Villa San Sanino - Relais in Tuscany

Wow. I honestly don't have the words for how magical our stay at Villa San Sanino was. We came for our honeymoon and left feeling like we'd been adopted by a Tuscan family. From the moment Giacomo and Bianca welcomed us, we knew we'd found the best place to stay in all of Tuscany. The service and attention to detail were beyond anything we've ever experienced, and we've stayed in some beautiful places. Bianca was our point person and she is the hostess with the mostest. Send her a text and BOOM - two Aperol spritzes and snacks show up at the pool. Her food and wine recs were spot on, she hand-wrote us a list of places to visit in the surrounding towns, and by the end she felt less like a host and more like a good friend. Giacomo was every bit as warm and welcoming - an absolute gem! Then there's the food. Every single dish Laura made was a standout - I genuinely can't pick one. Night one was a prix fixe menu, night two we ordered off their menu, and night three we sat down to the feast we'd cooked ourselves in our class with Laura and her dear friend (basically a second mom to the family). The highlight was hand-rolling pici, which my wife was far better at than me. We ate every meal at the villa and never once felt the urge to go anywhere else. And when we left, they handed us a little printed booklet of our recipes, complete with photos of us from the class. Who does that?? This family, that's who. You can feel Ubaldo's love and care in every corner of the property. He's an engineer and it shows - even the shower doors open and close with the push of a button. The grounds are stunning, the infinity pool looks out over views that don't seem real, the beds are dreamy, and the tub in our room was a highlight all on its own. We came for three nights and left with a family on the other side of the world. We're already plotting our return. Grazie mille to all of you - we'll miss you!

Absolutely nothing we didn't like. Would rate this stay 1000000/10 if we could, but alas 10/10 is all booking.com allows! We must come back again and will tell every single person we ever meet going to Tuscany that there is nowhere better to stay!

If you’re looking for a true Tuscan vibe, breathtaking views, and wonderful service — this is the place. 🤍 Everything is thoughtfully designed down to the smallest detail to make your stay comfortable and relaxing. Special thanks to Bianca for being so warm and welcoming. 🫶 We absolutely loved our stay!

Exceptional location, excellent standard of design and decor, wonderful pool and gardens, fabulous rooms and lovely family who couldn’t do enough for you,

Nothing

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).