Aia Mattonata Relais

The hosts made us feel welcome and treat the B&B like their second home. Our room was spacious, quiet, well maintained, and had a nice bathroom. There are five rooms in buildings next to the owners’ house, with beautiful hillside views just outside Siena. We had a typical European B&B breakfast indoors. In summer, they offer breakfast outside with excellent morning views. The place is peaceful and a bit out of town, but that also makes it less convenient for sightseeing. You’ll need a car and a good GPS to find it. The WiFi was available, though we had a few problems with it. We had a very relaxing stay, and the owners were friendly and helpful.

Mario and Lisabeth are wonderful hosts, and our room was even better than we expected. They were so helpful, recommending and booking good restaurant tables in town, finding us a hire car, and sharing their knowledge of the area. We stayed at Aia Mattonata for five days at the end of September 2012, had a wonderful time, and hope to return someday.

The scenery, very clean and up-to-date rooms, and especially the unbeatable customer service made this place worth the extra money. It’s an easy 11/10 for us. We stayed at several great places in Venice, Pisa, Florence, and Rome during our two weeks in Italy, but Aia Mattonata Relais was our favorite by far. We’ll be back, and next time we’ll bring friends. And if you love dogs, you have to stay at least long enough to play fetch with Runa! Sara was the first to greet us, and her smile and warm personality immediately made us feel we’d picked the right place. She put out a wonderful breakfast every day and was always ready with tips for getting around Siena. Elisabetta was full of joy, took a real interest in us, and even indulged my ambitious attempt at speaking Italian with her. On our last day, we had a 6:05 a.m. train to Rome, and she made us a delicious omelet sandwich for the three-hour journey. Mario, Elisabetta, Sara, and Runa, Mario and Elisabetta’s beautiful long-haired Shepherd, made our anniversary trip amazing. Everyone was attentive and took great personal care of us. Mario worked around our early morning schedule and personally drove us to the pickup point for one of our wine tours. He also recommended and booked excursions and restaurants around Siena and greater Tuscany. They were the best hosts we had on the trip.

A lovely, authentic place with quiet, comfortable, well-kept rooms. The hosts were great and had thought of everything. We really liked their restaurant suggestions, and the views over the rolling hills include the town. It’s a 10-minute drive to downtown.