The best hotels in Tuscany and Umbria
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Time was, to stay in 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 country 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 our favourite hotels in Tuscany and Umbria.
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.
- ALESSANDRO MOGGI/La Roqqahotel
La Roqqa
Featured on our 2024 Hot List of the best new hotels in the world
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
- Fabio Semeraro/Vocabolo Muscatellihotel
Vocabolo Moscatelli
Featured in our hot list of the best new hotels in the world
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
Address: Via del Refari 2 Calzolaro di, 06019 Umbertide PG, Italy
- Beatrice Ramella
La Pescaia Resort
A few years back, two sisters from Milan came to the Maremma – a wild, ruggedly handsome swathe of the southern Tuscan coast and hinterland – to sell a farm estate that belonged to their father. Instead, they and their Argentinian husbands ending up moving in, and turning the place into one of the area’s most delightfully laid-back country hotels. Maremma is a horsey kind of place and there’s a riding school on site, but La Pescaia is utterly charming whether you canter or not.
There are just 14 rooms, most in the 19th-century villa at the centre of the estate, plus a pair of apartments well suited to small families. Heirloom antiques, four-poster beds with billowing linen curtains and fresh flowers everywhere strike an elegantly retro note. It’s the kind of place that invites you to channel your inner Tuscan aristocrat, and the strictly locally sourced, organic food served at the in-house restaurant is exactly what a Maremman marchese and marchesa of today would tuck into as they discuss the olive harvest and watch the kids play under the ancient cedar tree on the lawn. Lee Marshall
- MATTIA AQUILA
Toscana Resort Castelfalfi
A 50-minute drive from both Pisa and Florence yet surrounded by unspoilt Tuscan countryside, this ancient 1,100-hectare working estate comprises vineyards, olive groves, a borgo (village), hotel, spa and golf course. It was bought by Indonesian entrepreneur Sri Prakash Lohia last year who hasn’t wasted any time in going full throttle on improvements, from a refresh of the rooms (choose between the stone-coloured modern new-build or more traditional interiors in the old tobacco warehouse across the road) to a new kids’ club and adventure park with zip lines, a climbing wall and archery. A short stroll away, the borgo has a peaceful garden, a church and a medieval castle which houses La Rocca restaurant (the views from the terrace at sunset are magical). Other excellent dining spots include casual trattoria Il Rosmarino for pizza, fine dining La Via del Sale and the Country Club House, which makes for a lovely lunch (the octopus pasta is delicious). There are masses to do – catch-and-release carp fishing on the lake, falconry with a Harris hawk, cooking classes – which means that once you check in, there’s little reason to leave. Emma Love
- Jaroslaw Pawlak
La Bandita Townhouse
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 (which he opened in 2013 with his ex-wife writer Ondine Cohane) 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. And if you want rural seclusion, Voigtmann can do that too: located a short drive away, his original venture, La Bandita Countryhouse, has one of the most scenically located pools known to man. Lee Marshall
Castello di Vicarello
Aurora and Carlo Baccheschi Berti stumbled across this incredibly special spot near Grosseto in Tuscany while walking in the hills in the 1970s. The small hotel opened more than a decade ago, yet it still feels like a wonderful, well-guarded secret.
This is a go-slow retreat with glorious gardens, walls of rambling roses and a glimpse of the sea in the hazy distance. Each of the ten suites, full of quirk and character, is different: some have intricately carved Balinese beds (the owners once lived in Indonesia), others 18th-century copper bathtubs; all have worldly curiosities on the walls and floors. A couple also have little kitchens, which makes this romantic nugget surprisingly child-friendly. The latest opening is Suite Mezzatorre; a exquisite hideout that occupies the entire second floor of the castle’s tower, complete with panoramic views of the estate and Indonesian art.
Poke your head into the extraordinary, curved-ceilinged kitchen in the old stable and watch lunch being prepared, or sign up for a cookery class with Aurora (buy her cookbook, too) and make your own. Polish off the results – tagliatelle with the freshest tomato sauce, followed by pistachio ice cream – at a round glass table in the shade. Pretty much everything on the menu is homemade or grown in the gardens of the 25-hectare estate.
There are rows of olive trees, six hectares of vineyard (the hotel produces its own wine and deliciously tangy olive oil), two infinity pools and a tiny Scandi-style spa with a hot tub on the outside deck. The biggest suite is Villa Chiesina, which has a huge wooden table under a pergola - perfect for early-evening drinks or a nightcap - but wherever you sleep, the views of the morning mist rising and sweeping across the Ombrone Valley are magical.
Address: Castello di Vicarello, Via Vicarello, Poggi del Sasso, Province of Grosseto, Italy
Borgo Santo Pietro
Ducks waddle alongside the cypress-tree-lined drive at Borgo Santo Pietro in Palazzetto. There's a meandering meadow with a croquet lawn, tennis courts, and a lake with a bridge straight out of a Monet waterlily painting where the hotel's artist-in-residence has a studio. Behind the main house is a field that is home to a family of alpacas; orchards hang heavy with fruit, and a vegetable garden provides produce for both the hotel and Saporium, the owners' Michelin-starred restaurant in Florence.
Claus Thottrup originally bought the 13th-century Tuscan villa with its own farm and bakery as a joint venture with his wife to relocate to Italy from London, and has since transformed it into a dreamy hideaway. New this summer is the bigger and better Seed to Skin Tuscany Spa, which looks out over wild-flower fields. Games of bocce take place under vine-covered arches, which once a week become the setting for a film night beneath the stars with fairy lights and popcorn.
Breakfast is in the villa's huge farmhouse-style kitchen or on the terrace, where stone busts sit on distressed sideboards and the view is of lemon trees and the green hills beyond. Dinner is usually a formal affair, but once a week there's a more relaxed farmers' food market with live music at the Trattoria sull’Albero Restaurant. There are bronze Moroccan lanterns on wrought-iron tables (and blankets and log burners if it gets chilly) and a feast of delicious salads, huge prawns and steaks grilled right in front of you.
22 uniquely designed suites litter the grounds; garden suites in the stables are lighter and more modern with four-posters, flagstone floors and daybeds in a lavender-filled courtyard.
Address: Borgo Santo Pietro, Chiusdino, Province of Siena, Italy
Borgo Pignano
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.
Monteverdi
Cincinnati lawyer Michael Cioffi fell in love with the crumbling 12th-century fortified village of Castiglioncello del Trinoro while on holiday in 2003. It's set on a hilltop with views across the patchwork fields of Val d'Orcia, so it's not difficult to see why he has since bought it and done up a number of its neglected medieval properties.
With the help of interior designer Ilaria Miani, he has cleverly created a rustic-meets-modern aesthetic in Monteverdi's small hotel and three villas. A champion of the arts, Cioffi has also set about stuffing the place with contemporary culture. An annual artist-in-residence programme run by former Frieze curator Sarah McCrory culminates in an exhibition of works each autumn. There's an ongoing archaeological dig in collaboration with the University of Siena, and sponsorship of the Incontri in Terra Di Siena classical music festival.
In the 10 bedrooms, reclaimed wooden beams, lime-washed walls and cool Tuscan flagstones reflect the detail that has gone into every aspect of the renovation. Small casement windows capture cinematic views punctuated with cypress trees and Renaissance rooftops, and bathrooms have huge showers with industrial-style pipes, freestanding bathtubs and sinks carved from local marble.
The pace is slow; there's an infinity pool, a lavender garden and a wine bar, Enoteca at Monteverdi, which hosts weekly wine tastings and serves simple lunches daily (crostini, creamy burrata with slow-roasted tomatoes, homemade gelato). For supper, Oreade restaurant has a seasonal menu, which might include wild boar or truffles. A short but bumpy car ride down the hill will take you to La Foce estate with its stunning gardens by British designer Cecil Pinsent. Tabitha Joyce
Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco
When Massimo Ferragamo, of the Italian fashion dynasty, bought this vast estate near Montalcino in 2003, he acquired one of the area's oldest wineries, swathes of olive groves, truffle-rich woods and enough arable land to make the 18-hole golf course seem like a mere ripple on the landscape.
The former village now has 42 deeply comfortable suites, dressed up in an elegant French-tinged country style with four-poster beds, artfully placed antiques and thick curtains (some also have their own terraces). Scattered around the estate, there are also 11 farmhouses-turned-villas, each with a private pool, straight out of a Tuscan interiors coffee-table book.
There's an amazing range of things to do, from truffle-hunting expeditions and star-gazing sessions to treatments in the elegant spa and a pasta-making course in rustic-chic Osteria La Canonica (the former priest's house, next to the organic kitchen garden, and the more low-key of the two restaurants). Now that Rosewood Hotels has taken over management, things can only get slicker.
Address: Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco, Castiglion del Bosco, Province of Siena, Italy
Castello di Casole
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 1,700-hectare estate is run impeccably as a hotel.
Despite the shiny branded management, there's a sensitivity to the design and an attempt at Tuscan-style that prevents it from feeling too overtly plush or featureless. Eighteen 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 Oliveto suites, which was constructed by Italian designer Alessandro Mendini – have been converted and are more contemporary. In the terrific spa, there are hot-stone massages and deep-cleansing facials beneath barrel-vaulted ceilings.
The serious food served in Tosca, the restaurant of Castello di Casole headed by executive chef Daniele Sera, has excellent local wines and the spectacular sunsets across the valley all make this place feel grown-up, but families are well looked after too.
Castel Monastero
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.
Address: Castel Monastero, Castelnuovo Berardenga, Province of Siena, Italy
Hotel Castello di Reschio
Sculptures by Nic Fiddian Green (famed for his gigantic horses' heads) already dot the grounds and an exhibition of his new works in bronze opened here in July. Proprietor Count Benedikt Bolza clearly has a keen eye. He himself designs bespoke furniture for the hotel, and sells everything from the coffee tables and window seats to the canopied beds and standing lamps, all made on-site by a team of blacksmiths and carpenters.
This is a 1,200-hectare turbo-charged working estate in Lisciano Niccone: smart, creative and exciting. It's also incredibly beautiful. Fifty 500-year-old farmhouses are scattered around the undulating hills of northern Umbria. More than half have been renovated; six are for rent, including Palazzo – a perfect five-bedroom party house built from scratch on the footprint of an old property – and the more traditional Villa San Paulo, a 17th-century building with a chapel that has been converted into a formal dining room.
All are a fantastically refined mix of old-world style with a modern twist: reclaimed terracotta tiles, travertine marble and green oak are combined with steel and glass extensions, industrial loft-style windows, and whizzy kitchens with touches of zinc and concrete. Infinity pools, wine cellars and outdoor pizza ovens are also a given.
The landscaped gardens with rosemary, lavender, olive and pomegranate trees are interspersed with mosaic pathways and fountains. There are cookery lessons from chef Rosario Russo in the restaurant's kitchen, clay-pigeon shoots and fallow-deer stalking - look out for the wild porcupine. And there are also plans to convert the uninhabited 10th-century castle into a small hotel.
Address: Reschio, Lisciano Niccone, Province of Perugia, Italy
Torre di Moravola
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 and innovatively 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.
Address: Torre di Moravola, Montone, Province of Perugia, Italy
- Stefano Scatà
Borgo San Felice
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
Address: Località San Felice, 53019 Castelnuovo Berardenga SI, Italy