Tag: Italy Hotels
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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.
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.
Killer View / Italy Hotels / Tuscany Hotels / Historic Hotels / Pienza Hotels / → All Tags
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.
Hotel Birthdays / Hotel Anniversaries / Italy Hotels / Trieste Hotels / → All Tags
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.
Waldorf-Astoria Collection / Waldorf-Astoria Hotels / Italy Hotels / Manhattan Hotels / Hotel Amenities / Hotel News / → All Tags
Smell of Eau de Fancy With Waldorf-Astoria's Salvatore Ferragamo Tuscan Soul Amenities
Waldorf-Astoria's new amenities collection is redolent of "tangy citrus" and the "Italian lifestyle" (whatever that means)
It's Eau de Luxury you'll be catching a whiff of in landmark Waldorf-Astoria hotels by January of next year. Italian label Salvatore Ferragamo may be best known for it's gold-accented bow shoes and buttery soft leather satchels, but for their partnership with Waldorf-Astoria they're trading accessories for amenities and launching Tuscan Soul, a line of in-room bath items meant to evoke "a touch of Italian lifestyle [for guests]." That's a hazy description at best, but we're willing to bet the products sure do smell nice.
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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.
Hotel Opening Dates / Armani Hotels / Fashion Hotels / Italy Hotels / Milan Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags
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]
Hotel Construction / Armani Hotels / Fashion Hotels / Milan Hotels / Italy Hotels / Hotel Hype / Photo Gallery / → All Tags
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.
Hotel Breakfasts / Italy Hotels / Bergamo Hotels / Design Hotels / Photo Gallery / → All Tags
What Do You Look For in a Hotel Breakfast?
Fresh fruit and cheeses and thinly sliced meats and yogurt and granola....oh my, we're drooling. Hotel Breakfasts can be almost as magical as a hotel stay itself, provided the pickings are good. So we're wondering, what do you look for in a hotel breakfast spread?
If we had our ideal continental buffet, it'd be something like what we recently experienced at the awesome GombitHotel in Bergamo, Italy. The hotel—a Design Hotels member hotel housed in a medieval tower in the elevated historic town—cost us only 88 Euro per night for a beautiful room (more on that soon) and included one of the freshest hotel breakfasts we've had in quite some time.
Cubicle Dreaming / Italy Hotels / Hotel Packages / → All Tags
We Want to Visit Hotel Raito for Italy's 150th Unification Anniversary—and for the Killer View
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 company's 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.
Italy appeals to our foodie and romantic sides, but our inner history buff wishes we could stay at Hotel Raito in the Amalfi Coast to celebrate the 150th unification anniversary of Italy.
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