en
it
My name is John Voigtmann, and I am the owner and manager of La Bandita Townhouse as well as its sister property La Bandita Countryhouse, located nearby in the countryside surrounding Pienza.
Thirteen years ago, I gave up my job in New York chasing rock stars around the world with Sony music, and moved to Tuscany with a crazy idea to open a small country hotel. It’s been an amazing experience, and I’ve never looked back.
We are not a part of a global hotel group with an expansion plan. I still don’t know anything about real hotels. It’s just that after 6 years of running La Bandita as a countryside getaway for laidback luxury, I just wanted to share a little bit of the sweetness of living in Pienza, and to offer travelers a refuge of simple, friendly and relaxed hospitality, and a chance to get away from the box-ticking tourists racing through the sites.
This is a place to observe tourists, rather than be one, to see them swell in and then out each day, while from the window of your room, you gaze down the medieval alleys, catch the distant sound of an Italian song playing, smell the pasta sauce being readied for lunch. Across the way, an old lady smiles and waves as she waters her meticulously kept window box. At night, you’ll stroll home from dinner, down a cobblestone lane, passing a noisy discussion between families who have pulled wood chairs out into the street on a warm summer evening.
Stay a few nights, and they will wave as you pass. Maybe you will consider giving it all up too…