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Collegio alla Querce
Collegio alla Querce, Auberge Resorts Collection — a luxury hotel above Florence where a 19th-century hilltop college becomes the most considered stay in the city.
Collegio alla Querce, Auberge Resorts Collection — a luxury hotel above Florence where a 19th-century hilltop college becomes the most considered stay in the city.
Collegio alla Querce is a luxury hotel in Florence unlike anything in the city center. Set on a secluded hilltop above the rooftops, the property occupies a 19th-century boarding school founded by the Barnabite Fathers in 1868 — and the restoration kept everything worth keeping. Original frescoes, coffered wood ceilings, and a Baroque garden that looks directly at the Duomo. Auberge Resorts Collection converted the classrooms into 83 rooms and suites with private wine cellars, marble tubs, and tall windows framing either the gardens or the city below. The Aelia spa, two restaurants, and Bar Bertelli — the former principal's office, now a cocktail and cigar lounge — mean there is rarely a reason to leave. When there is, a complimentary shuttle reaches central Florence in fifteen minutes.
The Details
What makes it Kobu
Most luxury hotels in Florence are built around a palazzo or a view. Collegio alla Querce is built around a history. The original chapel is now a fitness room. The headmaster's office is a bar. Classrooms became suites with stone-lined bathrooms and private wine cellars. What Auberge Resorts understood — and what makes this one of the most interesting hotels in Tuscany — is that the building's past is the amenity. Renaissance architecture, Barnabite institutional detail, and considered modern luxury inside the same walls, without any of it requiring explanation.
The best decision Auberge made with this property was keeping it off the centro storico. From the tiered gardens of this hilltop Florence hotel, the Duomo sits exactly where it should — visible, unhurried, at the right remove. The complimentary shuttle reaches the city in fifteen minutes, but the pool, the gardens, and the particular quiet of a hillside property above an active city make returning feel like the better part of the day. It is the kind of luxury hotel in Florence that people extend their stay in, often without planning to.
Directions
Amerigo Vespucci International Airport (FLR)
15 min by car
The Destination
Italy
Embrace la dolce vita and immerse yourself in Italy’s historic piazzas and palazzi, breath-taking vineyards and coastline, and unparalleled mouth-watering cuisine. Revel in the romance of Italy by drifting down the storied canals of Venice, climbing the coastal trails of the Cinque Terre, or unwinding poolside in Capri.
Photography
Commissioned photography for luxury hospitality and properties.
Selected work
