Villa San Sanino - Relais in Tuscany

The Val d'Orcia landscape is as beautiful as everyone says, and Villa San Sanino is positioned to make the most of it — wonderful views, and the pool was a real pleasure. This is a family-run place, and it shows in the best way. Bianca welcomed us warmly, served all of our meals, and wrote out a list of nearby restaurants and sights, every one conveniently located and worth the trip. Her brother Giacomo was just as helpful, coordinating our reservations and pointing us toward wonderful local restaurants and wineries. The food, cooked by their mother, was some of the best we had anywhere in Italy, and they kept a lovely selection of wines available on the property. The villa itself was restored by their father, an engineer, and you can feel it — the work was clearly done by someone who knew what he was doing, yet it has kept its authentic, historic charm. Throughout our stay it was wonderfully easy to reach them on WhatsApp — to order a drink by the pool, ask about the food, or anything else. They even did some laundry for us quickly and without fuss, which was a real gift halfway through a two-week trip. What we appreciated most: we didn't want to feel underfoot, and we didn't want a big, crowded resort — this was the perfect alternative. Everything was easy, and it was easy to relax and simply enjoy being here. We can't recommend it highly enough.

Giacomo was very kind. Everything in the hotel and room was perfect. Breakfast was amazing!!

We had a great time there. It was such a beautiful place. The room was spacious and clean. The view was awesome! We also enjoyed dinner there. The homemade Pici was really delicious!! Thank you for your hospitality. We hope to visit again.

Nothing. Everything was perfect.

This review is difficult to write as the Relais San Sanino would have the potential for greatness, but failed to deliver on its promise of a five-star experience when we visited in July 2019. Let's start with positive things: The Relais San Sanino is a recently renovated Tuscan estate. The rooms are elegantly decorated and nicely furnished and clean (except for the centipede or millipede we found right next to the shower handle). Same goes for the overall estate: Everything is new, tastefully designed, and mostly in an impeccable state. The relais boasts a saltwater pool that is quite large (we estimated it to be 15 meters in length), considering that the estate only has four guest rooms. Even though three of the four rooms appeared to be booked (judging from the number of people we encountered at breakfast), we never saw anybody else when using the pool. There are plenty of loungers and parasols next to the pool as well as a (free) mini-bar stocked with plastic-bottled water which we found a nice idea. The entire estate is quite a way out of town and sits on the tranquil slope of a hill and offers great views across a valley onto neighboring hills and into the distance.

What stopped us from declaring this place "heaven on earth" is the service we received from the staff. Relais San Sanino rates itself as a five-star establishment, but failed to deliver on that promise in many situations during our stay. For context, the place seems to be run by a family who (if we had to guess) decided to completely renovate this estate and turn it into a hotel, without having formal training in the hospitality industry. Don't get us wrong: Everybody is trying their best, but we felt that the best is still far away from the service experience we would expect from a five-star relais. Unfortunately, in our opinion, it does not even compare to the service standards we found at Swiss three-star hotels. To illustrate the situation a bit better, here are some examples of situations where we would have expected more from a five-star relais. Check-in: No welcome drinks were offered. We were not asked how our journey was (we had some issues finding the Relais San Sanino which was placed somewhere else in our navigation app, which caused us to spend another 20 minutes looking for the place at night). When we asked whether somebody could help with our luggage, we were permitted to drive our car into the relais right next to our room - and carry the bags ourselves. A complimentary bottle of water was offered in our room for the first night (yay!), but not on subsequent nights. To dine in the restaurant, we already had to commit to the exact dishes we wanted to eat for dinner - at breakfast. Nobody asked how we liked the food (it was great!). Restaurant was expensive though, thus would not recommend because of high prices: 10 EUR coperto per person, 12 EUR for a bottle of water, 14 EUR for fried veggies as a side dish. When we checked out, nobody asked how we liked our stay (we gladly would have shared these observations).