Granaio Pisano

We spent a wonderful week

We first met up with Genka who drove us to the villa. It is located on top a hill, in between two mountains, with no neighbors anywhere close by!

We were 2 families, one from France, the other from Canada; 2 couples with 3 kids total. Everyone got to have their individual room and bathroom! The pictures presented on the site are representative of the reality but don't describe the actual layout. On the main floor, you have a bedroom with a complete bathroom, the living room, dinning room and kitchen. On the second floor, the master bedroom is huge even with the king bed and has a walk in shower and water cabinet. Another room has a queen bed and is adjacent to a room with bunk beds and a complete bathroom. The fireplace is on the second floor and is a den area. It is adjacent to another room with 2 single beds and bathroom with shower.

The house and garden are very well maintained, as well as the salt water infinity pool. We enjoyed long breakfasts in the outside dinning area and everyone enjoyed the benefits of the pool.

During the week, we made daily trips to different Tuscan cities: Pisa, Siena, San Giminiano, Firenze, Cinque Terre, Lucca, Vinci, to name a few. We would usually sleep in until 9h or 10h, have a long breakfast, enjoy the pool and leave for our daily city choice mid-afternoon. By doing so, we would avoid the mid-day maximum heat and get into cities just when the tour buses and cruisers leave the sites, therefore being less crowded. For photographers, the light is also much better in the later afternoon.

There are very good restaurants near by as well as supermarkets. There a also 2 villages you can drive to.

Given the villa is located in a wooded area, there are a lot of bugs; spiders, mosquitos, etc... You will also see lizards and bats. Therefore, it you don't want nightly visitors, I recommend closing the windows but it does get really hot during the day. We didn't mind it though, it was part of the rustic Tuscan experience.

I would definitely rent this villa again as it gave us the peace and quiet we needed. I therefore highly recommend it and the owner, Genka, is a gentleman very attentive to guest comments.

Lucile H., Montreal July 2013

This is the most beautiful property for a family vacation in Tuscany...loved everything about it. One minor suggestion...how about a bigger coffee pot! :-)

Marjorie O., September 2014

Es war ein sehr schöner und erholsamer Urlaub! Das einzige was wir vermisst haben, waren für die Sonnenliegen die weichen Auflagen.... ansonsten ist dieses Haus für eine große Familie perfekt!! 

Rosi R, Mai 2015

Thanks to Genka for a great week long stay for our friend group. The villa provides the idea space for a larger group to entertain, have a ping pong tournement and just relax by the pool. It also provides an idea ammount of space to spread out so everyone got thier own space. The location is ideal for exploring Tuscany and the local dining is fantastic! Genka's reccomendations for activites and food were fantastic, and overall communication was great.
Karl, September 2022

Gorgeous pool, excellent location

We stayed in this property in July 2015 for a week with two families. It was in the middle of a heatwave so we had hours of use of the fantastic pool. It is a lovely rustic Tuscan property very much as described.

Pros: 
The pool - it is huge and clean, with beautiful views over the valley, lots of chairs to relax in and large sun umbrellas. 
The space - there are 5 big bedrooms, easily enough for our two families, plus a very large living space. 
The barn - the kids had loads of fun playing table tennis when we could drag them out of the pool.
The location - it is under an hours drive to Lucca, Florence, Pisa, Volterra and St Gimignano, so lots of opportunities for sightseeing. Not so much to do locally, but there is a cute town down the road - Palaia.

Cons:
A couple of the upstairs bedrooms got very hot, but it was 36 deg. There are fans to help cool things down. I'd recommend taking plug in insect repellers to keep the bugs out when the windows are open. Overall we had a lovely relaxing holiday here.

Judith W., July 2015

Peaceful place provides all you need for a holiday

We stayed the end of June in this house. We were eleven all together, four grandparents, two families (four and three members. House provided us all we needed. The kitchen was big and equipped well for us to make the breakfast and the dinners. We ate outside because the weather was fine all the time and the wooden table outside was both functional and also nice looking. Only one breakfast we ate inside due to the rainy night, and there was also room for all around the table in the dining room. The house itself provided us all privacy and it was spacy. The swimming pool is a little gem which refreshed us on the warm days. We had all kind of plans for our stay, but we ended mostly to stay at the house. Little inconveniences we experienced with the showers, the water was a pit cool in the mornings, and once we lost the electricity and we couldn’t find the main switch but with the help of Genka we got things working again. That is one thing that would be good to inform on arrival, the main switch was quite far from the house. All in all, the house fulfilled our expectations and we really enjoyed our visit, Genka and his wife were very friendly and helpful if we needed something, otherwise we had our own privacy. On behalf of us all I can recommend Genka's house for everybody, who wants to spend their holiday in peaceful surroundings. Place is also near for many sights to see, even though we preferred the quiet life in the countryside.

Hannu R., June 2018

Dear Bettina
I just want to inform you that we have arrived in the villa yesterday and everything is wonderful.
Genka is the best host:)
Thank you again
Arrivederci :)
Nikola, March 2023

Wow! What a place! We adored our stay at Genka’s house! It was so perfect for my family - the space is enormous, and had everything you could possibly want for a peaceful escape. My 2 year old son was in heaven running around the beautiful gardens. Genka was an incredible host, he arranged transfers for us from LUCCA and back to the airport, he helped with car seats, local recommendations and was on hand for literally anything! Thank you Genka, you made the trip so memorable! We cannot wait to return again some day. I could not recommend this house more! Grazie Mille!
Georgie, May 2023

The Villa is at a really nice location, quiet and also central enough to get to all the sights in the area pretty fast. The house itself has a good set up, with a lot of bathrooms and the pool and grill are nice to have a relaxing evening.
I stayed there with my family and had a really good time.
Sophie, July 2023

Our family of ten loved every minute of our stay- plenty of room for all of us and everything was well supplied. We arranged with Genka’s sister to do a cooking class at the villa, and it was so fun and delicious! Four of us did a winery tour and tasting with Genka’s cousin at the family winery that was fascinating! When we had a rental car tire issue,Genka came and helped us! What a wonderful week,! We would highly recommend to others and hope to return ourselves some time.
Lynne, June 2024

We absolutely loved our stay in Montopoli. The house was everything we needed and everything we wanted. It’s a beautiful old farm house with a stunningly refreshing pool. We really got a chance to tune out and enjoy each other‘s company. We used the house to reunite three families spread across Europe. The kids were in heaven together. Our vacation was priceless. We ventured to the surrounding medieval towns. We enjoyed melt your mouth wild boar pappardelle, steaks with incredible crusts and grass flavored tender meat, truffle tartare. … I was so sad to leave. We seriously considered extending.
Tovah, August 2024

Zeer fijn verblijf met 4 stellen plus kinderen gehad. De woning is ruim, voorzien van alle wenselijke faciliteiten en het zwembad viel uitstekend in de smaak bij de kinderen. Het huisje ligt op een rustige locatie, nabij de nodige voorzieningen en restaurants. Genka is een hele fijne host, met veel en goede tips, prettige en snelle communicatie. Een absolute aanrader!
Emile, September 2024

The house is beautiful, thoughtfully decorated and spacious, perfect for families or larger companies. It’s quiet, no neighbors, and has a beautiful surrounding. Genka was very helpful with everything that we needed. We had a great stay and would definitely come back!
Karolina, September 2024

Guten Tag Frau Röhrig,
wir sind seit einigen Tagen von unserem Aufenthalt im Granaio Pisano zurück und waren mit unsere Unterkunft äußerst zufrieden: ein liebevoll restauriertes und geschmackvoll im toskanischen Stil eingerichtetes, großzügiges Haus; dazu ein herrlicher Pool, viel Platz und sehr hilfreiche Tipps vom Vermieter.
Auch in Zukunft werden wir uns gerne wieder an versteckte Toskana wenden, wenn wir eine hochwertige Unterkunft in Italien suchen.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
M. Sohnius, September 2024