I'm only posting this here because booking.com moderated my original, entirely objective review.
Agriturismo Il Macchione enjoys a stunning setting with beautiful views. The rooms are clean, spacious, and the beds are comfortable. The location is also very convenient for exploring Pienza and surrounds. The pool is large, deep, and well-maintained.
Unfortunately, the experience was marred by the attitude of the proprietor, which would prevent me from returning or recommending the place.
A few hours after arriving, I received a rather curt phone call from Francesco, whose wife had shown us to the wrong room - which was only realised when other guests arrived. We had to re-pack, wake our two-year-old, and move room. Mistakes can happen, and I appreciate could be stressful to deal with, but he was onsite and could have just had the interaction in person rather than by phone. The focus of said call being that we were only paying for a certain room thus need to move... rather than an apology for the mixup and a polite request to move. I subsequently saw that he greeted the new guests (the rooms were adjacent) but didn't see fit to put his head around our door to either greet us, apologise nor thank us for moving.
Breakfast was managed via a form guests had to fill out in advance โ a little unusual but not a major issue. That said, on our first morning we were told there wasnโt space for us to eat and that weโd need to have breakfast in our room. After the mix-up the evening prior this felt like a bit of a kick while we were down!
The advertised laundry service was another surprise. It turned out that they use a local laundrette, and then charge guests 20 EUR per kilo of laundry. In the end, we just did the laundry ourselves directly at the laundrette.
The day after we checked out, I received a WhatsApp message from Francesco asking me to pay for some prosecco, beer, and water we had taken from the fridge. I was surprised, as these items werenโt labelled with prices (like all the bottles of wine in the room were)โ so we assumed they were complimentary. This seemed like a fair assumption, with precedence, given our previous host in the area had included a couple of bottles of wine as a welcome gift โ which I had thanked the hostess for and had not been charged. Plus, these drinks werenโt restocked during our stay, reinforcing the impression that they were complimentary.
At checkout, we had not been asked whether we had consumed anything (and to our mind we didn't owe anything above the room charge), so itโs not as if I tried to avoid payment. Regardless, I said Iโd pay on receipt of an itemised invoice โ which I only requested because Iโd been told weโd had both prosecco and white wine (we had not had the latter). The invoice was later sent, I paid it promptly via the provided payment link, and then simply pointed out that inconsistent labeling had caused the confusion.
Then came the bizarre response that supposedly in 25 years of business this had never happened and that I was โmilking itโ โ despite having literally just paid the additional bill. I donโt understand what prompted the rudeness and I have never once โmilkedโ a hotel, B&B, restaurant or otherwise. It's a real pity as, if things had been handled differently, this would have been an enjoyable stay. Perhaps if we had met in person at the beginning of our stay, Francesco might have been less quick to accuse me of dishonesty or trying to "cheat the structure" as he did in a...
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