Five villas near Pisa. Which one is yours?
They are not five sizes of the same house
All five are let whole and none of them divides: you take the building, the grounds and the pool, and nobody else is on the land while you are there. That much they share, and it is the reason people come to any of them.
Beyond that they are different buildings for different weeks. Lungomonte is the formal one — a ballroom with a balcony over the valley, thirty at full stretch. Ravano is the estate: a tennis court, a football pitch and a consecrated chapel, on ground where a party need never leave. Cevoli is the practical one, with a lift to all three floors and ten bedrooms. Donna Camilla has its own vineyard and a gym in the tower. Guardavalle is the smallest and the easiest to simply live in, twenty-one under a pergola.
The comparison below is the honest version, including who each house is wrong for. A week in the wrong one of these is an expensive mistake, and we would rather lose the booking than make it.
The five, compared
Rates are the lowest nightly figure in the quietest season; each house quotes properly on its own site, against real dates.
Villa Ravano
A villa of 1500 above Pisa, with a tennis court, a chapel and room for thirty-two
- Sleeps
- 32
- Bedrooms
- 16
- Bathrooms
- 11
- Minimum stay
- 7 nights
- From
- €950 per night
- Where
- Gello, San Giuliano Terme
- Built
- Shortly after 1500
Suited to
A party that wants to stay put. A wedding whose guests sleep in the house, or three generations who want a pool, a tennis court and a football pitch without anyone getting into a car. The chapel is the only one in the collection.
Less suited to
Anyone wanting air conditioning, or a house that feels intimate. Sixteen bedrooms over three floors is a building, not a retreat — a party of eight would rattle around it and pay for a tennis court nobody used.
Villa Lungomonte
A Medici hunting lodge above Pisa, yours alone
- Sleeps
- 30
- Bedrooms
- 15
- Bathrooms
- 10
- Minimum stay
- 7 nights
- From
- €950 per night
- Where
- Asciano Pisano
- Built
- 15th century
Suited to
Large parties and occasions with a shape to them — a wedding, a milestone birthday, three or four families who want to eat together but sleep well apart. It takes formality well, and the frescoed rooms are worth dressing for.
Less suited to
A quiet fortnight for six. A house this size wants filling; a small party rattles around in it and pays for twelve bedrooms it never opens.
Villa Cevoli
Fifteen hundred square metres over three floors, with a lift and a pool
- Sleeps
- 22
- Bedrooms
- 10
- Bathrooms
- 9
- Minimum stay
- 7 nights
- From
- €950 per night
- Where
- Cevoli, Casciana Terme Lari
Suited to
Three generations at once. Ten bedrooms, eight with their own bathroom, and a lift to all three floors — which is the difference between a grandmother joining in and a grandmother sitting downstairs. The garden is walled and gated on every side.
Less suited to
Anyone after a hilltop view or a grand event. It is a comfortable, capacious family house rather than a set piece, and the pool looks over hedges rather than over Tuscany.
Villa Guardavalle
A country house in the Pisan hills, yours alone
- Sleeps
- 21
- Bedrooms
- 7
- Bathrooms
- 6
- Minimum stay
- 5 nights
- From
- €950 per night
- Where
- Crespina Lorenzana
- Built
- 19th century
Suited to
One or two families who want the day to happen outdoors and unplanned — long lunches under the pergola, children in and out of the pool, nobody dressing for dinner. It is the easier house to simply live in.
Less suited to
A formal seated dinner for eighty, or a party that needs a ballroom. The rooms are handsome but domestic; at some scale you want Lungomonte.
Villa Donna Camilla
A cypress avenue, a vineyard of its own, and a tower with a gym at the top
- Sleeps
- 16
- Bedrooms
- 8
- Bathrooms
- 6
- Minimum stay
- 7 nights
- From
- €950 per night
- Where
- Terricciola
Suited to
A party of sixteen who want the setting to do the work: a cypress avenue to arrive down, a vineyard and two olive groves inside the fence, a pool with a fountain, and a gym in the tower for whoever still runs on holiday.
Less suited to
Large numbers, or anyone who cannot manage stairs — there is no lift, and the best room in the house is at the top of a glass staircase.
Where they are
Twenty-five minutes apart, in opposite directions from Pisa airport. Neither is remote and neither is on a road.
By car
- Villa Lungomonte, Asciano Pisano25 min
- Villa Guardavalle, Crespina Lorenzana25 min
- Pisa International Airport10 min
- Florence70 min
What is identical in all five
Exclusive use, always: one party at a time, no other guests, no shared pool. Linen, towels and a final clean are in the price of either house, as is the welcome — somebody meets you, walks you round the building and tells you which door sticks.
A minimum stay applies to all five and is longer in high summer. None of them takes an instant booking: you send dates, you get a written quotation with every figure itemised, and nothing is charged until you accept it.
Before you choose
Two things decide this more often than the photographs do. The first is arithmetic: the number on a listing is the maximum, not the number a house is comfortable at, and bathrooms run out before bedrooms do — we wrote out how to read those figures in how many people a Tuscan villa actually sleeps.
The second is what you expect the house to provide once you are in it. There is no restaurant and no reception here: what exclusive use means, and what it costs you is the honest version, and what we can arrange sets out which of it we introduce rather than sell.
If the date is not fixed yet, the Tuscan year month by month is worth ten minutes before you commit to August.
Tell us the dates and the number
Say when, how many of you, and what the week is for. We reply personally, and we will say if a house is wrong for it.
What we can arrange