We booked this hotel with Expedia as it looked really nice and had a good description. The location isn't very good as you need a car to go anywhere, it is on a main road which has no paths! So every time you venture out of the hotel, you take your life into your own hands! The hotel is set behind a very small shopping mall which was never open. Their main restaurant is quite pleasant but they had the same menu every evening. There is a pizza restaurant as well, but they had no English menu and no English staff, so we ended up with a plain cheese & tomato pizza! The bar was small and lacked an atmosphere, there were no other activities at the hotel. The hotel does not provide a lunch menu, you can have lunch in the main restaurant, but it works out very expensive as they don't just do 'snacks'.

I cannot fault the room or the swimming pool. The room was spacious and very comfortable, and the pool was lovely and quiet. The staff are friendly and helpful.

We don't normally suffer from insect bites but please note that we were covered in them for the whole time, and we met up with some people for had the same problem.

We stayed at this hotel for two days in late May 06. We took the train from Florence and the Pontedera stop was one stop before the Pisa stop. Easy enough to get to although we did almost get arrested on the train. If you are traveling on a rail pass, please remember to write in the date you are traveling on the pass and do not think that the ticketmaster will do this for you. He yelled and screamed at us and demanded that we pay him a $50E fine. My friend screamed right back at him that we were not going to pay. See? This is how international incidents are created. Anyway, we told him that we thought that this was the ticketmaster's job but apparently it's not and it even says so in the very small fine print on your ticket. He told us that the police would be waiting for us when we got off the train but a nice guy (turns out he was a priest) sitting next to us told us that if the police were waiting for us, it would be in Pisa so we were thankful that our destination was one stop before Pisa so we hopped off quickly.

Anyway, a short cab ride ($20E) to the hotel, we checked in. Unfortunately, nobody was staying at the hotel at this time so it was like a ghost town. The front desk staff were exceptionally lovely and helpful and there were no language problems. The hotel is a bit odd as it's a lovely hotel, a small shopping plaza, gas station/convenience store and a disco.

After being driven to our room (it's a large complex), we decided to get something to eat. It was about 2:45...which, in a small Italian town, spells death to the hungry. While there is a restaurant and a pizza joint on the hotel property, both of these were closed after serving lunch. We wandered over to the small shopping plaza and our only choice was to pick two out of three miserable looking panini's at the coffee shop...or eat from the convenience store. Though there is a little plaza across the street, there are no food establishments there so if you do not have a car, you're sort of screwed. This is also why I always travel with plenty of granola bars...just in case.

When we checked in, we were told that there was to be a wedding reception that evening but we couldn't see that this would cause any problems. In fact, it was sort of cool to be able to lean out the window and watch an Italian wedding reception. It was late afternoon and we decided to have a few cocktails. We stopped at the American bar downstairs and asked for some ice. Since there were no ice buckets, he gave us a big ceramic bowl of ice. We didn't notice it at the time but after we made our drinks (brought it all with us from Florence), we noticed an oil slick on the tops of our drinks. I guess this ice came with Extra Virgin Olive Oil or something. It was the exact same oily ice we got the next evening so it wasn't really a one-time thing.

Since we really hadn't had too much to eat that day, we ventured over to the restaurant...which we discover is completely full of Italian wedding guests. There was no room for us and we were also dressed very casually and everybody there was dressed up for the wedding. So, we wandered over to the pizza joint (not owned by the hotel) and were rather snappily told that since we didn't have a reservation, that they could not serve us that evening. Huh? It would be like making a reservation at Pizza Hut. Anyway, there were plenty of tables available and everybody in the place was 16-20 years old. Since it was Saturday night, all the local kids come for pizza and then go to the disco. There is no food available for us and we are hungry. We strolled over to the main desk and the lovely Maria Gratzia arranged to have pizzas delivered to our room. The pizzas were fine but we were still hungry. Ah, how about a granola bar? Yumm.

Since there is basically nothing to do at the hotel outside of going to the pool or hitting some balls at the driving range, we decided to go to Lucca, a medieval walled city about an hour away. We were going to take a cab back to the train station but the lovely Maria Gratzia suggested that it would be much easier to take the local bus, which stopped directly in front of the hotel. She copied the bus schedule for us, highlighted all our stops and told us we could get our bus tix at the convenience store out front. Cool! The bus showed up at 11:44, just as it was supposed to and we took a lovely scenic drive through some great little towns. Then, we drove right by the hotel again going in the opposite direction.

Now, I know that this is not the direction to Lucca but what am I going to do about it? The bus pulls into a bus station and we remain seated on the bus until the driver basically motions with his hands for us to get off. He speaks zero English and I speak crappy Italian so basically, we cannot converse. I do hear him said "veinte or treinte" so I assume it means 20 or 30 minutes. We get off the bus and sit down on some benches to wait for the bus that never came. We are the only people sitting at this rather large bus station. To make matters worse, I do not know were we are. I have to ask the only people we encountered during our wait what town we're in. Of course, they look at me like I'm absolutely crazy...which I'm beginning to think I am. We are back in Pontedera. I leave my friend at the bus station and start looking around trying to find the train station. Aha! It's right down here so we cruise over and find that we have to take the train to Pisa and then transfer to get to Lucca. Not only is this a hassle but it's why Maria Gratzia suggested taking the bus in the first place. We finally get to Lucca a little after two and it's a very delightful little town. Highly recommended for a day trip. The biggest plus for us was being able to sit down and have a real meal.

We caught the last train back and took a cab back to the hotel around 6. Since we were still quite full from our nice meal in Lucca, we never did go to the restaurant. We checked out the next morning and then find out that the hotel has a car service and we thought it was very nice of them to take us to the train station. After unloading our luggage, he told me it was $18E so I handed him a $20 and rescinded my thoughts about the lovely car service.

All in all, the hotel was absolutely lovely, like an old Italian villa, the rooms were large (for Europe) and nicely decorated, but the hotel is just way out in the middle of nowhere. Granted, it's a very pretty nowhere with the mountain vista, manicured grounds and swans on the man-made lake), if you do not have a car, you are stuck with not much to do. If you do have a car and want to relax for a day or so from your travels, this would be a great place to do so. My sense was that this hotel was for Italian families to "get away" for some summertime fun. There told us there was an Olympic-sized swimming pool on the property but it wasn't open for the season yet.

Apparently the place is quite hopping in the summer months. The daily breakfast was quite nice and overall service was excellent. It is a lovely place but we were fairly frustrated during our stay there.

The hotel at first site looks like part of a shopping mall and the location seems a bit odd. However once we checked in at reception we were taken through a big gate and past a lovely lake to our accomodation. We were lucky enough to be given a room in the small complex right at the back of the hotel which overlooked the Monte Sera, had it's own swimming pool, lake and driving range. The room was nice and clean and in a traditional style, the bathroom was fine but may be could do with some updating.

The hotel staff in general were great- especially the staff at the American Bar that serves breakfast andpool side drinks. The bar was lovely at night when the outdoor tables had big candles placed on them and you were given small cakes and biscuits with your drinks.

The breakfast choice was very good and the food was very tasty. The hotel is ideal for getting to Pisa and Florence for sightseeing and is only a short distance from Lucca and the beautiful Tuscan countryside.

My only complaint would be about the two restaurant on the main hotel complex. The service was somewhat lacking and the staff were not very helpful (especially if your Italian is a little rusty), the service charge at the main restaurant is also very high (6.00 Euros for two people having just starters and a beer), they also don't serve soft drinks!?

Overall though hotel was excellant and I definately recommend a trip to the American Bar and a walk around the lake.

Very comfortable hotel. Beautiful location with a backdrop of mountains including Mont Sera (although not what I'd call a hamlet location, as described). 1 minute walk to a small shopping complex and two reasonable restaurants. About 30 minutes drive from Pisa airport.

The hotel outdoor swimming pool was very clean. There is an olympic sized pool at the complex - although we didn't use it.

The hotel had a small lake which had black and white swans, a pair of beavers, ducks and weaping willow trees. The first night we stayed there, they put out huge candles - literally everywhere it was all very romantic!

Staff were attentive and helpful. Very much enjoyed our stay here and would return. The cookies and marzipan treats we were given with our drinks every night were delicious as we sat and admired the stunning scenery.