If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR318.18), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
With a real-life landscape painting for a backdrop, Pieve Aldina in the hazy Chianti countryside is ready with all the frescoes, bell towers, episcopal summer houses, and rolling hills you need for a non-hallucinatory trip to Tuscany. The pinch-me panoramas are a reality around here and they’re available from every window. There’s an enoteca on the estate for pasta-making lessons, a glass of (locally produced, obviously) wine with some cheese and charcuterie, or an espresso with an almond biscuit or 12. For something a little heartier, the main restaurant Le Rondini awaits, with typical Tuscan dishes served after summertime drinks in the parish priest’s garden. We did say it was idyllic.
Double rooms from £299.73 (€350), including tax at 10 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of €4.00 per person per night on check-out.
More details
Rates usually include breakfast.
Also
One room at Pieve Aldina has been adapted for guests with mobility issues.
Hotel closed
The hotel shutters up for winter between November and March.
At the hotel
Free WiFi throughout, 10th-century church and yoga classes. In rooms: tea- and coffee-making kit, Susanne Kaufmann bath products, air-conditioning, minibar, TV (added on request), and free bottled water.
Our favourite rooms
Most of the rooms have a quintessential Chiantishire view, but for extra pastoral-perfection points, request one overlooking the bell tower. Families can close off rooms 10 and 11 so that they have their own entrance at the bottom of the stairs. Or for an especially peaceful slumber, book Signature Loft Suite room 22, which has a soothing white and dove-grey palette in the bedroom and rolling-countryside views in each direction.
Poolside
As with most corners of Pieve Aldina, the pool has a view – specifically, of the bell tower. It’s open for scenic swims between 7am and 9pm.
Spa
Don’t sit up too quickly in the couples’ treatment room at the spa (sloping beamed ceilings are everywhere around here). As if things weren’t serene enough, the spa has a view of the manicured Italian garden and its encircling olive trees. Along with two treatment rooms, there’s a sauna and hammam.
Packing tips
Save some suitcase space and bring extra padding to safely transport your haul of Chianti’s grape- and olive-based wares.
Also
Yoga might already have you in a state of inner calm, but we’re guessing things will be even more at peace after some sun salutations amid the olive trees – there are two classes every week.
All ages are welcome and there are connecting rooms available. The Family Suite has a sofa-bed and space for a cot.
Sustainability efforts
Much of the produce at Pieve Aldina is local – some has even been grown in the garden. The hotel also makes its own products such as wine and olive oil, to ensure the manufacturing is environmentally friendly.
Sit out in the grassy courtyard for optimal romance levels, or pull up a seat at Mamma’s table in L’Enoteca to feast on her homemade gnocchi.
Dress Code
Renaissance beauty.
Hotel restaurant
The chef at Le Rondini makes the most of his Tuscan backdrop, with baskets of fruit and vegetables delivered daily from surrounding smallholdings. The menu is typically Tuscan, too: traditional panzanella salads, pappa al pomodoro, spelt pici with Cinta Senese ragu and, of course, lots of Florentine beef and Chianti wines. L’Enoteca is lifted from the Fifties, with hanging hams, strands of pasta air-drying and welcoming tables to sit at and enjoy a glass of local wine with some cheese and cured meats. Here, you’ll also be able to feast on fresh pasta and almond biscuits depending on what takes your fancy, and an afternoon-tea spread is put on daily from 4pm to 5pm.
Hotel bar
For all-Italian aperitivo, make your way to Le Rondini in time for sunset, AKA spritz o’clock. In the summer, the parish priest’s garden is the venue for early evening drinks.
Last orders
Le Rondini serves breakfast (7.30am to 10.30am); lunch (12.30pm to 2.30pm); and dinner (7.30pm to 10pm).
Room service
Available from 8am to 9pm. Dishes include panzanella, bruschetta and, of course, club sandwiches with a Tuscan twist.
Pieve Aldina is in the Chianti countryside, half an hour’s drive from Siena, 45 minutes from the Val d’Orcia and 50 minutes from Florence.
Planes
Nearby airports include Florence and Pisa, both of which are around an hour away by car. The hotel can arrange transfers on request.
Trains
For guests arriving in Florence by train, the onwards journey by road to the hotel should take roughly an hour.
Automobiles
You’ll need wheels to fully appreciate this breathtaking backdrop – there’s free parking on the estate.
Other
Helicopters can land at Florence airport if you ask nicely.
Worth getting out of bed for
Activities at Pieve Aldina are as peak idyllic Italia as it’s possible to get: picnics in the olive groves, pasta-making classes, locally made wine and olive-oil tastings, Vespa rides through the Chianti countryside… You’ll also be able to ride e-bicycles, horses and hot-air balloons, visit ceramic workshops and hike scenic Sienese trails. Within day-tripping distance are Siena and Florence. And as if everything wasn’t impossibly photogenic enough, the mediaeval village of Volpaia is on hand to make you swoon some more.
Local restaurants
Within the Chianti comune of Radda, Olinto on Piazza IV Novembre is under 10 minutes away by car and a perfect place for trying the famously good local wine and food. Committed carnivores must make a pilgrimage to butcher shop Antica Macelleria Cecchini in Panzano for a steak workshop; surprisingly, it does also have a vegetarian menu available.
Local bars
If you’re in Volpaia and thirsty, Bar Ucci on Piazza della Torre will come to the rescue with cups of Chianti’s finest.
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 heavenly hotel in Tuscany and unpacked their estate-produced wine and olive oil, a full account of their bucolic break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Pieve Aldina in Chianti…
You don’t need us to espouse the joys of Tuscany – from EM Forster to Succession showrunner Jesse Armstrong, absolutely no one is unaware of the charms of the Chianti countryside. And helping it to get even more idyllic this summer is Pieve Aldina, shiny new sibling to Menorca’s Torre Vella and Domaine de Fontenille in Provence. The estate – home to an episcopal dwelling, a millennia-old Romanesque church and several original 16th-century frescoes – is at the top of a vineyard-surrounded valley, with olive groves in every direction, too. If you’re here for the wine, it’s perfectly placed on the Chiantigiana, the wine route linking Florence and Siena. Both cities are within an hour’s drive; even closer is the mediaeval hamlet of Volpaia. Yet more breathtaking backdrops await 45 minutes away in the Val d’Orcia (so pretty, it’s Unesco-protected). At the estate, hang out at the enoteca, learning how to make pasta or just eating cheese and almond biscuits, swim at the peaceful pool by the bell tower or stroll the grounds working up an appetite for a plate of homemade pasta and Tuscan ragu. La dolce vita meets the good life.
