Hotel La Selva - Calenzano, Italy 

Not a "bio-hotel", as advertised. We thought breakfast would be wholesome, but it just consisted of ordinary hotel/hostel breakfast food (conventional butter, coffee, conventional milk, NO vegan options). The place is housed in an old 1960's-70's hotel, which is cool, and it looked like the owners were in the process of remodeling--but our room was simply a dark and shabby hotel room with some new lamps and faux-beech furniture. Staff was not helpful and they scoffed when we said we didn't have a car, even though "arriving by bus" directions are given on their website. In reality, the hotel was not really accessible from Florence by bus, since the bus ride took about 50 minutes, very few buses ran each day, and the last bus left from Florence before 7 PM every night. If you want to see Florence, you should spend your money on a hotel in the center. If you want to enjoy a natural setting away from the dim of the city, then spend your money somewhere with a better atmosphere.

First: Very hard to find a taxi at the train station i Calenzano. Even if you have the phone number you get from the turist info in Firenze the people does not understand you if you speak english(not enougth anyway) Taxi is expensive . For the 6 km from the train station in Calenzano to the hotel I paid about 20 euro. I booked via wwte.com via Norwegian and paid by visa. The hotel had not any reservation in my name and did not even know they had a deal with wwte to book rooms via them. (also wwte`s fault because they had the wrong phone number etc. Not recommended to book via wwte in norway. Lots of problems, and they have poor rutine on fixing problems. I can tolerate problems, but not caos, exuses, more caos and more exuses. Lots of time before I got my money back) Back to the hotel: Some of the staff(the women) are very nice and helpful, the men are not very friendly nor helpful. They do not speak very good english. Breakfast is mostly cakes/croissants and coffee or juice. You eat by the reception desk. No resaurant. There is a bus but the info you get about price and time tables are not accurate. Ps. The bus driver does not change, have lots of coins(about 3 euro to Firenze, I cant remember the exact amount) The location is between dark hills. I found it to be a lot darker and less sunny than the picture. Its very noisy and when people come back from late dinners you will not be able to sleep if you go to bed early(as I did, woman, travelling alone, you dont want to walk around after dark:)) All in all I will probably not stay here again. Even if the hotel is cheap, it is better to pay the 20 euros the taxi cost more a night to stay closer to train stations etc.