We used this as our base to see Tuscany. It's a good price, but we chose it because we wanted to go to the cooking school.

If you have a car and want a place to base out of, it's a good choice.

The people in the hotel were very nice, and seemed family friendly.

I enrolled in Chef Paolo Monti's cooking school and stayed at the hotel as part of the package. The hotel is instantly charming, with a large well furnished foyer with a bar and many charming touches. The staff were welcoming, and friendly and throughout my stay were always bright and happy. The rooms are what you might expect of a corporate style hotel albeit with a little extra charm and were clean, comfortable and well maintained.
The hotel has a large carpark, and is really well located for touring the entire region being only a few minutes away from the autoroute exit. It's also only a few minutes outside of the walls of Lucca and there is also a delightful walk along the river from the hotel to the town which is mostly flat and an easy 30 minute walk.
The attatched restaurant was wonderful with charm, lovely staff and excellent food. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay and highly recommend the week long stay with the Cucina Italiana cooking school for any food lovers.

First up, the restaurant and cookery school are separate from the hotel, and contrary to another reviewer's statement, hotel reception told us halfboard is not available. Don't know anything about the cookery school, except that it's not cheap and it's extra. We tried the restaurant once and were not particularly impressed: very poorly heated on a chilly evening in mid-October, the seafood degustazione menu "two starters" was a mistake we were told (a mistake in two languages?), the seafood courses were essentially the same thing three times over - we couldn't have the beef with mushrooms as main, which looking back was a very strange restriction for paying customers. But since one of my pet peeves is people discussing restaurants when the review is supposed to be about a hotel, let's look at the hotel.

No complaints about the accommodation - clean, comfortable, quiet etc, and a great bargain at the rates available from mid-October on. At several km outside Lucca, consider a rented car (the hotel savings will more than pay for the rental over the course of a week). But if you want, while abroad, to watch your own country's TV, forget it - Italian stations only. There's free use of an internet-linked computer just outside the breakfast room, or you can pay extra for wifi.

Breakfast was buffet style, adequate but boring with practically no variation from day to day. Three cereals - corn flakes, bran flakes, choco-rice crispies (if that's what they're called). Fruit drink rather than real fruit juice (not even the From Concentrate stuff which would have been perfectly acceptable), only square slices of processed cheese, coffee from a instant-coffee type machine. A notice said espresso and cappucino was available on request, but the impression gained was that you would be making somewhat of a nuisance of yourself. Fruit was provided (with a stern notice telling you it was for eating at the table and was not to be taken away) but astonishingly it was generally tasteless and unpalatable - you wouldn't want to take it away anyway, after the first time. Not what we expected in Italy, especially with an acclaimed restaurant and cookery school sharing the premises. On the plus side, eggs (but boiled only!) were available, as were thin sliced ham, plain and strawberry yogurt. Even more plus if you like sweet things at breakfast, very good croissants and a variant with sweet custard-like filling, and two varieties of cakes, generally excellent.

The staff is amazing! Very Attentive and helpful. They are always there to help The rooms are a clean and quiet. My room had a beautiful balcony that overlooked the serene countryside. It is the perfect place to stay as it is only a 5K drive to Lucca. Perfect by bike weather permitting. I highly recommend staying here and taking the cooking class with Chef Paolo. They offer a cooking and accommodation package for a great price! Will definitely return back to Hotel Carignano the next time I am in the Lucca area!