Tuscany, Italy

La Monastica Resort & Spa

Price per night from$472.87

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR402.67), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

La Monastica Resort & Spa Photos

Style

Chapel belle

Setting

Tranquil Tuscan hilltown

Explore

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All that imbued the monks’ lives with contentment has been cleverly conserved at hilltop monastery turned luxe escape, La Monastica Resort & Spa. Its Tuscan village setting is a place of calm — so too is its stellar spa, where you can take the waters in storied surroundings. Dinners in the old chapel are served with valley views; and rooms are artfully dressed for rest, with bespoke furniture and beguiling backstories. You may have just found your new holiday creed.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

€25 towards a spa treatment for each adult (for up to three adults sharing a room)

Facilities

Photos La Monastica Resort & Spa facilities

Need to know

Rooms

19, including 12 suites.

Check–Out

11am, and check-in is at 3pm. Both are flexible on request and subject to availability.

More details

Rates include a lavish breakfast spotlighting estate produce, cereals, still-warm pastries and bread, as well as gluten-free options.

Also

Sadly, the uneven terrain and ancient features of the protected stone building may mean La Monastica is unsuitable if you have mobility issues.

Please note

The hotel’s national identification code (CIN) is  IT047003A1UP8COUM3.

At the hotel

Spa, terrace gardens, two outdoor pools, concierge, paid laundry service and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: minibars, Nespresso coffee machines, tea-making kit, free bottled water, bathrobes, slippers and Votary bath products.

Our favourite rooms

Each room is uniquely designed and furnished — with a backstory to boot — but the bright, spacious, open-plan La Castellana Suite catches the eye for its private terrace, access to a tower with unforgettable wraparound views, and bespoke sunburst headboard (inspired by a crown once worn by noblewomen of the founding da Buggiano family). Those who are partial to a dip will be drawn to La Badessa Suite — it has a hydromassage pool and a freestanding bath tub in its private garden.

Poolside

There are two — an upper and a lower — in prime panoramic spots in the terraced gardens. They’re for cooling and calming rather than anything strenuous, scented by citrus trees and filled with water specially treated to be gentle on the skin. The spa also has a soothing indoor/outdoor two-person pool hemmed by natural rock walls.

Spa

There’s a palpable air of monastic serenity at the spa. With four treatments rooms, sustainable natural Comfort Zone products, a restorative two-person rock pool filled with micronised warm water and natural extracts, and a multi-sensory soothing space at the foot of a mediaeval tower built on ancient ley lines (plus a sauna, steam room and hammam), it’s the heavenly heart of the hotel.

Packing tips

Seek out a copy of The Betrothed, the 19th-century epic by Alessandro Manzoni, a popular read in Italia – its chapters on Gertrude, the Nun of Monza, were an important reference during the restoration to understand the characters who would’ve lived here.

Pet‐friendly

Dogs are welcome in all rooms here for €30 a night, and a bed, water bowl and pet-safe couch cover can be provided. See more pet-friendly hotels in Tuscany.

Children

Bambini of all ages are welcome and babysitting is available on request but this is a place more geared to the adulti.

Sustainability efforts

The long and painstaking reconstruction of the monastery involved dedicated experts, natural materials and precise colour matching to restore original features that had long been in disrepair — and it expanded to the surrounding village too, with roads resurfaced, street lighting added and walls rebuilt. The hotel continues to rely on local staff and artisans; its spa treatments use natural, sustainable products, and the restaurant sources produce from its own garden and composts any leftovers.

Food and Drink

Photos La Monastica Resort & Spa food and drink

Top Table

For surveying the restaurant's full glory, we like the seats beneath the wall-mounted reliquary in the main chapel, the monastery’s original name etched ornately above.

Dress Code

No need for ecclesiastical get-up any more, but something elegant and refined would suit.

Hotel restaurant

Devoti is the domain of chef Igor Rosi whose team fashion the gardens’ biodiverse bounty into Tuscan fare to savour, served in the showstopping central chapel. The likes of tempura seasonal flowers, nettle ravioli with sweet garlic, and lobster salad with dill mustard appearing alongside hearty grilled meats and decadent desserts. 

Hotel bar

Cocktail hour begins in the garden, figuratively at least, as mixologists fetch freshly grown herbs and flowers to flavour and decorate the signature serves on offer. There is a bar to sit at — a stylish curved corner with backlit bottles and tubular pendant lights — or you can take your drink to whichever viewpoint most appeals. The wine cellar hosts tastings if you’d like to learn a little more about local favourites. 

Last orders

Breakfast is served from 7.30am until 11am; lunch is from 12.30pm until 2.30pm, and for dinner, it’s 7.30pm until 10pm. The bar pours till 11pm.

Room service

A selection of dishes can be whisked to your door between noon and 10pm, with a smaller choice of snacks available through the night once the kitchen is closed.

Location

Photos La Monastica Resort & Spa location
Address
La Monastica Resort & Spa
Via Santa Scolastica 5
Buggiano Castello
51011
Italy

La Monastica Resort & Spa sits high in the mediaeval Tuscan village of Buggiano Castello overlooking the Valdinievole valley below.

Planes

The airports of both Pisa and Florence are about a 50-minute drive, and the hotel can arrange private transfers to either (price on enquiry).

Trains

Direct trains take about an hour from Florence to Borgo a Buggiano station, where staff can meet you for the five-minute drive to the hotel. Or halve the journey time by taking the fast train to Pistoia from where the hotel can also arrange pick-up.

Automobiles

If you're planning to do anything more than unwinding in the spa, a car is pretty essential in these parts. Hire one at the airport and you’re well placed for exploring the greatest hits and hidden gems of Tuscany. There is free valet parking on-site, and electric-vehicle charging points are available for an extra fee.

Other

There’s a helipad in the grounds if you’d like to make a more dramatic arrival.

Worth getting out of bed for

The mediaeval village of Buggiano Castello is where you’ll call home, a quiet hilltown surrounded by olive groves and ancient cypresses with views across the Valdinievole valley that would’ve made its original inhabitants feel closer to God. The hotel’s nine terraces are contoured to the hillscape, each offering something different — a pool, a rose garden, a panoramic seating area — so you can switch up your scenery without even leaving the grounds. But while it feels tucked away, you can wander into the car-free village or take a short drive to the famous spa town of Montecatini Terme. The cities of Pistoia and Lucca are each a 30-minute drive, and the beaches of Viareggio and Forte dei Marmi are all reachable by car within 45 minutes. 

Local restaurants

For white linens, beamed ceilings, valley views and regional classics with a twist, it’s less than 20 minutes by car to Antico Ristorante Forassiepi which has been in the hands of the same family for more than 20 years. In the lower village of Borgo a Buggiano, Il Giardino del Bagatto is an intimate local favourite serving pasta (including gluten-free versions), meat, fish and more. The neighbouring La Taverna del Vin Vino is a rustic stone-walled trattoria with charm in spades and comforting home-cooked fare. 

Reviews

Photos La Monastica Resort & Spa reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this nun-the-wiser stay in Buggiano Castello and unpacked their pastels and sketchbooks, a full account of their restorative retreat will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside La Monastica Resort & Spa in Tuscany…

Roam the hills of Tuscany and you’ll find many a crumbling relic — even whole abandoned hamlets — some of which will get the chance to be reborn. La Monastica Resort & Spa is one such tale of renaissance: the 16th-century monastery of Santa Scolastica was the long ruined canvas, painstakingly restored over two decades to become a hotel worthy of devotion. 

The central chapel perhaps elicits the most gasps — its pale blue domed roof now crowning the showpiece restaurant. Its chefs tend to their organic kitchen garden with monastic dedication. In fact, the region’s unique climate, courtesy of the nearby marshes, the sea breezes, and some well-positioned hills, creates ideal conditions for such growth; so too for the citrus groves that line parts of the terrace and scent the air. 

With such rich backstory to almost every corner — the spa is built on an ancient energy flow; the rooms are adorned with bespoke artworks and furniture that nod to the hotel’s sacred past — it’s a place that rewards a slow-paced stay, one that’ll have you demanding ‘Get thee to a nunnery’ the next time holiday plans are mentioned.

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Price per night from $465.83

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