Hotel Ville sull'Arno

A five-star villa hotel on the Arno east of Florence's centre, once an Alighieri country house, with 45 rooms, a spa, a garden pool and free bicycles into town.

Hotel Ville sull’Arno is on the riverbank in Bellariva, a residential district east of Florence’s historic centre. In the 15th century it was a country residence of the Alighieri family. In the 19th it became a workshop for the Macchiaioli, the Tuscan painters who gathered here to paint and argue about art and politics.

The 45 rooms and suites, recently renovated, are split between the historic Villa, the art-filled Loggia, contemporary rooms that face the river and Junior Suites themed on the Macchiaioli. Villa rooms use Florentine marble, wood inlay and wrought iron made by a blacksmith from Pistoia. Pastel walls and fabrics borrow their colours from the river, and the river-facing rooms look out between the olive trees on the terrace.

Ristorante Flora e Fauno, under chef Kevin Mazzolin, reworks old Florentine recipes: crispy tomato soup, fresh pasta and Florentine steak cooked over charcoal. Dante’s Bar, an English-style room with late-1800s London furniture, looks over the garden pool for aperitivo hour.

The spa, Il Segreto della Villa, has a 30°C pool with water jets, a mosaic biosauna, a steam room and a cherry-wood hot tub, and every room booking includes an hour a day there. The outdoor pool with hydromassage opens from May to September. The hotel also holds an ESG certification that assesses its social and environmental impact, and since 2023 it has taken part in a regional network that employs people with intellectual disabilities in hospitality.

The address is the trade-off. The Ponte Vecchio and the Uffizi are a walk along the river rather than round the corner, but bicycles are free and a free shuttle runs to the centre on a schedule.

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