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Castellina in Chianti: Hotel Salivolpi

Via Fiorentina 89, Phone: 0577.740.484
www.hotelsalivolpi.com

Reviewed by: Kevin Clark from Italy, review #2031

When: August 2007

A lovely hotel on the outskirts of Castellina, but not quite as comfortable as it looked.

My review of this hotel is very mixed, partly due to some issues with the hotel and largely due to a misrepresentation on the Venere.com website through which I booked the hotel.

The hotel itself is lovely, on a hillside above Castellina. The grounds and buildings are very attractive. There's a nice pool and an area under the trees nearby where you can relax with a glass of wine. It was perfectly clean and generally well maintained. There was also a small lounge inside and a computer with Internet access (additional charge). Breakfast was very good in the Italian style, with a nice selection of breads, pastries, meats, and cheeses.

Inside, though, things were not quite as nice. Our room was decidedly on the small side, even for an Italian hotel. Furnishings were showing their age and the bed was decidedly uncomfortable. The ensuite bath was poorly configured - the shower was large and modern (good pressure and hot water), but some serious acrobatic skills were needed to use the other facilities.

One concern I'd had from reading other reviews was that some described the rooms as noisy, but we had no problems with noise even with the windows fully open all night. Overall, I think I'd call this a three star hotel with one/two star rooms.

My biggest complaints came from believing the descriptions on the Venere.com website. First, it was described as being centrally located in the town. True, it's within the town limits and is only about 600-700 meters from the center, but that's straight uphill on a busy road - not quite what I was expecting.

The other, bigger problem was that the Venere website said that the hotel offered air conditioning, which is definitely not true. The weather was in the mid-90s, our room was upstairs under a hot tile roof, and it was unbearably hot for all of the day and much of the night. They did provide a small fan which helped some. The hotel's own website doesn't mention a/c, so this must be a problem with Venere. It probably doesn't matter most of the year, but during our visit it was extremely unpleasant.

This review is the opinion of a Slow Travel member and not of slowtrav.com.

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