Stayed at the Demidoff for only 1 night as part of a Cosmos tour. it was the best hotel we stayed in!! Lovely views, tranquil surroundings. Food was very good and maybe because we were part of a large group the atmosphere in the dining room was very good. Would stay there again for a few days.

My husband and I stayed one night here in June, 2006. We wish we could have stayed longer. The drive from Florence is spectacular, up a narrow, winding road past farmlands and country houses. This hotel is in the middle of an old estate, and is quiet and peaceful - birds singing, crickets, etc. Very lovely.
The room was clean and quiet.
We would recommend this hotel to anyone travelling to Florence.

My wife and I have just returned from a week (May 8-15, 2006) at The Hotel Demidoff, we found the hotel to be of good standard. We could not find fault with the food or service, perhaps the only criticism being the breakfasts were repetitive, and need to have more variation.

The reception were exceptional helpful in arranging tickets to visit the various museums in Florence, plus trains and buses to visit Lucca, Sienna and Pisa.

Although the hotel is some 12kms from Florence, the hotel runs a shuttle bus to the village of Pratolina where there is a reliable bus service, here again the hotel provides free of charge the 1 Euro tickets for the bus.

The restaurant had a good range of Tuscan dishes, and good local wine at reasonable prices.

Yes it may be 12kms out of Florence, but the views from our balcony more than made up for the bus journey, which takes approximately 30 minutes.

Our room and bathroom had been redecorated in the last two months, and was very clean and tidy.

My wife ventured down to the indoor swimming pool on a number of occasions, finding the water at a very warm 30°C and this again had been recently redecorated.

All in all a most enjoyable hotel and holiday.

Contrary to other recent reviewers, we found the staff to be as helpful as they could be. They are just employees but we felt that they tried to help and really did their best. This is not a family-run cosy Italian home, but a modern style hotel. The problem is that it is rather worn out. The owners are clearly keeping the place open while carrying out a rather slow restoration, which is typical of Italy. Many aspects of the hotel ought to be a lot better, the restaurant in particular. The restaurant is in a modern room with little atmosphere and consequently gets little local trade so has low turnover of stock, so not all the menu items are fresh. It would be better if they tried to do less but did it better. There are a few local restaurants which are a lot more fun (Zocchi is great). The pool itself is nice, but the facilities around it just need a bit of care and attention to be more useful and inviting. Our bathroom had been beautufully re-furbished, but it wasn't quite finished (no shower curtain, not threshold plate to cover the gap between carpet and marble floor). It appears that a lot of the business of this hotel is hosting larger tour groups on one or two night stop-overs to see Florence. The road down into Florence is quite good, but it is tricky to go to other Tuscany areas without going through the middle of Florence, so its not a bad place for two or three nights, but less good for an extended stay.