Italy Travel Guide
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Twitpic of the Week: Spying On St Mark's Basilica From the Cipriani
In the ever-expanding universe of Twitter, there is one particular trend @HotelChatter happens to quite enjoy: candid hotel photos. These Twitpics range from stunning views to anti-views to celebrity tomfoolery and everything in between. And we can't get enough of 'em! Every Monday, we feature one "Twitpic of the Week" to commemorate our favorite hotel-themed snapshot. Got a favorite of your own? Want to show off your sweet suite? Send it in!
This week, we're dreaming of tiny arched bridges and cups of espresso by Piazza San Marco. Venice, seen here from the Hotel Cipriani, may be an over-exposed tourist trap, but she's also a classic.
This shot comes courtesy of @MattPenrose, who shared the pic, via Twitter, on The Fancy, the online shopping-social media hybrid site we discovered last October.
Hotel Design / Design Thursdays / Armani Hotels / Milan Hotels / Hotel Lobbies / Fashion Hotels / → All Tags
Piecing Together Giorgio Armani's Puzzling Pristine Milano Palazzo
Though we took a quick look last month at what Tripadvisor reviewers were saying, we still feel a little out of the loop about the new Armani Hotel Milan, which has been open for almost two months now.
What kind of fancy Armani unforms do the staff wear? Are the rooms really that big? How do the hotel's Lifestyle Managers fit in, exactly?
Sadly, the hotel provided little in the way of a response—choosing only to reiterate Giorgio's vision of creating a "precisely defined ambiance of total comfort." But we have managed to scrap together at least a fragmentary sense of the interiors. For starters: similar to the property in Dubai, the Armani Milan's rooms are homogenized in soft beiges, tans, and dark browns. Emphasis here is more on texture—with limestone bathrooms, backlit shingled headboards, and cabinets that vanish into walls. All of which, hopefully, don't get in the way of comfort.
Insane Hotel Packages / Hotel Spas / Tuscany Hotels / Italy Hotels / → All Tags
Gold Fingers And Golden Balls Now On Offer At Terme Di Saturnia In Tuscany
Massage by James Bond: not guaranteed
Unsure of what to get your woman for Christmas? Well, if the ads are anything to go by, wimmen like gold and they like spas. From personal experience, we’d also add holidays in Italy, so a combination of all three could put you onto a winner.
That’s possibly the thinking behind the new Golden Body treatment at posh hotel Terme di Saturnia Spa & Golf Resort in Tuscany. The two hour treatment starts with a scrub, but not just any scrub – one enriched with ginger, chamomile, silk protein and jojoba oil. Then they apply a gel containing, among other things, caffeine (which, as your laydee will tell you, is meant to help cellulite) and, uh, “flecks of 24-carat gold”.
But that’s not all. Next up is a massage, and then, in the words of the hotel (because otherwise you may not believe it)
the 'Goldfinger moment' arrives as the body is enveloped with a mask of gold dust and ground ginger
And then you’re moisturized. No gold involved in that part.
Armani Hotels / Milan Hotels / Hotel Openings / Fashion Hotels / → All Tags
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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When a View is This Good, Who Cares About a Crappy Room?
The Val d'Orcia at 7am yesterday
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.
You want a room with a view? We give you room 206, a junior suite at the Hotel Relais Il Chiostro in Pienza, Italy. Look out the window and you’ll see a textbook Tuscan landscape – in fact, you’ll see pretty much all of the Val d’Orcia, which is the part of Tuscany (south of Siena) which features in all those postcards, calendars and boasty Facebook posts.
Turndown Service / Snapshot / Florence Hotels / Hotel Services / Hotel Poetry / Hotel Beds / → All Tags
Cookies and a Lullaby: Is This The Perfect Turndown?
Chocolates at turndown are all well and good. Port, even better. But, if we lay aside our greedy tendencies for a moment, we’d say that this sincere wish for us to have a good sleep is probably better than both of them.
We found this on our pillow at bedtime during our stay at the Golden Tower Hotel in Florence: a copy of the Brahms Lullaby, which sounds like this and reads like this:
Lullaby and good night, with roses bedight
With lilies bedecked is baby's wee bed,
Lay thee down now and rest, may thy slumber be blessed
Lay thee down now and rest, may thy slumber be blessedLullaby and good night, thy mother's delight
Bright angels beside my darling shall stand;
They will guard thee from harms, thou shalt wake in my arms
They will guard thee from harms, thou shalt wake in my arms
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No Retirement But a Facelift For A Trieste Grand Dame's Centenary
There’s nuffink like a grande dame hotel, especially when it’s in as spectacular a setting as this one. The Savoia Excelsior Palace in Trieste, Italy, has just turned 100. Happy birthday SEP!
Sadly, that’s as far as the festivities go – there are no special offers marking the centenary, but it did remind us of what a gorgeous hotel it is – standing on the seafront, just off the side of Trieste’s extraordinary Piazza dell’ Unità, which is three sides Austro-Hungarian magnificence, one part Adriatic sea.
Luckily the rooms aren’t 100 years old: in 2009 it completed a two year restoration, and rooms look classic but modern (see here, which is more than we can say for a lot of old Italian hotels. Props to the SEP.
Killer View / Italy Hotels / Matera Hotels / Boutique Hotels / → All Tags
Finding Your Hotel Isn't The Only Killer Thing In Matera
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.
You know when you get lost finding a hotel and you drag your suitcase along pedestrianized streets and up and down copious steps as nobody around you has any idea of where you’re going, and you spend 35 minutes wandering aimlessly until finally you find someone who happened to pass your hotel earlier on their trail?
No? Then you clearly haven’t been to Matera, in Southern Italy. AKA Jordan, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and countless other Biblical destinations (as per the films which have been shot there).
See, Matera is famous for its sassi houses carved out of the rock. The sassi are a) on a steep hillside and b) for the very most part pedestrianised, which makes it a perfect film set for, say, The Passion of the Christ but a bit of a nightmare when it comes to locating your hotel. Particularly when it’s siesta time and the only people on the streets are tourists and you're lugging a case stuffed with the finest of southern Italy's olive oils. Ahem.
Anyway, all the stress fell away when we reached our room at L’Hotel in Pietra, climbed upstairs to our balcony, and were confronted by this killer view.
We’ll bring you a review soon, but for now, enjoy the silence of the sassi.
Fashion Hotels / Milan Hotels / Hotel Opening Dates / Armani Hotels / Hotel Delays / → All Tags
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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How To Score A Free Hotel Room From A TV Producer
Tired of booking overpriced rooms in crowded cities? Want to an escape for the whole family? Here's one way to ensure a comped hotel stay.
Hollywood Reporter pointed out last week that the Seattle-based family of Amanda Knox, the American exchange student held in Italian custody for four years for the murder of her roommate, was doing a great job of getting free hotel stays from a number of American TV producers. All of whom, of course, were hungry for their own exclusive interview with Knox. But nonetheless. A free hotel room in Perugia? Sounds pretty good to us. If only there was a way to avoid the whole incarcerated-family-member snag. Other than that, that's a real winning scheme.
Italy Hotels / Hotel Openings / Florence Hotels / St. Regis Hotels / Historic Hotels / Starwood Hotels / → All Tags
On Your Next Grand Tour, Check Out the New St. Regis Florence
If you were hopping a plane to Italy today, where would you go? Would you wait patiently outside the still-under-construction Armani Hotel Milan? Or suffer the annoying cash-only hotel taxes in Rome?
Maybe instead you could make a beeline for Florence, and scope out the new St. Regis Florence, which opened last Thursday. Starwood, parent company of the international luxury brand, is currently pumping $100 million into its most prized properties in Europe, Africa and the Middle East—and this historic 1432 Florence landmark building—which was previously known as the Grand Hotel Florence—seems to have been high on the list.
HotelChatter Questions / Rome Hotels / Venice Hotels / Four Seasons Hotels / → All Tags
Ask HotelChatter: Where Should a Four Seasons Lover Stay in Venice and Rome?
The other day, a HotelChatter Twitter follower asked us for some upscale hotel recommendations in Venice and Rome. More specifically, Jcjteeth wants hotels of the same caliber as Four Seasons:
@HotelChatter Any recs on 5Star/upscale hotels in Venice and Rome? Usually stay at @FourSeasons but alas no FS properties in those cities.
That's pretty weird now that we think about it. No Four Seasons in Rome or Venice? They should really get on that!
But onto our hotel picks.
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