Grand Hotel Continental - Siena

The Grand Hotel Continental in Siena occupies the former Palazzo Gori Pannilini, built by Pope Alexander VII and given to his niece Olimpia as a wedding present. Alexander VII was born Fabio Chigi, of the Chigi banking dynasty and a typical scion of the Tuscan mercantile aristocracy of the seventeenth century. Upon his enthronement in the Vatican, Chigi famously opposed the evils of nepotism but made notable exceptions in the cases of his own family and friends, many of whom he appointed to positions of great influence. Though a literary man he was not unopposed to luxury and even his tomb, by Bernini, is rather better appointed than most present-day five-star hotels. The Grand Hotel Continental is a byword in Baroque self-indulgence, lovingly restored by its owner Luigi de Simone Niquesa - a leading Italian hotelier and a Baroque potentate de nos jours - who has re-established the Grand Tour elegance for which the hotel was always renowned and enhanced it with exquisite pieces from his own collection. The Altana Suite is remarkable, on two floors at the top of a medieval tower overlooking the city and the Tuscan hills beyond. The hotel restaurant, Sapordivino, is excellent. The chef, Luca Ciaffarafà, serves an impeccable selection of Tuscan and Sienese classics. There is a strong wine list.

GRAND HOTEL CONTINENTAL

Via Banchi di Sopra, 85 – 53100 Siena (Italia)
Tel. +39 0577 56011 – Fax +39 0577 5601555
E-mail: reservation.ghc@royaldemeure.com

Cave Bianche Hotel - Favignana

A quiet and discreetly sybaritic citadel, the Cave Bianche is on Favignana, the largest of the Egadi islands off the westernmost tip of northern Sicily, near Trapani and Erice. The hotel is a bright and uplifting masterpiece of contemporary architecture set out within the protective walls of an ancient limestone quarry. This unique location puts the Cave Bianche very much at the forefront of the newly emerging upmarket eco hotels of southern Italy. There is a paradise within the walls - over 4000 square metres of it - with orange, lemon and fig trees, yuccas, oleanders, rock gardens and cool, deep pools. As one would expect in this part of Sicily the fish is superb. The chef here is the renowned Andrea Ventura, ably supported by Alberto Fiorino and Cristian Conigliaro. Their takes on mediterrananean seafood classics are zesty, uplifting and healthy.

The Cave Bianche
Favignana Island - Strada Comunale Fanfalo 91023
Manager: Mr Livio Gandolfo

Hotel Capo D'Orso Thalasso & Spa (Delphina Hotels) - Palau (OT)

Ever since Prince Karim Aga Khan IV acquired over 14 miles of Sardinian coastline in 1961, the Costa Smeralda has been a popular and very exclusive retreat for the rich and famous. Since the Aga Khan is that rare bird, a billionaire with an eco-friendly conscience, the coastline under his stewardship has always offered the visitor two very different experiences. On the one hand there are flotillas of diamond-studded mega-yachts replete with Russian playboys and their Susan Rosen-swimsuited handmaidens. On the other there are secluded woods, tranquil coves, bucolic backwaters, all reminiscent of a bygone classical arcadia, peopled by dryads and painted by Poussin. The secluded Hotel Capo d’Orso is an ideal base from which to contemplate both worlds.

Set in a private parkland of wild olive groves and juniper woods overlooking the Cala Capra Bay, the Capo d'Orso is cleverly designed to take advantage of and blend in with the natural features of the landscape. Its 84 rooms and suites, designed and furnished by local architects, are simple and stylish with pale-coloured walls, tiled floors and canopied beds. There is a choice of three restaurants: Il Paguro (the Hermit Crab) overlooks the sea and is bright and informal. Gli Olivastri (The Olives) is grand, romantically set among the ancient olive trees. L’Approdo (The Landing Stage) serves pizza cooked in traditional wood-fired ovens. Breakfast, accompanied by a harpist, is served on the terrace overlooking the sea. There is a Thalasso Centre and Spa with three multi-function seawater pools at different temperatures, 10 modern booths for Thalasso treatments, massages and beauty treatments, Turkish bath. There are boats available private marina for trips to the islands of the Archipelago, Costa Smeralda and Corse.

Local events: The Sardinia Cup regatta takes place in September. Polo matches are held seasonally between April and October at Gershan near Arzachena. There is a film festival in Tavolara and an annual vintage car rally.

Hotel Capo D'Orso Thallaso and SpaPalau - Località di Cala Capra - 07020
Manager: Mr Luca Cagliero

Grand Hotel Kalidria & Thalasso Spa - Castellaneta Marina (TA)

The Grand Hotel Kalidria is universally praised as an outstanding example of modern architecture and design, a purpose-built spa and health resort of the highest order. Despite its ultra-modern appearance it belongs firmly in the tradition of the great European resorts such as Baden-Baden, Nice and the Lido. For all the modern hi-tech, there is a decidedly nineteenth century exuberance in the scale of the building. A vast amphitheatre-shaped roof garden overlooks the Gulf of Taranto; the hotel is next to the expansive Stornara Nature Reserve, stocked with fragrant Aleppan pine trees; the Kalidria spa is set out over 3,500 square metres; there are heated indoor and outdoor freshwater and seawater swimming pools; guests enjoy thalasso-therapies, saunas, Turkish baths, massage, anti-stress remedies. And the restaurant performs the miracle – and it is a miracle – of serving healthy food that is both tempting and delicious. There are several acres of exquisite beach.

Nearby Castellaneta was the birthplace of Rudolph Valentino. The thirteenth century Santa Maria della Luce is a fine example of Angevine-Gothic architecture in the area, as is the bell tower in the Cathedral, the Chiesa di San Nicola.

Grand Hotel Kalidria
Castellaneta Marina - Località Principessa 74010
Manager : Mr. Vincenzo Gentile

Hotel la Floridiana - Capri

In ancient times the island of Capri was always the destination of choice for rich Romans. Since the days of Tiberius it had always been thought of a decidedly decadent backwater, a sun-drenched paradise uncorseted by bourgeois inhibition. This reputation persisted well into modern times, thanks largely to the writings of the antique dealer Jean-Jacques Bouchard. His diaries, published in the early seventeenth century, were a compelling mix of travelogue and confession, inspiring travellers from all over Europe to visit Capri or settle there.

La Floridiana is a small, modern Mediterranean-style hotel close to the centre of Capri town near Via Camerelle, the main shopping street. The walks down the hillside to the beach are spellbinding, as are the nearby Gardens of Augustus and the deserted Carthusian monastery, the Certosa di San Giacomo. The hotel is spaciously and generously designed, shaded by pine trees and looking south over the bay towards the Marina Piccola and the Faraglioni rocks. There are 36 individually designed rooms, some having balconies or terraces overlooking the sea or the gardens. The wine bar serves light meals and drinks throughout the day and offers a more substantial and sophisticated menu in the evenings.

Suitable music for the iPod might include Debussy's prélude Les collines d'Anacapri. There is much holiday reading to choose from including The Lotus Eater by Somerset Maugham, an unsettling but inspiring story about a Bostonian who is so captivated by the island that he gives up his job and abandons himself to a life of leisure. Norman Douglas's South Wind is a fictionalised account of the island and its inhabitants.

Local sights in Capri inlcude La Piazzetta, Marina Grande, Marina Piccola, Via Krupp, Tragara, Monte Solaro, Migliera, Punta Carena, the Fortini (Blockhouses), The Blue Grotto, Villa San Michele, The Charterhouse of St. Giacomo,the Villa Jovis, Villa Damecuta and La Casa Rossa

La Floridiana - Via Campo di Teste 16 - Capri80073
Manager: Mr Valerio Paone

La Tonnarella - Sorrento

The English writer Norman Douglas memorably praised the beauties of southern Italy. His descriptions, written in the mid-twentieth century, have not dated and the landscapes he loved are as ravishing today as they were then: "Descending through the loveliest groves of olive, pomegranate and orange to Meta, where the church of the Madonna del Lauro is said to occupy the site of a Temple of Diana, the road enters by a deep ravine the great plain of the headland, passing through every sort of delicious grove and garden at last into the city of Sorrento, which in all ages has been famous for its health, its beauty, and its wine."

La Tonnarella, though close to the centre of Sorrento, is utterly detached from the bustle of the city, perched high on a spur of rock overlooking the Bay of Naples. Named after the typical fishing nets used to catch the local tuna, it was originally built as the summer villa of a local family and has been sensitively converted into an attractive 24-room hotel retaining many of the old architectural details and exquisite ceramic tiles. The rooms are cool and elegant, some with spectacular sea views, balconies or terraces. There are suites with Jacuzzis or hydro-massage pools. All rooms are bright and comfortably decorated with antiques and hand-painted maiolica tiles on the walls and floors. There is an elevator descending into a narrow ravine filled with colourful, fragrant wild flowers - a pleasing Ian Fleming-like flourish - that takes you to La Tonnarella’s secluded private beach. The excellent restaurant has a panoramic terrace overlooking the bay to Mount Vesuvius. The chef uses local ingredients to great advantage, including seasonal lobster, shrimps, calamari, tomatoes, zucchini and lemons. The wines are expertly chosen, the terrace a perfect place to drink them and contemplate the words of Norman Douglas:

"Certainly there is something secret - how shall I say? - something sacred and withdrawn about Sorrento, so that you are not surprised to learn that of old, with its territory, all this piana was consecrated to Minerva, whose especial sanctuary was the great and famous temple set upon the promontory which bore her name, Minervae Promontorium, and which we today call the Punta della Gampanella, because Charles V erected there a Martello tower and hung a bell in it, which it was the business of the watchmen to strike with a great mallet, and thus to give warning of the approach of the Barbary pirates, who constantly raped all this coast."

La Tonnarella - Via Capo 31 - Sorrento 80067
Manager: Mr. Giuseppe Gargiulo.

Hotel D'Inghilterra - Royal Demeure - Rome

The Hotel d'Inghilterra is that rare thing, a shrine to fashionable cosmopolitan life firmly underpinned by an unimpeachable cultural and literary heritage. Its location on the via Bocca di Leone places it firmly in the high-end shopping quarter of Rome, between the Via dei Condotti and the Via Frattina. It is also very close to the Spanish Steps and the Casa di Keats e Shelley in the Piazza di Spagna. The rooms and suites are grand, some of the latter with private garden terraces. The hotel's restaurant, the Cafe Romano, is a favourite watering-hole of chic Romans and international literati.

Before the introduction of the railway, coaches and carriages from all over Europe approached Rome on the Via Flaminia and Via Cassia, entering the city at the Northern gate, the Porta del Popolo. In time the area around the Via Borgogna and the Piazza di Spagna became very popular with English travellers, young aristocrats on the Grand Tour together with poets and artists such as Keats, Shelley, Byron and Turner. At any given time there would have been a high concentration of English expatriates staying near the Spanish Steps and it is to these that the hotel owes its name - the 'Inghilterra'. This was in the high days of English cultural dominance in Rome, when there was a small but highly influential cluster of residents in addition to the visitors, among them social lionesses such as Lady Gwendoline Talbot-Borghese. Later, after radical urban expansion during the Pontificate of Pius IX, the hotel became a staging-post and home-from-home for a series of international literary luminaries including Franz Liszt, Hans Christian Andersen, Henry James, Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway.

The Inghilterra was consistently with popular with Italians too: it was Gabrielle d'Annunzio's favoured base in Rome; the patriot and freedom-fighter Vincenzo Gioberti harangued the Romans from one of the hotel windows in 1848, inciting them to fight for independence; Pius IX met Pedro V of Portugal here in July 1855, a unique instance of a Pope visiting a luxury hotel in Rome, commemorated on a plaque near the entrance. Another plaque records the visit of Henryk Sienkiewicz, author of the novel Quo Vadis, the basis of the MGM blockbuster film and as such an important, or at the very least unignorable, contribution to the culture of Rome. The hotel keeps a Golden Book which in recent years was signed by the Duke of Edinburgh in celebration of the Inghilterra's 150th anniversary. One of many fascinating footnotes the Inghilterra's history is that in its early days it was considered tremendously avant-garde and somewhat louche, even by Roman standards, on account of there being a fireplace in every room.

Note also the charming fountain, near the main entrance, from which the street takes its name. The Fontana Bocca di Leone (literally 'fountain of the lion's mouth') was built by in 1842 Antonio Sarti and is one of the more striking of the many small fountains, fontanelle, in Rome. The water cascades from the lion's mouth into a substantial sarcophagus, elaborately carved with Tritons, that would have been bought from a church and 'recycled' as a new and pleasing architectural feature serving a useful purpose.

HOTEL D'INGHILTERRAVia Bocca di Leone, 14 - 00187 Rome - Italy
Phone +39 06 699811 - Fax +39 06 69922243

Directions: From the A1 motorway take Roma North exit and continue along the ring road to junction 7 (Settebagni). Take Via Salaria and enter the city centre by Porta Pinciana. Continue to 14, Via Bocca di Leone. Garage parking is available for hotel guests (booking advisable) – contact the concierge: Tel. +39 06 699811 – email: concierge.hir@royaldemeure.com

Hotel Villa Cipriani - Asolo

The Hotel Villa Cipriani at Asolo was once the home of Robert Browning. Today it is one of the most exclusive hotels in northern Italy. Here is an appreciation of Asolo by the American art critic Charles de Kay, written towards the end of the nineteenth century. He would be gratified to learn that Asolo retains its airy charms as a country retreat to this day.

Asolo’s position on the fringing hills encourages the belief that at some period the peoples of the plains took refuge there against the incursions of pirates from the Adriatic - whence the name. It is still a refuge. Hither fly the Venetians who have become languid under the breath of the south wind; though the altitude is not great, great is the difference between the air of the Asolo and that of the lagoons. In ‘Asolando’ we get Browning’s affection for the place:

How many a year, my Asolo,
Since (one step just from sea to land)
I found you, loved yet feared you so.

The title of this poem, which is that of his book, is fancifully derived from the Italian verb asolare, ‘to take the air’, and as such fits very well a group of verses, written for the most part at Asolo, between the walks and drives over the hills whenever Browning escaped from the more stagnant atmosphere of Venice. At Asolo one may ‘asolate’ very pleasantly if there is any wind at all, and when that fails, choose some bit of solid shade and watch the little gray squirrels scampering straight up walls and tree trunks, or the crows sailing off into the depth of air. In Italian the noun asolo signifies a breath or gentle puff of wind. Were it not that places are rarely if ever named after such a fashion, one might fancy that the inhabitants of the plain called the hill by that name because, when all was heavy with heat below, a breeze was to be had up here.

VILLA CIPRIANI
Via Canova 298, Asolo 31011, Italy.
Telephone +39 0423 523411
Fax +39 0423 952095
Email: reservations@villaciprianiasolo.com
www.villaciprianiasolo.com

The Hotel Villa Cipriani is set in extensive grounds and has 31 individually designed rooms. Its restaurant, “Cipriani”, is widely known and has an excellent wine list. The hotel has a 120 sq metre Wellnesspace spa and three meeting rooms. Asolo is an ideal base from which to explore the Veneto.

Giovanni Sardi, Nicolo Spada and the Grand Hotel Excelsior

Robin Saikia assesses the enduring legacy of a Venetian entrepreneur and his imaginative architect.

Overlooking the Adriatic Sea on the Venice Lido, the Excelsior was opened in 1908 and is without doubt one of the most glamorous hotels in the world. A jubilantly eclectic riot of cupolas, towers, terraces and battlements, it is a permanent symbol of unrepentant luxury and cosmopolitan joie-de-vivre. Its favoured position – minutes to Venice by motorboat but seemingly a world away from the touristic hurly-burly of the Piazza San Marco – has made it for over a hundred years the favoured retreat of international high society. Notable guests have included Winston Churchill, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Marlene Dietrich, Barbara Hutton, John Steinbeck, Ingrid Bergman and the Aga Khan.

The Excelsior was the brainchild of the Venetian entrepreneur Nicolo Spada, head of the CIGA hotel consortium and the driving force behind the development of Lido as an upmarket international resort at the beginning of the twentieth century. Later the hotel continued to flourish thanks to another dynamic Venetian, the politican and businessman Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata, who chose it as the venue for the first Venice Film Festival, held in 1932. Today, the heritage is kept alive by Leone Jannuzzi, the General Manager and very much the spiritual and aesthetic heir of Spada and Volpi. But the unique style of the building is attributable to the remarkable collaboration between the two men who worked on the project at the outset, the architect Giovanni Sardi and his patron, Nicolo Spada.

First-time visitors to the Excelsior – both before and after the recent and spectacular refurbishment – are always struck by the exuberant sense of space, the sheer scale of the building inside and out, a grandeur of scale as much in evidence in the suites as in the public spaces. Spada had chosen as his architect a fellow Venetian, Giovanni Sardi, who had made his name with the unimpeachable if slightly unambitious neo-Gothic Bauer-Grünwald Hotel on the Grand Canal. The two men enjoyed a close working relationship and for both of them the Excelsior project turned out to be that rare thing, an ideal partnership between client and architect, uninhibited by questions of cost (the budget was seemingly unlimited) and stimulated by compatible objectives. Spada wanted the building to be something rather more than a straightforward, typically Venetian, Gothic or Classical pastiche; Sardi wanted to break free from the constraints that had been necessarily imposed on him in the Bauer-Grünwald project, where the building had had to fit in with its revered neighbours on the Grand Canal. The finished hotel on Lido, they agreed, should be unmistakably Venetian in feel, yet sufficiently cosmopolitan to please its international clientele. It should have all the familiar components of luxury that guests would have enjoyed in the hotels of Cairo, Paris, Baden-Baden and Monte Carlo, but there should also be an extra frisson, an element of surprise that would make the Excelsior an overnight name and draw in the international set. Finally, in a departure from the somewhat stuffy constraints of the nineteenth century, the hotel should have an element of fun and uplift, a move away from the somewhat forbidding, if elegant, feel of the great European spas and sanatoria. There should, for example, be a marked contrast to the Classical elegance of the Hotel des Bains, built in 1900 by Sardi’s respected fellow architect Francesco Marsich. The resulting extravaganza, a resounding success for both Spada and Sardi, was completed in a little under 18 months and opened in July 1908 with a memorable party attended by over 3000 guests.

Today the Excelsior has a comprehensive range of amenities including a swimming pool, gym, tennis courts and water-sports. The rooms, recently redecorated and refurbished, are spacious and elegant but retain the ravishing Iberian-Moorish style of the hotel’s hey-day, with sumptuous furnishings and intricate woodwork. All rooms have either balconies or terraces and overlook the sea, gardens or the lagoon. The Excelsior has several exceptional places to eat. The Tropicana Restaurant and Terrace is elegant, sophisticated; the menu comprises Italian and International cuisine with the accent on fish and sea food. This is an elegant place to dine by candlelight, overlooking the sea. The informal Taverna Restaurant, under shady vines, serves breakfast and light lunches directly on the beach.