“Farm First, Foodie Heaven”

I strongly recommend Podere Giulio and Podere del Gesso and hope to return! My family stayed at Podere Giulio, Apartment 7, for a week in June of 2017. Our children are ages 7, 6 and 3. This was our second stay at an Agriturismo in Tuscany, and this place is our favorite. This is a LONG rev… more

I strongly recommend Podere Giulio and Podere del Gesso and hope to return! My family stayed at Podere Giulio, Apartment 7, for a week in June of 2017. Our children are ages 7, 6 and 3. This was our second stay at an Agriturismo in Tuscany, and this place is our favorite. This is a LONG review! Positives include the friendly staff, delicious dinner and relaxing pool. Negatives include the lack of air conditioning in some apartments, dirty beach, and limited breakfast. Francesca and Valeria, in the main office, and Angelo, in the restaurant, make this place something special. There are knowledgeable, professional and friendly!! They speak very good English. Francesca is proud of the farm and ensured that we received fresh watermelon and cantaloupe direct from the fields! Both were delicious! We left before breakfast on the day of our departure. Without having to ask, Francesca delivered a packed breakfast to our room on our last day. So many thoughtful and special touches! Angelo provided consistently amazing service at the evening meals. He is one of the best servers I have ever met. The property is very large and includes two Agriturismos, Podere Giulio and Podere del Gesso, owned by the same company. The two properties are separated by a one minute drive on a paved road or a 600 meter walk on a dirt path. The walking path cuts through the farm’s fields and past the farm animals-sheep, donkeys, cows, and a beautiful horse. Our children really enjoyed seeing the animals and petting the horse. Podere Giulio is the older of the two properties and includes approximately ten apartments, two of which have air conditioning. It also includes the restaurant and a playground located next to the restaurant. Podere del Gesso is newer and includes a beautiful swimming pool, breakfast room, BBQ grill, small playground and trampoline. I believe all 10 of the apartments here have air conditioning. Child care is provided at Podere del Gesso for guests that booked through the German travel agency Vamos. Podere del Gesso is more relaxing and quiet in the evenings. We enjoyed having an apartment next to the restaurant. We could put our kids to bed and then enjoyed dinner as a couple. Dinner starts around 8pm. If our children were still awake for dinner, we would feed them first then enjoy our meal while they played on the playground next to the restaurant. The restaurant can be very loud and can stay open very late (4am for weddings or other special occasions). This noise will disturb light sleepers. Apartment 1 is located closest to the restaurant and gets the best breeze. As the apartments increase in number, they get farther away from the restaurant and have less breeze. Our apartment included one bathroom, kitchenette, sitting area, one double bed downstairs, and three single beds upstairs in the loft. The room was hot! Some nights we had trouble sleeping because it was so hot from the day. The loft is very creaky. We could hear every move from our kids upstairs. The rooms are clean but very dated. The swimming pool, open for guests of both agriturismos, is gated and includes a changing room, bathroom, plentiful lounge chairs, and three wooden gazebos for shade. Sadly, many guests monopolize the use of the gazebos and leave their belongings there even when they are not using the pool area. Approximately 1 mile from both properties is the beach advertised by the agriturismo. The beach is about 5 meters wide and covered with black sand. The dirt road leading to the beach is too long to walk, especially when carrying the chairs and umbrellas provided with the apartment. Strongly recommend having a car to visit the beach. There are no facilities located on the beach. We did not use the beach. It was covered with natural debris, trash and even some pieces of glass that could be dangerous for bare feet. While the breakfast included numerous house made sweets (cakes, torts and biscotti), it was limited. No warm food and often no eggs. One type of cheese and salami. The bread was tough and bland. In contrast, the dinners were consistently, fresh and delicious. We only had breakfast included with our room. We did not choose the half board option because we wanted the flexibility to try other restaurants in the area. What a mistake! We chose to eat dinner here every night! The pasta is all homemade. The pizza is out of this world. They raise their own beef for the Bistecca steak. The desserts are delicious. We loved almost everything we tried!! The house red wine is good. We witnessed countless local Italian families coming here for dinner and special occasions. The prices are very reasonable. Our average bill for a family of five was 60 Euro. This included appetizers, two courses, desserts, drinks and wine. The agriturismo is perfectly located for exploring the coast, Rome and southern Tuscany. We took day trips to the thermal baths in Saturnia and to the hilltop village of Civita di Bagnoregio. Overall, we had an amazing week here! We hope to return soon!

less

“Nature, relax and genuine food!”

We stayed for a couple of days in this Agriturismo, the place is relaxing and quiet. Close to a wild beach, what we loved the most was the genuine and tasty food served from their restaurant. We would love to go back in summer season!