Italy Travel Guide
Tags: Parma Hotels / Italy Hotels / Europe Hotels / Hotel Deals / → All Tags
More Italian Bang For Your Buck in Parma
The dismal state of the dollar required drastic budget cuts on a recent trip to Italy, so despite the adage “All roads lead to Rome” (been there, done it, love it), we took a detour, and instead, headed to Parma.
Parma may lack the glitz (and crowds) of the Italian capital, but it still oozes with all the charm that makes Italy one of the world’s most romantic destinations – cathedrals, art galleries, castles, culture, shopping, and killer wine and cuisine.
Since Parma is a fairly affordable destination, it opens up more opportunities for accommodations, than let’s say Rome, Florence or Venice.
Big decision: stay at a swanky five star for five nights or stretch the not-so-almighty buck for a solid one-week stay? The thought of an extended vaca won out, and online, rooms hovered right around a budget-friendly $100 per night rate at Hotel Maria Luigia (booked plenty in advance). The hotel touted four star status, and sì, it delivered.
Tags: Hotel Packages / Rome Hotels / → All Tags
Get Your 'Angels and Demons' Experience at Westin Excelsior Rome
Ah, we knew it: in all the hype surrounding Twilight (and, somewhat alarmingly, still surrounding Twilight), you totes forgot that the Angels and Demons movie was coming out, didn't you? Yeah, 'member that whole thing? That little book called Da Vinci Code that swept the naysh between the Harry Potter and Twilight crazes? Yes, well, Angels and Demons is the sequel — and now the movie's coming out on May 15th.
Westin has been named the official hotel partner for the movie, and Dan Brown fanboys and girls can get all sorts of into it with a whole Angels and Demons immersion experience in Rome at the Westin Excelsior. If you book the package, you get a night in a double room, an official Angels & Demons private or group tour, 20% off at the hotel's restaurant and bars and a 20% discount on the Angels & Demons "theme menu" at the Doney restaurant.
What is this "official tour" we speak of, you ask? 'Tis this: if you book the Group Tour, you get a 4 hour Rome excursion with other people (24 max), which includes a Castel Sant'Angelo Entrance Ticket, a map of the Illuminati, a coffee break, and transporation in air-conditioned bus (yeah, Rome in the summer? Not so cool). Opting for the private tour will get you an upgrade to a GrandLuxe room if it's available, and a 4-hour private excursion including a pickup and drop-off at the hotel in an air-conditioned car.
The private tour starts at €433 (around $592) and the group tour will run you €326 ($446) per night. Book here.
Tags: Cubicle Dreamin' / Rome Hotels / Leading Hotels of the World / → All Tags
When In Rome, Go All Out With Italian Sweets
Cubicle Dreamin' is a feature in which we ask the hotel mavens to take some time out of their busy work day, surf the Internet, and tell us what hotel they wish they could beam themselves to right that very second--all on the slave driving companies dime, of course. Oh, like these people aren't surfing aimlessly anyway--at least now their purposeless clicking will be cobbled together into useful hotel stories--we hope. Have a destination hotel you are just dying to leave your cube for? Send the story our way.
In this episode, Hotel Maven Amanda K visits Rome...in her mind. Enjoy.
There are two reasons I want to stay in the Hotel Lord Byron in Rome, and they're both from the one paragraph of a recent Age review:
Life in the hotel centres around the library and lounge, a beautifully furnished space full of interesting, well-thumbed hardcover books, flowers, bowls of Italian sweets and fabulous framed family photos.
I'm sold by the time I know about the piles of books and the Italian sweets, but apparently there is plenty more in this grand hotel to tempt me. It's elegant, but not too stuffy; glamorous, but not arrogant. It's a five-star place that belongs to the Leading Small Hotels of the World collection, and I like the fact that it's small and tucked into a quiet (but still central) corner of Rome.
I could settle on a Junior Suite at €560 ($730) a night (the full version of the Suite is €735 ($960) a night) and I'd definitely need a booking in the Sapori del Lord Byron restaurant – apparently it's got a French chef but the food is definitely Italian-style and delicious. And I'd need to finish my evening at the hotel's Il Salotto wine bar because they say the pianist there can play anything you request. But hey, I was already satisfied just with the books and the sweets.
Tags: Hotel Amenities / Hotel Deals / Italy Hotels / → All Tags
Score One (Yes, Only One) Free Amenity at Palazzo Sasso
On the Amalfi Coast in Italy, the small five-star Palazzo Sasso in Ravello has got a tricky deal on right now. If you book three or more nights, in King Sea View room (or better), you get to pick a "bonus amenity" for free.
The tricky bit is trying to get the best deal. There are ten different amenities to choose from, ranging from fresh fruit and flowers on arrival (sounds like not a great deal to us) to one free spa treatment. Or you could choose free parking during your stay, mini bar usage for free (we presume there are some limitations), as many in room movies as you can watch or a 20% discount on any lunch you eat there.
So, if you're likely to eat enormous lunches, that last bonus might be the best, or if you anticipate bad weather and three days of watching movies, pick that. One amenity we're not going to be happy about picking: free internet access for the entire stay. Because that should really be free already.
Room rates range from €198 ($260) a night right up to €2,200 ($2,900), but always include a buffet breakfast. Palazzo Sasso has won a heap of awards (including for its food) and it's in a gorgeous location. The choose-your-free-amenity deal goes from June through to October 15.
Tags: Hotel Renovations / Luxury Hotels / Hotel Openings / → All Tags
Villa Feltrinelli is Looking Hot Again (If You Have a Grand to Spare)
To a hotel geek, one of the most heartbreaking sights in the world is a once-spectactular hotel that has let itself go. After all, we're sure the Waldorf-Astoria looked pretty hot back in the day, but now Old Lady Waldorf could use a little work. If you're not prepared to continually update your gaff, then expect it to start looking a bit weathered as the time passes.
So it's good to hear of one place that does the whole aging-gracefully thing right. Villa Feltrinelli, the super, super-luxe retreat on the edge of Lake Garda, shuts up shop every year from October to April to tart itself up in the intervening months. This should mean, says the hotel, that everything's as good as new – and we're not going to quibble with that.
Tags: Killer View / Italy Hotels / → All Tags
Fontanella's View Seems to Shine Like We've Had Too Much Wine
We are suckers for a room with a killer view. We find that we are even more likely to forgive some minor hotel inconveniences if we can stare out the window at something pretty--yeah we are that shallow. Let's help out our fellow hotel mavens by uploading rooms with killer views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. We will feature our favorites in this space from time to time. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number of the hot view.
If we were going to do our own live-version of Eat, Pray, Love where we traveled to Italy for a good long time, we would be going here. And we would be waking up to this. And we would be eating lots of Italian food and devouring views like this and we would be whole again — so whole that we could write a whole book about it. Probably.
This is the scene out the window of a hotel room at L'Hotel Fontanella, located in Molveno, Italy. This is Lake Molveno and the Dolomite mountains in the very early morning, snapped by GothPhil.
The website has very little English on it, but from what we gather, the hotel has 27 rooms with great views and rates start at 46 Euro. If your translation skills are good, hit up the site yourself for more info.
[Photo: GothPhil]
Tags: Hotel Openings / Rocce Forte Hotels / Italy Hotels / → All Tags
Verdura Resort Brings a Bit of Swank to Sicily
Ready to open late next month, the Verdura Resort in Sicily will be the first full-blown resort to belong to the Rocce Forte collection, although it's the lucky (?) thirteenth property to be part of the group.
Verdura's got 200 rooms all with ocean views, along with two of its very own golf courses, and the owners are hoping that the launch of this resort will set Sicily up as "the next" luxury destination. Or perhaps it'll just become a hotel that wealthy retired Mafioso dudes head to?
Whoever the guests may be, they'll be enjoying a lot more than the views: along with the golf courses, there's also a thalassotherapy spa, yoga center and six four restaurants to choose from. Access to the Verdura Resort will be best via Palermo Airport, a one-hour drive away. Rooms during their opening month are going for rates starting at €500 ($650) for the most basic room, and it looks like they still have availability for their planned opening night of May 29.
Tags: Hotel Packages / Italy Hotels / Starwood Hotels / → All Tags
Vacation and Vino at the Porto Cervo Wine Festival
Don’t know where Costa Smeralda is? Neither did we...till we looked it up on Google Maps. Turns out this erstwhile jetsetter haven turned-sun-bleached has been is in Sardinia, that unspoiled jewel of Mediterranean leisure. But this continental cougar is about to get her claws back.
The Porto Cervo Wine Festival in Costa Smeralda is taking place Friday-Sunday, April 24-26, this year, and is being presented by the family of Starwood Hotels & Resorts in Costa Smeralda. The five-star Sheraton Cervo Hotel will be serving as the main venue, and is offering a deal starting at 1197 euros for a double room.
Tags: Fashion Week Hotels / Fashion Hotels / Milan Hotels / Lists / → All Tags
Trying On Milan's Top 3 Fashion Week Hotels
With one more day to show the world what exactly they'll be wearing next year, the fashion set is packing up and checking out of their Milan hotels in preparation to return to Paris for the final ready-to-wear shows. After this week, the hotel bars of Milan will return to the casual crowds, and echoes of heels in marble halls will have quieted. While everyone is enjoying their last few Italian parties, let's take a gander at Milan Fashion Week's Top 3 Hotels.
Tags: Fashion Week Hotels / Hotel Bars / Milan Hotels / Dorchester Collection / → All Tags
Is Milan's Hotel Principe di Savoia Nixing Their Iconic Bar?
Well over New York and having just sprinted out of London, the travelers to the various international fashion weeks are entering the home stretch as Milan's shows kicked off yesterday for another week of careening about in heels and networking in the city's best hotels.
According to the Chic Report, however, the crowd favorite Hotel Principe di Savoia is in the process of remodeling or moving their iconic Giardino d'Inverno bar.
Tags: Cubicle Dreamin' / Venice Hotels / Carnevale Hotels / → All Tags
Drifting to Venice for Carnevale
Cubicle Dreamin' is a feature in which we ask the hotel mavens to take some time out of their busy work day, surf the Internet, and tell us what hotel they wish they could beam themselves to right that very second--all on the slave driving companies dime, of course. Oh, like these people aren't surfing aimlessly anyway--at least now their purposeless clicking will be cobbled together into useful hotel stories--we hope. Have a destination hotel you are just dying to leave your cube for? Send the story our way.
In this episode, Hotel Maven Katie K celebrates Carnevale...in her mind. Enjoy.
When I drift into hotel fantasy mode, I tend to have a few requirements, depending on my mood. Sometimes paradise weather trumps all, but today I’m craving an exclusive, unrealistic adventure. You know, the sort of escapade I would have needed to plan months and months and months ago. And with that, allow me to be whisked off to Venice for Carnevale, which runs through Feb. 24. (After all, don’t you think “sinking city” pretty much defines exclusivity?)
Wedged shoulder-to-shoulder among Carnevale revelers, I’ll lose myself in Venice’s seductive mystique as I marvel at the masqueraded mobs. And when I need a break from the fray, I’ll retire to Domus Orsoni, a quaint B&B lodged in the city’s only mosaic tile-making factory.
Steps from the Jewish Ghetto in the authentic neighborhood of Cannareggio, Domus Orsoni features five rooms, each bedazzled with mosaic work (handcrafted at the on-site factory) by a different Italian artist. Maybe I’ll even sign up for a workshop to learn the traditional art of mosaic at the Orsoni studio, as I pluck from its color library (including 2,000 gorgeous hues, with 12 gold leaf varieties) to create a masterpiece to remind me of my Venetian daydream.
Prices start at 80 Euros a night for a single room.
Tags: Art Hotels / Naples Hotels / Design Hotels / Hotel Openings / Boutique Hotels / → All Tags
Romeo Hotel Injects Artsy Boutique Flavor Into Naples
Not that we necessarily need to lure you to Naples (Naples, Italy, that is; not Florida) — since you already know that the baked goods are the bomb and you can buy many, many kiddie tricycles if you want 'em — a brand new 85-room hotel has just opened up its doors to bring some boutique flavor to the Naples hotel scene.
The Romeo Hotel is the first step a development that is aiming to turn the area between the Piazza Municipio and the cruise ship terminals into an "elegant promenade," and claims to be the first design hotel to hit Naples.
The location makes for excellent views of both Mt. Vesuvius and the island of Capri, and the floor to ceiling windows in the rooms will, at the very least, let you watch the cruise ships come and go — both from guestrooms and from the fitness center that looks out onto the Bay of Naples (there's also a 7,500 sq ft spa and a terrace-top outdoor pool).
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