Second stay at this hotel with a 10 year gap, bit concerned that the town and hotel would not be as good as our last visit. No problem, every bit as good as the last visit with the hotel and town a bit bigger but still as friendly, relaxing, quiet and clean.

I was concerned with organgrinders comments (27/2/10) with regard to "extras" we found all the relevant juices came with the breakfast at no extra charge, however he/she is correct eggs etc are an extra.

The use of the Augustus beach is a real treat, however it is very expensive to eat and drink there.

If I was to be hyper critical the last time I remembered the food to be superb, this time I would rank it as very good and as good as any of the restaurants in Forte Dei Marmi.

We has a great time wouls recommend it as a location and venue.

We are about to embark upon our fourth stay at Hotel Hermitage. We continue to enjoy the town of Forte dei Marmi, the people, the beaches and the easy access via train to some lovely villages, particularly in the Cinque Terre.

The Hermitage is a superb hotel and every year we see many of the same guests returning. The key appears to be a beutiful setting, clean & spacious rooms and extremely friendly and welcoming staff.

Hotel Hermitage Forte dei Marmi Italy

This hotel is Four Star Select and we booked through Citalia. The hotel was very quiet and our room was superb with a 6’ comfortable bed with luxury bathroom and separate dressing area. We also had a very large balcony. The food in the evenings was superb and, although waiter service, was very quick and the staff could not do enough to please you. You could not have eaten better in a top London restaurant. However we had not realised how many “extras” there would be at breakfast time. When we asked for orange juice, which was not provided, this was brought to us each day. We did not find out until the end of the holiday that the charge was an extra 7 Euros per glass per person. At the buffet breakfast on the first morning we decided to have a portion of three fried eggs between us (this was the only option) but another guest warned us that there was an extra charge for eggs at 8 Euros per portion. These charges were not pointed out to us by the staff at the time.

We had checked with the hotel regarding tea-making facilities in the room and were assured that these were available. However this was not the case and we had to order a pot of tea at an extra charge of 5 Euros per pot. We often wanted tea in the morning and afternoon, at considerable extra cost.

There was a good shuttle bus service from the hotel to its sister hotel, the August Beach. Included in our fees was a superb “tent” which held two deckchairs, one chair, two lilos and a cupboard. If the fees for the tent had not been included it would have cost 60/100 Euros per day extra. The beach was spotlessly clean and clean towels were provided every day. Again we had problems with the cost of lunch. There were no facilities in the area other than the hotel and the cost of a small toasted ham and cheese sandwich each and a bottle of water between us was 21 Euros. Our final bill for extras at the end of the holiday was 362 Euros and this did not include any alcohol.

Forte dei Marmi has many designer shops but it is difficult to find shops for reasonably priced gifts to bring home. Our mistake was trying to combine a seaside holiday with visiting Florence, Sienna, Pisa etc. The trips were well organised but Forte dei Marmi is too much out on a limb to combine with visiting the Tuscan cities.

We travelled with Citalia and the trip was well organised. We were met at the airport and taken to the hotel in a luxury Mercedes car and transported back to Pisa in great style.

We had a week at the Hermitage. It's difficult to tell what it's going to be like fro the web site but we were pleasantly surprised. The hotel is on a big plot about 1km from the beaches back in the pine woods surrounded by pretty villas. The relaxed atmosphere and the pool, playground and safe area were perfect for our kids 8 and 5. The hotel were worried that our room would be too small when we booked as we were all staying in the same room. They needn't have worried it was very clean, spacious and only lacked a balcony but we were hardly there. Having rented a 4 person bike (!) we were on the beach of the sister hotel (you have to pay c €60 per day for the facilties there) which was great or we were out touring. The food was excellent both for kids and adults and the kids ate early and then played with the other kids there whilst we had a quiet and usually excellent dinner.
It's not a cheap place in August, €6000 for the week all in, but we left feeling that it was pretty much worth it.
If we go back to Tuscany we would definitely stay again.