My family and I visited Il Calcione in June of 2008. We were absolutely charmed with this place. Pay heed to the other reviews in that Il Calcione is a rustic country accommodation. You will not get wined and dined here unless you do it yourself.

This is exactly why we savored our stay at the Castle. The accommodations were simple, and very authentic. We stayed at La Fornace cottage. The furnishings were nice but very rudimentary. This is how I prefer to vacation, not being one for 5 star touristy hotels and such. This is not a tourist attraction area of Tuscany. If you want that, go to San Gimignano.

We hired the local cook for a Tuscan meal in the cottage. I highly recommend hiring her for at least 3 nights as it is delicious country food and very cost effective for a family.

If you like hiking and exploring in the wilderness this is the place for you. My family took many long walks and runs exploring their property of over 1,000 acres. Hiking down an old bridle path, my sister discovered old marker stones with the family coat of arms. These are hundreds of years old. In addition, there are fabulous views of the castle itself, if you hike up the hills. There is absolutely nothing more peaceful and beautiful in God's world than this countryside.

Having an active imagination, I found it very easy to envision life on the property in the 15th and 16th centuries. The houses you stay in date back to probably the 16 - 17th centuries and you find yourself imagining who lived here, what they did on a daily basis, and what was their relationship to the local gentry (the family in the castle). It is an awesome experience.

The surrounding area is absolutely magnificent. This being our second stay in Tuscany, we wanted a central location for daytrips. Il Calcione is only about 10 minutes from A1 and the same distance to a local Coop (make sure you stock up on groceries and toilet paper before checking in). We found day trips to be very convenient (Siena, Cortona, Firenze, Assisi).

There are surrounding hill towns that are so very beautiful in their simplicity and lack of tourism. Some striking examples are Lucignano, Trequanda, Sinalunga, and Montepulciano. If you are looking for gift shops, attractions, and crowds, stay away from these towns. All you are going to find is fabulous vistas, friendly locals, excellent gelato, and the most magnificent architecture in the whole world (probably excellent wine shops as well).

As you can tell, I am absolutely smitten with Tuscany, and Il Calcione is the essence of a Tuscan vacation for me. We brought my 78 year old mother and she said the Il Calcione was her "fairy tale".

Olivella was very hospitable as well, although quite private. This property has been in her family for hundreds of years and the stories are fascinating. She is a very gracious and lovely person.

I totally recommend Il Calcione to you if you are looking for "the real thing" in Tuscany.

Bravo Olivella for a wonderful stay!

Calcione holds a very special place in our hearts, an Italian home away from home. For eight of us who spent a week there in October, it defines Italy and Tuscany -- peaceful respites with delightful people and irresistible food and wine. We elected to stay in the country and visit the cities and hill towns nearby on day trips. It was the second time in eight years my husband and I went there, with two different sets of eight people. Everyone loves Calcione and as soon as the dollar improves, we will be back.
We stayed at different villas on the two trips and would recommend both, particularly La Pergola. The gracious, bilingual host family now seems like distant cousins to us, and the for-hire chef Amel does a fantastic job, arriving to make pasta dinners from scratch, with flour and eggs and fresh produce and meats in hand. We never went out for dinner during our recent week there--fabulous lunches, yes, at Cacciatore, Monte San Savino, Lucignano, Florence, Montepulciano, Siena, Florence and Assisi. But dinner we ate in, enjoying Amel's handiwork on some nights and cooking ourselves the things we bought at the markets. And of course drinking castle wine.
We walked the estate lanes and olive groves, admired the views, sat under the arbor where you could reach up and pluck ripe grapes, read and talked and listened to Italia, went on excursions, got lost a lot and had a great restorative experience.
Fall is a wonderful time to be there--spring and summer must be lovely too, but autumn is special, with wine and olive oil harvests, fresh porcini, cool temperatures and changing fall colors. In any season, however, Calcione is simply the real Tuscany.
It's hard to believe anyone could have as bad a time as the "beware of this place" reviewers did. But given their description of a huge 14th Century castle complete with towering horseback-rider gates as a "little cottage," we're convinced they just got their places mixed up.

Our week at Calcione could only have been improved by another week...or two. We were four couples sharing Pergola, with the optional fourth room and bath on the second floor. The house is breathtakingly beautiful, as is its setting at the castle gate. Olivella and her parents, the della Stufas, were charming and available, but not smothering. We did our touring during daylight -- Siena, Florence, Montepulciano, Assisi, and of course nearby Lucignano and Monte San Savino -- soaking up art, architecture and countryside and lingering over wonderful lunches, and stayed home at night with castle wine in front of the fire and home cooking. Three nights, the estate cook, Amel, prepared phenomenal dinners. Four nights we did our own things with the wonderful local ingredients. In between expeditions, sitting under the pergola or in a chaise on the lawn with a good book was just the ticket. The estate offers miles of lanes on which to walk off those meals in picturesque surroundings.
Reading the few negative postings (and the many more lauditory ones) leads me to think that certain people ought to think twice before booking at Calcione. If you need noise and urban stimulation, get a room in Siena or Florence. If you need to be waited on constantly, pick a hotel. If you need long winey dinners in fancy restaurants, stay in a city and walk home. If a little rural wildlife spooks you, avoid the summer months. Or stick to the Holiday Inn.
Day trips by car are not hard if you're a good driver and pay attention to signs. We had no interest in driving after dark.
If you're not comfortable with quiet and solitude, go with friends or go to a city. All we needed besides conversation were good books and a couple of iPods loaded with good music.
We're all ready to go back and stay forever.

Every year my husband and I travel with a group of friends. We take turns selecting a place. I love Italy so last year we chose Calcione. What a great choice. It’s tricky because there are eight of us. Everyone loved it. What’s there not to love? We could travel to nearby cities and towns, use the pool, have dinner cooked in our house on the nights we didn’t want to go out. From our first email Olivella was attentive to our diverse needs and requests. I love the house we stayed in – San Pietro. It is beautifully restored but still is Italy! We’ve rented houses on other trips where you could be anywhere in the world. We wanted to be in Italy. I highly recommend this fantastic place. And thankfully, our friends do too!