Marignolle Relais & Charme - Florence, Italy     

Since Florence was our main destination in Italy, we splashed out on 10 days at the the Morais, but it was ultimately disappointing. First problem is the distance from the centre: it's just outside the city in a pleasant stretch of country, but that means you're at the mercy of the taxis, at 12-15 euros a go. That adds up fast, and the taxi quality was variable, with some dodgy fares attempted: you need to know what's reasonable when you get in. So with the wait & the 20 minute ride, you can easily lose 90 mins each day fighting the taxis. If you are there high season, then you also spend a lot of time hunting one for your return. For the hotel's price, I would like to have seen a daily return taxi fare included in the tariff. The distance also means that there's no food nearby, save one average restarant (which you'll only use once, and which you can't walk to: the road's too busy). There is a restarant in the hotel, and while the food was reasonable, the bill was ridiculously high; most nights no-one dined there. So more taxis back to town to eat each night. We travelled with two small kids, so this got tedious fast. Meanwhile breakfast was OK, but humble for the price. Which brings us to the Rules. The owners liked things done Properly. No food in the rooms (with small kids? yeah sure). None of your own wine consumed. Don't drive up to reception during breakfast. For these prices, I want my wishes to be uppermost. I'm not sure the service philosophy is there yet. They were very affable, and tried hard to arrange things (with varying success: our laundry returned monochrome, and their car hire suggestion failed to deliver) but we did feel like the difficult cousins sometimes, apologising frequently. Then there was the Smell. One of our rooms developed a sewerage smell early on. We've got a baby, so we assumed it was us somehow. After a while we realised it really was the toilet, as we found it in other places in the hotel. At times it was very difficult to stay in the room unventilated (but without insect screens, the viscious mosquitoes ate you if you left the windows open). We vividly demonstrated the smell to the staff, and they agreed it was awful. So now for this price, you'd get moved, perhaps upgraded, yes? No. "we have some air freshener". By this point it was our last day, so we didn't start throwing things. In hindsight, we should have. And you should too, if you get the same situation there. What was good. Everyone was friendly, and fine with our kids. The pool was great & warm, with a lovely view across the valley. Beds & AC ok, and everything quiet (however beware the nearby tunnel works, hinting at a big road passing nearby soon). Showers only in our rooms, which was odd for the price, & not good for very small children. Now if this was a three or even four star, all these shortcomings could be overlooked as bearable, especially in Italy. However this was an expensive hotel by most people's standards. It was a our biggest outlay in Italy, and our expectations were disappointed.

We have spent 3 nights at la Marignolle on our honeymoon trip to Italy. As we have done a little reseach in advance and new what we are getting we were not dissapointed. The short drive (or taxi trip) to the city is well worthwhile. It is a very small hotel that feels more like visiting your friends house/villa with garden - for me a nice change from a large hotels with no personality. Lorenzo (owner/manager that my wife referred to as Antonio Banderas) was very helpful in advising us where to go, what to do, where we should eat, etc. He even helped us to organize accommodation at another hotel on the coast we were heading for. There is no restaurant at the hotel but they offer to prepare a meal for you if you ask in advance. We had a dinner at a Bibe restaurant few minutes walk from the hotel and can highly recommend it. Relaxing by the pool was definitely a big bonus after a whole day walk around Firenze!