Madonna delle Grazie

The room was adequete, with a nice panoramic view of the Chiana Valley. The bed was hard, and the pillows were substandard. The bathroom had towels that were not adequete. The dinner was not complete, with a very light meat dish and essentially no desert-it was prix fix, not choices here. The wine was passable. The walls were paper thin and you could hear EVERYTHING. The coffee in the morning and the stale cookies were an embarrassment to Italian culture and cuisine. (undrinkable! and well you get the idea...)This is clearly not a Karen Brown standard reccomendation. I would suggest that the powers that be at Karen Brown review this selection. I have been a Karen Brown devotee for more than 10 years and have found that with one other exception, traveling 2 time a year to Europe, that we never lose with a Karen Brown recommendation. This one was a stinker...

FROM THE PROPERTY Dear Karen, I’m sorry for the delay, but we’ve been having problems on ADSL line since end of November. Now we worked it out, loosing some e-mails, because of all this time. We are now answering with sadness to client’s complaints: in all these 17 years we have learnt that it is not possible to satisfy every single person. We feel that he’s more an hotel client, rather than agriturismo client: the mattress is a little bit hard due to orthopeadic plankings ( guaranteed ), that help sleeping well, keeping a sort of hardness underneath the body while sleeping. The pillow cannot be hard.. it is foam rubber padded and guaranteed also. We offer a fixed meal to farmhouse guests (as every farmhouse does), to guarantee a softer price of the holiday but if they want, they can eat whatever, by choosing an a la carte menu. For food complaint we feel so offended: we have been in GUIDA MICHELIN since 2002. It is an international publishing. For selecting restaurants they are used to come secretly, not showing or telling who you are, then they choose the presence in their guide by judging the taste and quality of food. They just told us we were in, so how can food be criticise? Also what we serve and cook is really Organic certified. For the wine we have a DOC which is Certified Controlled Origin and everyone that comes says how nice and tasty it is and praises it! Every meal is made up of Starter, first course, second couse, vegetables and dessert. We are sorry that client has involved you, not communicating us any disappointment, (we could have discussed about problems if they told us) but I’m sure you can understand our position. We do and we will keep on doing always our best as you never passed us these kind of e-mails, a ’stinker’ as client says. In the meanwhile we wish you a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Thank you very much. Kindest regards, Maria Teresa and Nannotti family

The Nanotti family was very friendly and the site was convenient to many cities and the autostrada, although the one kilometer to Citta delle Pieve was on the road--hot and steep. We did like the town. The pool was nice, as was the view but the apartment was cramped, hot and musty. They tried to suggest ways to alleviate the heat and gave us new sheets for one bed but I think they just had not aired the place out or replaced comforters, etc. The other problem was the two year old dog--and we LOVE dogs but he barked incessantly at night--and no one did anything to stop him (we tried). The meal we had was a la carte and good but very expensive (over $300 for five)--surprised me because we had signed up for a pris fixe! We are used to traveling modestly and are not afraid of stiff pillows, creaky beds, heat and bugs but this was not ’romantic’, I’m afraid. I hesitate to criticize but I’m not sure Madonna belongs in Karen Brown--at least not the way it is described.