Maison Brinati Bed and Breakfast — Hotel in Monsummano Terme

I have family in the area and they found this gem for us. First off the location is excellent if you want to see Tuscany. Monsummano-Terme is situated between Lucca and Florence and is only a couple of minutes from the Autoroute. We made day trips to the coast (Populonia), Florence, Lucca, Siena and even to Montalcino for a bit of Brunello tasting. We even made a stop by Collodi to see Pinocchio's home (the amuse park is..."quaint").||||Of course, any hotel in the area could make the same claims. Where Maison Brinati is different is the accommodations. You feel like you are staying with family. The owners welcome you in and feed you like royalty. It is helpful to know some Italian or French but you can definitely get by just fine with English, some hand gestures and a smile. ||||The rooms are simple and nice (the units on the top of the villa are excellent). We had satellite TV and air-conditioning in both of our rooms.||||And now for the best part... if you pay (per person per day) for dinner to be included you will experience something you simply cannot reproduce in a hotel no matter what the cost: HOME COOKED authentic meals! The wines are from local vintners and the ingredients are all fresh. One night they brought one of the local pizza makers up to the house and made pizzas in the pizza oven! To top it all off, the amount of food presented puts a cruise ship to shame. (Hint: "abbastanza" means "enough" :)||||Finally, the guests were all European, we were the only Americans. We met couples, individuals and families from a number of countries during our stay.||||I can think of no better way to experience Tuscany in a...

Stayed for two nights with the family in the "suite" right by the pool. Hard beds in the master bedroom and a strange round bed in the other room. Aircondition worked good and the nog jacuzzi was fun for the kids. Fridge worked fine. Nice pool in some need of cleaning with plenty of sun beds. Not allowed to swim from 1 to 4 pm. Old furniture in the small garden. Dinner served at the same table as the other guests! Not a problem really but this would have been nice to know in advance so that you could prepare for the conversation in foreign language. The reviews saying that the food is amazing is not true. Avarage, but completely acceptable, food for €25 per person is more true. We were served french fries with inte of the dishes as an example. To sum it up this is a fine place that feels a bit dated and it is really...

Maison Brinati is excellently located close to Florence, Pisa, Vinci etc. The house is beautiful, the garden romantic and the apartments clean and nice. Nothing too fancy, but really nice. The swimming pool is fantastic. Quite big actually. ||||It's helpful if you speak Italian, but we managed to communicate with hands and feet. It was fun and worked. ||||Breakfast is Italian style and served between 8.30 and 9.30 am, but it would have been nice to have it at least until 10.||||We once stayed for dinner. Great taste, but I found 25 Euros a bit expensive. Still, it was good food, nice guests and easy going.||||The room and bathroom were reasonably sized, although the bed was quite short. The air-conditioning worked perfectly, the water pressure was very good. There is...