20121 Travel Guide
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.
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:
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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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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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.
Fashion Week Hotels / Milan Hotels / Fashion Hotels / Bulgari Hotels / Hotel Parties / → All Tags
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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Milan Hotel Wants to be Your Private Wine Cellar
A trip to Italy usually on the pursuit of one or all of three things : history, fashion and wine. With Milan being Milan, not only does it have all three in spades, but it's got the seven-star Town House Galleria Hotel to give you top-tier access to them.
Launching the first hotel-based "wine stock exchange," or an in-house cellar where guests may store their fine wine and champagne purchases, the Town House Galleria seeks to expand their ridiculously luxurious amenities, which already include personal butlers for every guest. Rooms here regularly fetch $2,500 a night, so we're not surprised at this extra icing on the cake, but they'll even be going so far as to sell their own stock. What exactly do they have buried down in their wine caverns, you ask? Only the best: the pink case of six bottles of Dom Perignon designed by Karl Lagerfeld, which alone costs $143,000.
Apparently the Town House has more than enough interest in both the cellar and the Lagerfeld case to warrant the offering of it. Explains the hotel: "This is for wine belonging to our guests. They travel, they like to buy wine in Italy, and so they will be able to leave it here." Fair enough, but will they snub their noses at our Freixenet?
[Photo of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II: sciamano]
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Don't Wear a Skirt On The Gray Hotel's Crazy Floating Stairs
Contemporist featured a few shots of the 21-room Gray Hotel in Milan, designed by Florence architect Guido Ciompi, that totally turned us on. All 21 of the hotel's guestrooms are unique and, if you ask us, pretty stunning — we do love us some design hotels.
But a photo of a particular feature caught our eye. Behold: the famed floating stairs (which have been making the rounds on the Internet this week) in one of the rooms.
As always, we have several questions: do we see a handrail? We're clumsy and, well, we know we wouldn't make it up these stairs without some sort of an incident. Second: as a Contemporist commenter so eloquently pointed out, "Not to be prudish, but couldn’t someone sitting at the bar/table see up m’lady’s skirt?" Um, so true — though we're pretty sure this is a guestroom and not a public bar so it may be less of an issue. Thank goodness.
Hotel Butlers / Luxury Hotels / Milan Hotels / → All Tags
Seven-Star Hotels Have Perfect Personal Butlers
At an average price of around $2,300 a night, the seven-star Town House Galleria in Milan has got to be fairly exclusive. And it is. Every guest even gets allocated their own personal butler, who is responsible for all manner of duties designed to make your stay more comfortable.
Basically, your butler will do anything for you. Craving a particular kind of chocolate bar? They'll run out and grab one for you, or a whole bag full. Needing tickets so you can skip the queue at any Milan attraction? No worries at all.
The butlers at Town House Galleria are also available to take care of all the needs of your small dog (large ones, apparently, are not included).
Luxury Hotels / Milan Hotels / → All Tags
Seven Stars (Maybe) Means Not Unpacking Your Bags Yourself
We were sceptical last year when we previewed Milan's Townhouse Galleria. Seven stars? How can any hotel be perfect enough to get seven stars?
To get things straight, the Townhouse in Milan doesn't yet have its seven stars, but it claims to be the first hotel in the world to have applied to Swiss accreditors SGS to get them. Apart from having (we admit) a fairly luxurious looking website, it also claims to be "a precious jewel in the crown of Italy's fashion city" and to have "unparalleled ambience". They also provide quite impressive services like playing your favorite music in the luxury car that collects you from the airport, sending a pianist direct to your suite if you want, and providing a butler to unpack your luggage for you.
Inside the suites, the accessories are--if they live up to the website--no less impressive. Including, they say, "the best Italian coffee machines and the most sought after books", seven-star luxury means everything you want should be at your fingertips. Even for kids, apparently: illustrated fairy tale books, adventure games and jigsaw puzzles are amongst the kit they can provide. Suites can cost up to $5300 a night so we're probably talking pretty privileged kids here. Since the Townhouse Galleria opened last December, none of its guests have left reviews at TripAdvisor--is that because their WiFi doesn't work or 7-star people are not the type to share their experiences?
[Photo: Malcolmm ]
Related Stories:
· Townhouse Galleria reviews [TripAdvisor]
· Future WiFi Hell in the World's Next 7-Star Hotel? [HotelChatter]
· Milan Hotel Aiming For Ultra-Deluxe Seven-Star Rating [e-hotelier]
Milan Hotel Reviews / Design Hotels / → All Tags
At Hotel Straf, the Concrete is Warm and the Lobby, So Cooool
This week we continue our series on European hotels. Since Vogue and Versace have apparently heralded the return of the supermodel, we decided to check in on Italy's fashion capital, Milan, for some cool places to stay and at least one to avoid. But if you have any suggestions for us on what to hit up or to stay far far far away from, let us know.
Hotel Straf is just about the farthest thing away from a traditional Italian hotel.
The hotel's "concept" is to partner "extreme" high-tech functionality" and a minimalist feel, with guestrooms that have a warm intimate atmosphere, having been designed from innovate materials like quarry rough slate, burnished brass, iron and concrete. Which is interesting because we never would describe the slate or concrete as "warm."
Fulfilling their committment to high-tech, inside each of the 64 rooms is high-speed internet access, LCD TVs, a laptop-size safe and movie and music channels on demand.
Situated close to the duomo, the hotel also features a bar/restaurant that serves food during the day and has set aside a couple of well-being rooms where you can relax with some chromotherapy and aromatherapy treatments. Not quite the hotel spa you are used to. Here's one quest's take on the place:
The first impression about entrance and lobby was "so COOL, all black and concrete. Reception staff young and polite, next door a nice typical coffee bar, part of the hotel but opened to passers-by.
When we made later our way to the room, we found it as cozy as the rest of the hotel: modern and minimal, all black & white and concrete walls. The bathroom, well hidden behind a wooden wall, was small but with everything we needed and so cooool....This hotel is indeed a design hotel!
Price is not low, but it is in the heart of Milan...Only recommendation: if you like traditional old style hotels, stay away!
In case you missed our other stories this week on Milan, here they are:
· To and Fro Machines Will Keep You Awake at the Gray Hotel
· Milano's Budget Option
· Where the Famous People Stay in Milan
· Hotel Spadari Could Be Inspiration for Gramercy Park Hotel
Image via Uberdilly/Flickr
Related Stories:
· Hotel Straf reviews [TripAdvisor]
Milan Hotel Reviews / → All Tags
To and Fro Machines Will Keep You Awake at the Gray Hotel
This week we continue our series on European hotels. Since Vogue and Versace have apparently heralded the return of the supermodel, we decided to check in on Italy's fashion capital, Milan, for some cool places to stay and at least one to avoid. But if you have any suggestions for us on what to hit up or to stay far far far away from, let us know.
The Gray Hotel is a luxe design hotel centrally located to all the sights of Milan, with 21 guest rooms (2 of which have private gyms!) and hip furnishings. We have to admit, looking at some of the hotel pictures got us excited.
Which is why the review of the place has us so disappointed.
The location is indeed superb, just minutes away from il Duomo, but along with the central location comes noise. Not just normal chattering...noise from the cleaning teams that clearly make this area the sparkliest tourist area in Europe. The machines start up at midnight and seem to continue to and fro, to and fro until at least 3am. I am positive it was only one side of the hotel that suffered (my side) but basically rooms 105 and neighbouring 104 and 106 will have had equally sleepless nights so make sure you ask to NOT have these rooms. Totally ruined my entire stay.
Things did not end there with the cleaning crews. The TVs only have one English channel, there's a DVD player but you have to bring your own DVD, a "poor" room service menu, a bad shower drain and a tiny hotel bar. But perhaps the real measure of how bad the guest's stay was that even though work fronted the 330 Euros a night bill, he won't even think of returning.
Related Stories:
· Gray Hotel reviews [TripAdvisor]
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