Belmonte Vacanze, the truly eco-friendly agriturismo in Tuscany

Since we opened our organic agriturismo Belmonte Vacanze in 2003, we have felt responsible for our environment.

We made a promise to nature and decided that we would give back everything beautiful that we receive from this unique landscape. We do this by trying to manage our farm using ecological and sustainable methods.

We are very lucky to have grown up in a beautiful ecosystem and that is why we feel like the guardians and protectors of our land, which is so wonderful but at the same time so vulnerable and delicate.

For example, we heat the hot water in the holiday apartments with solar energy

Our first solar panel system dates back to 2010, which we installed on the roofs of the holiday apartments with powerful solar collectors. Since then, our guests have showered in an environmentally friendly way and have a more sustainable vacation in Tuscany.

Enjoy your shower with warm water heated by renewable solar energy

The water in our agriturismo in Tuscany also comes from our own source.

We consider ourselves lucky that Mother Nature gave us this additional gift: our own water source on the land.

We therefore decided to use the spring in addition to the public water supply for the 29 apartments on our organic farm in Tuscany.

So we invested heavily and built an osmosis system to filter the water from the source and have had our own water supply system ever since.

This decision proved to be very useful because in the following 20 years we never lacked water. This is a real blessing, because in the Tuscan summer months it unfortunately happens that some holiday resorts do not have water for a few hours or even days due to the persistent dryness and lack of rain.

Thanks to our own spring, we always have enough water reserves to supply our holiday apartments with drinking water.

Our EU organic certification

In 2016 our organic farm was certified according to the EU organic guidelines. Since then, we have adhered to a strict set of rules, which states, for example, that we are not allowed to use synthetic pesticides or fertilizers. As part of this EU certification, our farm is inspected annually.

Our farm therefore offers a healthy ecosystem for us and our guests, but also for the surrounding plants and animals.

Our olive plantation with 2200 olive trees is also managed according to organic farming guidelines and therefore our olive oil is also certified organic.

Find out more about our organic olive oil here.

The rainwater storage tanks for irrigation of the property

Thanks to our own water reservoirs, we do not use public water, which has become very precious due to the recurring periods of drought (it is a problem that we have had to live with for years and that unfortunately seems to be getting worse every year). Instead, we use stored rainwater and our spring water. This water then goes into our irrigation system and used to water the plants and lawn in our garden.

We promote the use of electric cars.

In 2015, we were selected by the car manufacturer Tesla to act as a destination charge, i.e. as a charging station for electric vehicles, in our region.

That’s why we have set up a charging station for electric vehicles and offer travellers with a Tesla or other electric cars, the opportunity to charge their car with us. We provide three 22 kW chargers for this purpose.

Find out more about our organic farm with charging stations for electric vehicles here.

We produce solar power.

Our latest investment of 2023 was our 100 kW photovoltaic system, which allows us to cover the energy needs of our entire farm on sunny days. Our farm is powered exclusively by electricity, as we completely avoid using methane gas and liquid gas.

We also installed powerful batteries that store the energy of sunny days for the night and cloudy days.

We recycle waste

We have been actively recycling waste since 2010.

This important measure is only possible if our guests also take part and throw the waste into the various collection containers in the holiday apartments and then take these containers to our waste collection points.

Nature and our farm thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your commitment.

However, our investments in sustainability and ecological working methods are not yet complete and will continue every year, as the problem of drought is becoming more and more of a major burden.

Our olive trees are increasingly suffering from a lack of water. That’s why we’re working on a system to reuse wastewater from the apartments to water the trees.

In 2021, thanks to our sustainability efforts, we caught the attention of the German television station ARD, which filmed the following report about our farm.