Hotel Sovestro

Relaxed, helpful and efficient staff. Very clean, well-maintained hotel. Solidly built, with very little intrusion of noise from the corridor and the adjacent bedrooms. Very nice swimming pool with easy access from the hotel rooms. Very good hotel-related restaurant located immediately next door. Pleasant surroundings. Quite close to San Gimignano (1 mile away) and relatively easy to get to surrounding areas of Tuscany by car.

Constant noise (daytime and night-time) from the busy main road that runs past the hotel, a road which carries all the tourist traffic from the autostrada into San Gimignano. This was quite unexpected and detracted from our enjoyment of our stay. At night, because of the noise, we had to sleep with our windows closed and with our air-conditioning (which was noisy and ineffective in hot weather, and not capable of reducing the room's temperature below 21C - another minus point) on. We wished we had picked a hotel in a genuinely tranquil location, but stayed on because of the plus-points of the hotel noted above. A very minor issue I noted was the lack of privacy of the bedroom garden terraces/patios, with only low hedges separating the terraces, but I expect not much could be done to remedy that. Finally, a small suggestion: it would have been nice to have had British newspapers such as the Times and Daily Telegraph provided in the lobby, alongside the other newspapers that the hotel provides for its guests to read, given the number of UK guests that use the hotel.

All staff, were very pleasant and extremeley helpful. Reception staff took the time to help us arrange transport to and from San Gimignano. Breakfast was excellent and although not part of the booking deal, the evening meal in the adjoining restaurant 'Da Pode' was first class.

Everything, I didn't want to come home. We arrived about 10pm on the Saturday night. They were all waiting for us to arrive, they made us feel very welcome.

Nothing at all. Very very good, Hotel. And very nice staff. We will go back.