes of its April to November seasonal opening. Lee Marshall
Price: From around £600 per night
PHILIP VILEhotelCastello di Reschio, near Perugia
Reschio, an 11th-century castle on a hilltop on the Tuscany-Umbria border, comprises 3,700 quite outrageously beautiful acres of rolling hills, olive groves, vineyards, forest, farm buildings and, looming darkly over it all, a curtain-walled 11th-century castle. The most radical of the many changes Castello di Reschio has undergone in its long history is the most recent: its transformation from a place designed to keep people out to one redesigned to welcome them in. After a thousand or so years as a fortress, the castle opened, in 2021, as a 36-room hotel. The success of its reinvention has to do entirely with its owner-proprietors, Count Benedikt Bolza, an architect and designer, and his wife, Donna Nencia Corsini, an artist and environmentalist. The hotel is a lucid expression in three dimensions – in wood and stone and bronze, in silk and velvet and linen, in wildflowers and works of art and kooky knickknacks – of the couple’s shared enthusiasms, their style, their outlook on life. Castello di Reschio works brilliantly as a hotel and does all the things that a top hotel must do. (Is there a chicer palm-court bar, a more astonishing spa, or a lovelier swimming pool in rural Italy? Or anywhere?) More than that, the castle hotel is just one part of the much larger Reschio story, the point of entry into what has often – predictably, though not without reason – been characterised as a modern-day fairy tale. Steve King
Price: From around £1,310 per night
hotelCastello di Vicarello, near Paganico
This restored 12th-century castle surely offers one of Tuscany's most spectacular stays. If these walls could talk, they’d have more than 800 years' worth of material – something that plays on your mind as you stroll around the sprawling estate. It offers a fairytale Tuscan escape far from the madding crowd – where afternoons are soundtracked by little more than the distant chirp of birds and the occasional huff from Uva, the resident Labrador-Maremma cross. No two suites are the same, each equally unique in history and character. In the restaurant, simple, seasonal ingredients are essential. Like a Tuscan home, the property’s hub of culinary activity sits at the heart of the estate, and guests are free to amble past chefs at work on the way to supper. There's an on-site spa with a Bali-esque hut beside the largest swimming pool; an idyllic spot for therapists to offer targeted and full-body treatments, dousing aching muscles in Comfort Zone essential oils.
Price: From around £550 per night
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Fabio Semeraro/Vocabolo MuscatellihotelVocabolo Moscatelli, rural Umbria
Relaxed luxury is the name of the game at this intimate member of Design Hotels in a restored monastery in Umbria, Italy’s green heart. The hotel is set on a 2.5-acre estate planted with a vegetable garden and replete with manicured lawns where dogs can play. A hub for the local community, this hotel draws Italians and ex-pats from the neighbouring towns, who come to sip creative cocktails at the bar, enjoy Sunday lunch at the restaurant, or attend events hosted by the owners. There are just 12 rooms, which juxtapose the ancient monastery’s stone walls with sleek contemporary art and design. The beds, for example, are each bespoke creations in minimalist silhouettes and bold colours made by fourth-generation ironsmith Emanuele Lispi. In the afternoon and evening, the on-site restaurant transforms into a showcase for the chef, who brings Middle Eastern and Asian flavours to this very traditional part of Italy. Start with a creative cocktail or glass of wine in the lounge, which feels more like a living room than a hotel bar, and then settle in for a culinary voyage in the restaurant, where you might start with ramen in Umbrian beef broth with smoked duck breast and end with bread pudding with ricotta, pistachios, and vanilla cream perfumed with rose water. Laura Itzkowitz
Price: From around £370 per night
Precise Tale Poggio Alla Sala, Montepulciano
Up a sweeping drive to an imposing building of pinkish stone standing sentry above the vineyards below, not far from the historic town of Montepulciano, Precise Tale Poggio Alla Sala is a magnificently curated sprawl deep in the verdant Tuscan countryside.
Despite its imposing size, I was instantly struck by the relaxed and breezy feel of the place upon arrival. My room continued this spacious and breezy feel, with panoramic views of the rolling hills outside and frescoed ceilings perfect for gazing at from the four-poster princess bed. If it wasn't for my nagging stomach, I could have happily holed up here for hours just drinking in the plush surroundings. However, the hunger won out, so I wasted little time heading to the pool bar for a casual bite before plunging into the cooling waters of one of the three on-site pools. Later, I booked into the spa for a relaxing full-body massage, choosing my preferred texture scrubs and scented oils before feeling like I was melting as all the kinks and knots of the last 90 days were eased out of me over a 90-minute full-body massage.
We practically floated down to La Via Della Seta for dinner – the more elevated dining option on-site. The menu is curated by Cordon Bleu Master Ronen Dovrat Bloch and is a real showcase of the best locally sourced produce (not forgetting the wine, of course). Highlights include a melt-in-the-mouth braised ox cheek, fresh polenta with jumbo prawns and the best tiramisu we found in the region so far – and trust me, there had been some pretty extensive taste-testing. Lucy Bruton
Price: From around £330 per night
Pieve Aldina, Chianti
With 11 open properties and a busy pipeline ahead, the French hotel group Les Domaines de Fontenille has spent the past eight years quietly building a band of committed guests who will follow it beyond its Gallic heartland and into the rolling hills of Tuscany. That’s where you’ll find Pieve Aldina, a gorgeous, 22-room former bishop’s residence in the Chianti countryside, perched next to the stunning 10th-century Santa Maria Novella chapel.
The elegance of the hotel – with its cool colour palette, dark woods and relaxed, unfussy furnishings – makes it easy to be caught off guard by historical details; if you doze off during one of Veronica’s excellent massages, you’ll awake to gaze at the treatment room’s pleasingly bulging, 17th-century ceiling. Rooms and suites mix contemporary, peaceful minimalism and semi-restored grandeur. Number four features original ornate wallpaper tastefully reinvigorated and a bathroom accessible by a little curved ramp that reminds one of commuting to an ancient wine cellar. Said slope and much of the hotel are tiled in terracotta, one of the many treasures that emerge from the region’s rich soil.
Plentiful olive groves and vineyards and a clutch of medieval towns with excellent trattorias thrive. These business owners comprise a network of friendly faces scattered across the nearby valleys, all known well to the staff at Pieve Aldina, many of whom grew up nearby. Gardener and local boy Christiano daily furnishes the rooms with flowers from his burgeoning Italianate plot; general manager Fausto has a palpable sense of excitement over being at the helm; and head chef Nico patiently enacts pasta-making classes with a mischievous charm. It’s in the food that the marriage of the French hotel group and the locale is most identifiable; while Nico and his team’s menus – from truffle tasting to homestyle sharing, with the latter featuring an exquisite pappa al pomodoro – are squarely Tuscan, the breakfast croissants, we were assured, are French through and through. Dieu merci! Suzie McCracken
Price: From around £310 per night
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Borgo Pignano, near Volterra
The billionaire owner (Cardiff via Silicon Valley) and charming GM Luciano Lusardi (ex Borgo Egnazia and Verdura) have created an almost-too-good-to-be-true country estate within 750 acres of organic farmland (olive groves, vineyards, fields and woods) where butterflies swarm on sprawling lavender and the soundtrack is birdsong. This biodynamic hideaway has 14 rooms, plus smaller cottages and a farmhouse for 20 but they take bookings so strategically you’ll feel you practically own the place.
All produce is from the land itself: free range pigs, hens and bees provide all you see on your plate, there is an onsite bakery (using flour they mill) and garden kitchen overflowing with herbs and vegetables. Olive oil and organic lavender bathroom soaps and potions are all made in-house too – and you can buy them to take away. The Al Fresco restaurant is great for a wood-fired pizza and zingy fresh salad but on the other end of the scale Villa Pignano whips up epic tasting menus fusing all sorts of unexpected combinations – there’s ravioli with blue cheese and white chocolate, and a surprisingly successful lamb with lavender and almonds. Impressively the wine list is, without exception, Tuscan and biodynamic. However, before you eat, the biggest draw is Francisco, the handsome bearded mixologist with his terrace bar overlooking the hills. He’s more famous than the entire estate and makes a mean Negroni.
By day the activities are endless – trekking, horse-riding, yoga, mountain biking, truffle hunting. There’s a billiard room, library and even a ballroom. Painting classes are also on offer; pupils from The Royal Drawing School visit every summer as part of their curriculum. All that’s asked is they leave one of their works behind as the owners are art obsessives and have even opened a vast gallery selling work that is littered throughout the estate. The spa is brand new and, like everything else, deeply tasteful – exposed stone, handmade oils, properly authentic, switch-off-style treatments. Then there’s the pool. The chicest pool in all Tuscany. It’s infinity but in a Slim Aarons way, carved out of a limestone quarry. The staff are fantastically caring, always on hand to help, but never hovering in that claustrophobic way. And the upkeep is meticulous. Sleep is taken seriously too, and the rooms are staggering. Many have original frescos, four poster beds, even grand pianos.
Price: From around £350 per night
Jaroslaw PawlakLa Bandita Townhouse, Pienza
There’s been a tectonic shift in the Tuscan accommodation scene in recent years as increasing numbers of people seek out the warm embrace of one of the region’s hilltowns rather than the isolation of a country villa or castle hotel. Hotelier John Voigtmann’s stylish 12-room nest in the centre of oh-so-pretty Pienza, opened in 2013 with interiors by London studio Ab Rogers Design, might feature as the trend ambassador. Housed in a former convent, it’s become part of the life of this delightful small town with its where’s-my-camera sunset views over the Val d’Orcia.
Come for aperitivi or dinner in the funky downstairs restaurant, ably helmed by Scottish chef David Mangan, and you’ll see as many locals as hotel guests. Rooms are cool, light-filled refuges – part Tuscan rustic chic (exposed stone walls, huge Corten-framed mirrors), part cool urban Moderism. You can see exactly why many of the cast and crew of cult TV series Succession stayed here when they were filming nearby. Lee Marshall
Price: From around £300 per night
Castello di Casole, A Belmond Hotel, Tuscany
This imposing, buff-coloured castle in Casole d'Elsa may date back 1,000 years, but its heyday wasn't until the 1960s when it was bought by Edoardo Visconti di Modrone Erba – the brother of Italian film director Luchino Visconti – who hosted parties for Hollywood stars and the Euro elite. Today, after a full restoration and an acquisition by Belmond in 2018, the castello and its 1,300-hectare estate is run impeccably as a hotel.
Despite the shiny, branded management, there's a sensitivity to the design and an attempt at a Tuscan style that prevents it from feeling too overtly plush or featureless. Sixteen of the 39 bedrooms are in the historic main building, all traditionally furnished with ornately carved wooden beds, exposed honeyed-brick walls and Carrara marble bathrooms. The rest of the rooms – the Limonaia suites, previously housing lemon trees in the winter, and the nine Etruria suites, which was constructed by Italian designer Alessandro Mendini – have been converted and are more contemporary. In the terrific Essere Spa, there are hot-stone massages and deep-cleansing facials beneath barrel-vaulted ceilings.
Price: From around £950 per night
Castel Monastero, Chianti
There's something rather medieval about arriving at this colossal hotel near Siena at night. After winding up to its walls through the countryside in the pitch black, guests are greeted by huge doors, swung open by a man dressed in a cape. In the 11th century, this was a monastery surrounded by vineyards and chestnut groves, then a castle and the country residence of the aristocratic Chigi family (who produced a pope and owned this spot for some 900 years). Many of the 76 rooms and suites are still clustered around the main piazza, each of them softly masculine with moodily muted decor, yet also subtly individual with original beams, terracotta floors and either a fresco of the surrounding countryside or a huge wooden bathtub in the bedroom.
In the evening, the square – like any self-respecting Italian village – hums with aperitivo activity. Much is made of Gordon Ramsay's hand in the menus at Contrada restaurant (in fact, he only visits a few times a year, and resident chef Nello Cassese's refined Tuscan-with-a-twist creations shine by themselves), but the really big attraction here is the enormous spa. Pass up on the gallons of Chianti made right on the hotel's doorstep and sign up for one of the detox, weight-loss or anti-ageing programmes devised by Professor Giorgio Calabrese (a diet legend in Italy). These serious three- or seven-day plans all include time in the Aquae Monasterii, a special saltwater pool, to float away worries and wrinkles.
Price: From around £450 per night
Torre di Moravola, Montone
The drive here is not for wimps. Twisting up into the wooded heights of the Umbrian hills, the road narrows into a precipitous gravel track shaded by a tunnel of trees, the valley falling steeply away just inches from the car. The reward at the end of this wheel-gripping approach is a 10th-century watchtower that has been thoughtfully refurbished by architect Christopher Chong and his wife, designer Seonaid Mackenzie.
Italian interiors can be fusty and dusty, or outrageously bling. Here things have a crisper, more contemporary spin. Chong has seamlessly united the tower's warm stone walls with concrete, glass and steel, which highlights rather than clashes with the structure's ancient bones. Seven suites are minimal and dreamy with cool-grey tiled floors, travertine and marmorino plaster walls matched by sunken tubs, monochrome rugs and, in the Main Tower Suite, a modular sofa under the spectacularly high ceiling.
There's a glass cantilevered Juliet balcony, wide sun-trap terraces and a flickering fire pit, each blade-sharp line softened by climbing roses and lavender. The overall effect is surprisingly calming rather than austere, a rest for the senses, especially if you've spent all day lying by the inky-dark pool, absorbing the panorama of the Carpini Valley, the fields and olive groves and thick oak forests where wolves still live.
Price: From around €260 per night
Stefano ScatàBorgo San Felice, Chianti
When is a hotel not – just – a hotel? When it’s a village. At harvest time, grapes are still offloaded in the main piazza. A cute 19th century chapel hosts regular art shows. And the kitchen gardens just below what was once a rural hamlet – gardens that supply the hotel’s Michelin-starred Poggio Rosso restaurant and more informal Osteria del Grigio – are still abuzz with life thanks to a horticultural project that pairs young local people with cognitive disabilities and retired agricultural workers.
When it opened in 1990, Borgo San Felice was a pioneering Italian ‘albergo diffuso’ (the term refers to a hotel spread out across a pre-existing community, often a depopulated village). It’s kept an edge today thanks to a major three-year renovation, wrapped in 2021, which added 11 guest rooms and suites and brought studio ArchFlorence in to give the whole place a country-chic makeover. The persuasive result feels like it’s the house of that art-collecting, Polo-playing Tuscan uncle you never knew you had. Lee Marshall
Price: From around £1,400 per night
