Milan Travel Guide
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One Month In, How's the Armani Hotel Milan Faring?
We can hardly believe it ourselves, but the Armani Milan is over the one month mark, as it finally made its debut back on November 10. It may still be piping hot and fresh out of the hotel-baking oven, but it's time to start reading what people are saying about it.
One thing is important to remember, however, and that's that Italy doesn't have it all together on the social media/online sharing front. Case in point: the place has been booked up, but both Hotels.com, Expedia, Venere, etc have not a single review of it (barring this nice photo gallery).
Thus, for now we turn to Tripadvisor:
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A November Opening Means It's Crunch Time at the Armani Hotel Milan
In just over two weeks, the world will have a second Armani Hotel to drool over. At least, that's the hope. After delaying and missing the hubbub of Milan Fashion Week earlier this season, the Armani Hotel Milan has posted an official opening date to their website: November 10.
Okay, so actually we've known this for a little bit, but the magic of it is that the hotel seems to be sticking to the day. When we snooped around the property earlier this year, we noted that the place looked very much finished from the outside, but that filling out the 96 rooms—boasting the largest hotel room sizes in the whole city—is likely the cause of the autumn date.
Despite the fact that it's totally crunch time at the Armani Milan, they are not yet taking reservations. That, however, doesn't mean you can't add it to your holiday wish list.
[Photo: HotelChatter]
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The Armani Hotel Won't Make It in Time for Milan Fashion Week
Have you ever heard the famous Italian phrase mantra "Fare una bella figura?" It translates to something like "to make a fine figure," but the gist is to always put forward a physical appearance that makes you look good. Usually this involves dressing well and behaving appropriately, but for this moment we're going to apply it to the under-construction Armani Hotel Milan.
We checked in on the construction ourselves pretty recently, but it seems as though work is progressing nicely as the hotel has set down an official opening date of November 10, 2011. So it will make it yet this year!
So how is the Armani Milan putting its best foot forward? By waiting until well after all the Fashion Weeks have finished. This way, the property and all its opening kinks aren't immediately tested and exposed to who would likely be A-list fashion guests, had the hotel pressured itself into opening for the pomp of a Fashion Week debut in late September. Whew. Instead it will enjoy a leisurely month or so before holiday shopping crowds really stretch its legs.
[Photo: HotelChatter]
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So, How's The Construction of the Armani Hotel Milan Coming Along?
Well, we're more than halfway through 2011 already, the year that Armani Hotel Milan swore it'd be finished and ready, and yet we've got no set opening date yet. Regardless, we swung by the construction ourselves while last in Italy, and it's really coming along.
The Armani Hotel Milan will not be like the original Armani Hotel, in the Burj Dubai building in the United Arab Emirates. It's to be more of an elite boutique hotel, built atop the Armani flagship on Via Manzoni. Sleep in one of the 96 rooms here—which they boast as having the largest room size in Milan—and only a few floors down, you'll be able to shop the Armani/Dolci, Armani/Fiori and Armani/Casa shops (sweets, flowers and home, respectively), in addition to the clothing. Plus, round the corner there's the Armani/Nobu restaurant for fully blowing out your expense account.
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Bring It On: The Grand Hotel et de Milan Versus the Armani Hotel
The Grand Hotel at left, Armani at right
Hmm, we haven't heard anything from the under-construction Armani Hotel Milan lately, despite the fact that the first hotel in the fashionable chain—Armani Hotel Dubai—has been open for a solid 11 months now. So while we were in Milan ourselves recently, we made it a point to do some snooping about Armani's Via Manzoni complex, the top of which will soon become the second Armani Hotel.
From the moment we stepped out of the Montenapoleone subway station, we noticed something right away: the Grand Hotel et de Milan sits directly across the street—nay, the small pedestrian thru-way—from the coming Armani Hotel. Turf war, commence!
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The Crowne Plaza Milan's Fugly Carpeting Maybe Isn't So Fugly
What's a business hotel in a fashion city to do? First off, don't be too offensive in design to either party; that means no super modern furniture or cutting-edge technology to annoy the regular business travelers, and no boring color schemes and generic artwork to annoy the fashion folk. We actually think the Crowne Plaza Milan does a great job in this regard, and one unexpected area where this is quite apparent is the carpet.
We're going to say something super positive right here: The Crowne Plaza Milan's carpeting doesn't deserve to be in the Facebook Fugly Hotel Carpeting Group, and as far as we know, it's not been added...yet. We actually like it, as we're a mix of business and fashion folk. The brown and beige are neutral colors and althoug the swirly pattern is a super energetic one, we're not dizzy nor are we revolted by the style.
So whaddaya think? Should this carpet be relegated to the Fugly Hotel Carpet Group, or would it look better in your bedroom? Let us know in the comments!
[Photo: HotelChatter]
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Slurping Spaghetti and Swigging Cocktails at the Bulgari Hotel Milan
Milan Fashion Week has only just drawn to a close (for now), and the well-heeled flock are up to Paris for another round of runway shows, leaving the halls of the Bulgari Hotel Milan a bit quieter and the room rates a big less expensive, even if they do average $750 per night. When we stopped by recently, it was our final evening in Milan as well, and although we weren't into the idea of paying more than airfare for a single night here, we did grab a light dinner and drinks.
The Bulgari has a reputation. It's snobby, conservative, and mostly perfect for those on generous expense accounts. This is all true, but it also makes a pretty great 15 Euro bowl of spaghetti.
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Inside the Public Spaces and Other Rooms of Milan's Maison Moschino
The lobby
Yesterday we took you on a video tour inside our standard, "Sweets"-themed room at Milan, Italy's Maison Moschino. We had many, many thoughts on the new-ish hotel, which is soon turning one year old, and not all of them were are positive as we hoped. We really believed in the hotel, as we love the Moschino brand and the whimsy we wanted from such a high design property, however the hotel is better suited as a showplace, like a gallery of interior design.
That said, the rooms are little functional and small in themselves. Don't plan on getting work done, or entertaining, or eating; there's simply not the type of furniture for that. And since during our visit to the hotel, which occurred right between the men's and women's fashion weeks in Milan, we spotted hardly a single other guest, it may be said that the Moschino isn't becoming a favorite very quickly. On the other hand, the Milanese love a good scene and would probably do well dining at the hotel's Clandestino.Milan restaurant or at the lobby bar, but those too were empty. What was going on? We thought the Moschino was supposed to be the coolest new hotel in town. Well, it is and it isn't.
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Inside a Standard Room at Milan's Maison Moschino
You'll have to pardon the temporary brevity of this, but we just stepped off a delayed flight from Milan back to New York, but still quite wanted to share the answer to yesterday's big Guess the Hotel mystery. Of course you all are good, and guess that the dessert-themed chandelier in inside the Maison Moschino, a true fashion hotel that open less than a year ago in a renovated train station.
We recently stayed here, for one night only, complete on our own and scored the Design Hotels Advance Purchase rate of 184 Euro per night, which, after taxes and fees are figured in, totaled $202 Euro. It's a pretty great rate, considering we've seen this hotel listing for 300+ Euros for just our standard room, and we jumped at the lower rate. Sadly the Maison Moschino has one of the worst hotel WiFi rates (1 Euro per hour = 24 Euros per day, for one device) and too-fancy-for-their-own-good breakfasts that start at 16 Euro per person.
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The Crowne Plaza Milan Shares Its Street Smarts
You're in a foreign city and you've spent at least half the day traveling and you just want to sit down inside your hotel room and maybe flip open your laptop and update your Facebook status. But then...something catches your eye. It's a little sign that notes good safety precautions inside the hotel, like keeping valuables in the safe and always checking the peephole before opening your room door. But wait! It continues on to advise on proper safety outside the hotel—street smarts, if you will.
The sign above is such, and we discovered it on the desk of our room recently. Why the Crowne Plaza Milan? Well, it's a future feature in our Adventures in Blind Booking series, and it's centrally located...right in the vicinity of Milan's Stazione Centrale. Aka the domain of clueless tourists, pickpockets, rushing businessmen and other transients. Not the best place to be careless with your belongings, right? Right.
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Where Madonna and George Clooney Slept in Milan
If you're in Milan to for Fashion Week and would rather have a run-in with a celeb, visit the Hotel Principe di Savoia. Not only did we name it the No. 1 Milan Fashion Week hotel awhile back, but it is the home away from home for powerhouse celebs when they hang out in the northern Italian city.
Madge checked in with 40 members of her staff there during her tour. And when David was bending it like Beckham for the AC Milan soccer team, he lived at the hotel. Even George Clooney has been a guest.
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The Big Winner of Milan Fashion Week Was the Bulgari Hotel
Milan Fashion Week ended late last night with the big presentation of Giorgio Armani's Spring/Summer 2011 fashions, and the sentiments from editors all around were positive on the Italian collections. Milan was a winner! And the hotel that shined brightest amidst all the optimism was the Bulgari Hotel, not the Principe di Savoia or Maison Moschino as we would have expected.
No, the Bulgari stood out at first for a livelier cocktails scene, serving as unofficial headquarters for the buyers from Net-A-Porter and the top editors from publications like InStyle and French Vogue. Secondly, and most importantly, the Bulgari emerged as one of the hottest party spots during Milan Fashion Week, when British designer Matthew Williamson took over the hotel's garden to launch his capsule collection of bags for the Bulgari luxury brand. The Bulgaris themselves stopped by, as did Rachel Bilson and Rita Wilson plus a slew of the usual fashion folk.
Now that Milan is over for the fashion season, the room rates have dropped to more manageable levels. So, if you weren't on the guest list for the big party, you can still experience the garden. Room rates for the Bulgari Milan begin at $450 per night.
[Photo: Bulgari Hotel/Facebook]
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