The Best of Northern Italy

Home , Albergo (family), Alpine foothills, Grand Hotel et de Milan, Sacra di San Michele, Venetian Lagoon

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1 The Best of Northern Italy

Northern Italy’s riches are vast, varied, and yours to discover, from art-packed museums and mosaicked cathedrals to Roman ruins and hill towns amid vineyards that produce some of Europe’s best wines. You can dine at refined restaurants that casually flaunt their Michelin star ratings, or chow down with the town priest and police chief at osterie (small local eateries) that have spent generations perfecting traditional recipes. You can spend the night in a sumptuous Renaissance villa on Lake Como in the Alpine foothills where Napoléon once stayed (the Villa d’Este), or in a converted 17th-century Venetian palazzo where the room opens directly onto the Grand Canal but costs a mere $109 (the Hotel Galleria). Here’s a short list of the best of what northern Italy has to offer.

1 The Best Travel Experiences • Gondola Ride in Venice: Yes, it’s of Burano is a colorful fishing vil- hokey. Yes, it’s way overpriced. lage with an ancient lace-making But when it comes down to it, tradition and houses in a variety there’s nothing quite so romantic of super-saturated hues. Nearby, after a long Venetian dinner as a lonely Torcello may have been one ride on one of these long black of the first lagoon islands settled, skiffs, settling back into the plush but it’s long been almost aban- seats with that special someone doned, home to a straggly vine- and a bottle of wine and sliding yard, reed-banked canals, the fine through the waters of Venice’s Cipriani restaurant, and a stunning back canals guided by the expert Byzantine cathedral swathed in oar of a gondolier. See p. 78. mosaics (see “The Best Churches,” • A Day Among the Islands of the below). Time it right and you’ll be Venetian Lagoon: Venice’s ferry riding the last ferry back from Tor- system extends outside the city cello into Venice proper as the sun proper to a series of other inhabited sets and lights up the lagoon islands in the lagoon. First stop, waters. See p. 151. Murano, a village where the famed • Cruising the Brenta Canal: The local glassblowing industry began lazy Brenta Canal, lacing its way and where its largest factories and into the Veneto from Venice’s best artisans still reside. Not only lagoon, has long been the Hamp- can you tour a glass factory (com- tons of Venice, where the city’s plete with hard sell in the display nobility and merchant princes have room at the end), but you’ll dis- kept summer villas. From the mas- cover a pair of lovely churches, one sive, palatial Villa Pisani, with its hung with paintings by Giovanni elaborate gardens, to the Villa Fos- Bellini, Veronese, and Tintoretto, cari, designed by Palladio himself, the other a Byzantine-Romanesque most of these villas span the 16th masterpiece of decoration. The isle to 19th centuries and are open to 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 5

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visitors. In the past few years, a few dangles from a trio of stout cables 1 have even been opened as elegant some 2.4km (1 ⁄2 miles) above the hotels. There are two ways to tour deep fissures of the Vallée Blanche the Brenta: on a leisurely full-day glacier. It takes half an hour to cross cruise between Padua and Venice, to Aiguille du Midi on French stopping to tour several villas along soil—the longest cable car ride in the way with an optional fish the world not supported by pylons. lunch; or by driving yourself along From here, you can take a jaunt the banks, which allows you to pop down into France’s charming Cha- into the villas you are most inter- monix if you’d like, or turn around ested in—plus you can pull over at to head back into Italian territory, any grassy embankment for a pic- perhaps stopping at the Alpine Gar- nic lunch on the canal. See p. 168. den two-thirds of the way back to • Driving the Great Dolomite Courmayeur to sun yourself and Road: From the Adige Valley out- admire the wildflowers. See p. 365. side Bozen (Bolzano) across to the • Hiking the Cinque Terre: At the ski resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo southern end of the Italian Riviera runs 110km (68 miles) of twisting, lies a string of former pirate coves winding, switchbacked highway called the Cinque Terre. These five called the Great Dolomite Road, fishing villages are linked by a local which wends its way around some train line; a meandering trail that of the most dramatic mountain clambers over headlands, plunges scenery in Italy. The Dolomiti are amid olive groves and vineyards, craggier and sheerer than the Alps, and skirts cliff edges above the glit- and as this road crawls around the tering Ligurian Sea and hidden peaks and climbs over the passes, scraps of beach; and an excellent one breathtaking panorama after communal white wine. Though another opens before you, undulat- tourism is discovering this magical ing to the distant Po plains to the corner of Italy, there are as yet no south and to the mighty Swiss Alps big resort hotels or overdevelop- to the north. See p. 232. ment; just trattorie on the tiny har- • Riding the Cable Cars over Mont bors and houses and apartments Blanc: There are not many more converted into small family hotels dramatic trips in Europe than this and short-term rental units. It takes one, where a series of cable cars and a full, long day to hike from one gondolas rise from Courmayeur in end to the other, or you can simply the Valle d’Aosta to the 3,300m walk the stretches you prefer (con- (11,000-foot) Punta Helbronner veniently, the trails get progressively from which the icy vistas spread easier from north to south) and use over Mont Blanc’s flank in one the cheap train to connect to the direction and across to Monte other towns. Pause as you like in Cervina (the Matterhorn) in the the osterie and bars of each town to other. It is here that the true thrill sample the dry Cinque Terre white ride begins as you clamber into a wine and refresh yourself for the four-seat enclosed gondola that next stretch. See p. 410.

2 The Best Museums • Galleria dell’Accademia (Venice): 1750 and gorgeously installed in The single most important gallery this trio of Renaissance buildings of Venetian painting and one of by Napoléon himself in 1807. Italy’s top museums was founded in (Napoléon swelled the collections 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 6

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with altarpieces confiscated from • Pinacoteca di Brera (Milan): One churches and monasteries he sup- of Italy’s finest collections of art, pressed.) The works, spanning the from medieval to modern, is 14th through 18th centuries, housed in a 17th-century Milanese include masterpieces by all the palazzo. Venice’s Accademia may local, Northern Italian greats—the have a richer collection of Venetian Bellini clan, Paolo Veneziano, art, but the Brera has a broader col- Carpaccio, Giorgione, Mantegna, lection of masterpieces from across Piero della Francesca, Lorenzo northern and central Italy. As with Lotto, Palma il Vecchio, Paolo the Accademia, the Brera started as Veronese, Titian, Tintoretto, a warehouse for artworks Napoléon Tiepolo, and Canaletto. See p. 128. looted from churches, monasteries, • Collezione Peggy Guggenheim and private collections. There are (Venice): The Guggenheim family masterpieces from Mantegna, was one of the 20th century’s Raphael, Piero della Francesca, the greatest art patrons. Peggy not Bellinis, Signorelli, Titian, Tin- only amassed a stunning collec- toretto, Reni, Caravaggio, Tiepolo, tion of modern art, she even mar- and Canaletto, and great works ried Max Ernst. Her half-finished by 20th-century geniuses such as 18th-century palazzo on the Grand Umberto Boccioni, Gino Severini, Canal is now installed with her col- Giorgio Morandi, and Giorgio de lections, works by Picasso, Pollock Chirico. They even throw in some (an artist Peggy “discovered”), works by Rembrandt, Goya, and Magritte, Dalí, Miró, Brancusi, Reynolds. See p. 265. Kandinsky, and Marini. See p. 128. • Museo Egizio & Galleria • Museo Archeologico dell’Alto Sabauda (Turin): The world’s first Adige (Bozen): Bozen’s major sight real museum of Egyptian artifacts is a high-tech, modern museum remains one of the most important crafted around one of the most outside Cairo and London’s British important archaeological finds of Museum. The history between Italy the past 50 years. When hikers first and Egypt dates back to Julius Cae- discovered the body of Ötzi high in sar and Cleopatra, though this col- the Alps at the Austrian border, lection of 30,000 pieces was largely everyone thought it was a moun- amassed by the Piedmont Savoy taineer who succumbed to the kings. The exhibits range from a elements. It turned out to be a papyrus Book of the Dead to a full 5,300-year-old hunter whose body, 15th-century B.C. temple to fasci- clothing, and tools had been pre- nating objects from everyday life. served intact by the ice in which he But Egypt isn’t all; upstairs the Gal- was frozen. The Ice Man has done leria Sabauda displays the Savoy’s more to give us glimpses into daily amazing collection of Flemish and life in the Stone Age than any other Dutch paintings by Van Dyck, Van find, and the museum does a great Eyck, Rembrandt, Hans Memling, job of relaying all that scientists are and Van der Weyden. See p. 339. still learning from him. See p. 216.

3 The Best Churches • Basilica di San Marco (Venice): gold than Venice’s San Marco. Built No church in Europe is more lav- in the 11th century, the church has ishly decorated, more exquisitely as its guiding architectural and dec- mosaicked, more glittering with orative principles Byzantine style, 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 7

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but more than 6 centuries of expan- hell above the door from which sion and decoration have left parishioners would exit—sort of a behind Romanesque and Gothic final sermon at the end of the serv- touches as well. The interior is ice to remind everyone of what was encrusted with more than 40,000 at stake and keep them holy until square feet of gold-backed mosaics the next Sunday. The bell tower crafted between the 12th and 17th offers a pretty panorama over the centuries, some based on cartoons sparsely populated island and sur- by Tintoretto, Veronese, and Titian. rounding lagoon. See p. 152. The uneven floor is a mosaic of • Basilica di Sant’Antonio (Padua): marble chips in swirling patterns; Think of all the people of Italian the Pala d’Oro altarpiece a gem- descent you know or have heard studded golden trophy from Con- of named Tony. You’re starting to stantinople. Stairs lead up to a view get an idea of how popular the over the piazza from atop the 13th-century Portuguese-born St. atrium, where visitors get to see up Anthony is among Italians. The close both the mosaics and the orig- patron of the lost lived in Padua, inal Triumphal Quadriga, four mas- and when he died in 1231, the cit- sive bronze horses probably cast in izenry quickly canonized the man the 2nd century A.D. See p. 120. and began building this huge • Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari church to honor his remains, and (Venice): “I Frari” is named for the finished it in a remarkably short 76 Franciscan “brothers” who founded years. The style in 13th-century this Gothic giant in 1250, rebuilt it Veneto was still largely Byzantine, between 1330 and 1453, and made so the brick basilica is topped by an it one of the most art-bedecked octet of domes and twin minaret- churches in Venice, filled with style bell towers. Donatello, whose works of art by Donatello, Titian, Gattamelata (the first large eques- Giovanni Bellini, and Canova. See trian bronze cast since ancient p. 136. Roman times) sits out front, even • Cattedrale di Torcello (Torcello, crafted the high altar, but that is vir- Venice): Venice’s oldest church is tually ignored by the flocks of faith- pretty much all that remains of one ful in favor of a chapel off the left of the lagoon’s earliest settlements aisle. This is where a constant on the now all-but-abandoned stream of supplicants file past the island of Torcello, north of what is saint’s tomb to press their palms now the city of Venice. Santa against it and leave flowers, small Maria Assunta was begun in the gifts, pictures, and written prayers 7th century, its interior slathered asking for him to help them find with glittering gold-backed Byzan- everything from lost health to lost tine mosaics in the 11th and 12th love to lost children (some even centuries, precursors to those that pray for material objects, but would later decorate Venice’s San rarely). Il Santo’s robes are also pre- Marco. The inside of the entrance served here, as are the silver- wall is filled with a massive Last tongued preacher’s miraculously Judgment. This was a common preserved jawbone, vocal chords, device in medieval churches: plac- and tongue, all kept in a chapel ing a scene depicting the heavenly behind the high altar. See p. 164. rewards that await the faithful and • Basilica San Zeno Maggiore the horribly inventive, gruesome (Verona): Verona is home to per- punishments for the damned in haps the greatest Romanesque 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 8

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basilica in all of northern Italy, a native limestone in an early Lom- stunning example of the early bard Romanesque style. See p. 254. medieval sculptor’s art. Between • Duomo (Milan): The greatest the 9th and 12th centuries, archi- Gothic cathedral south of the tects raised the church, crated the Alps, a massive pile of pinnacles massive rose window Wheel of and buttresses, was begun in the Fortune in the facade, and hired 14th century and took 500 years artists who revived the ancient art to complete—but it remained of casting in bronze to create mag- true to its original, Gothic styling. nificent doors set with 48 wonder- It’s the fourth-largest church in fully minimalist panels telling the world, its cavernous interior stories from the Bible as well as peppered with statues and monu- the life of St. Zeno. The stone ments. The highlight, though, is reliefs flanking them date to the the chance to climb up onto the 12th century. The 12th- to 14th- eaves, weave your way through the century frescoes inside lead up to statue-peaked buttresses, and Andrea Mantegna’s 15th-century clamber up onto the very rooftop altarpiece. See p. 196. to gaze out across the hazy city • Basilica (Aquileia): Tiny Aquileia and beyond to the Alps rising was a major town in Roman times, from the lakes north of the Lom- and wasted no time in building a bard plain. See p. 264. church in A.D. 313 just as soon as • Certosa (Pavia, outside Milan): Constantine the Great declared the Though Milan’s Sforza family com- religion legal in the empire. The pleted this Carthusian monastery, town was a hotbed of early Chris- called a charterhouse, it’s really the tianity, hosting a theological con- late-14th-century brainchild of the ference in 381 attended by the likes Visconti clan. The massive build- of Jerome and Ambrose. Though ing, rich with Lombardesque dec- the church was rebuilt and frescoed orations and sculptures, was in the 11th and 12th centuries, the commissioned by Gian Galeazzo in original flooring has been uncov- 1396 as thanks that his second wife ered and is now on display, a mar- was delivered from illness and bore velous and precious mosaic of him heirs. It became the repository complicated paleo-Christian and of funerary monuments to Milan’s pagan iconography. A crypt retains greatest rulers and despots— more mosaics from the 4th cen- though the finest, to Ludovico il tury, plus even earlier ones from a Moro and his wife Beatrice d’Este, pagan house dating to the early 1st neither houses worthy’s remains, century A.D. See p. 248. nor was it even ever supposed to be • Tempietto Longobardo (Civi- here (cash-poor Santa Maria della dale): This fantastic 8th-century Grazie in Milan—the one with church hollowed out of the cliff Leonardo’s The Last Supper—sold face over Cividale’s mighty gorge it to the charterhouse). This is still gives us a precious glimpse into a working monastery, now hosting true Lombard style, before the a Cistercian community, and you High Middle Ages began to mix can tour an example of the little and mingle the cultural groups of houses they occupy (a far cry from northern Italy. Flanking the the cramped cells one pictures entranceway are statues and deco- monks enduring) and purchase rations carved directly out of the their own beauty products and liqueurs. See p. 289. 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 9

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• Cappella Colleoni (Bergamo): the job. He married early neoclas- The mercenary commander Bar- sical ideals of proportion with the tolomeo Colleoni, a son of Berg- theatricality of the baroque to amo, fought so gloriously on behalf build this magnificent balcony of Venice that he was actually given overlooking the Alps in the hills the generalship over the entire above Turin. Vittorio Amadeo II Venetian army (unheard of in such liked his results so much he a suspicious republic formed of decided to turn it into the Royal interlocking check-and-balance Tomb, wedging monuments to branches of power). They commis- various Savoys into the chapels sioned Verrocchio to erect a statue and the underground Crypt of in his honor in Venice, and gave Kings. See p. 341. Colleoni control of his hometown. • Sacra di San Michele (outside He was foresighted enough to Turin): Its stony bulk, elaborate commission his own tomb, which carvings, and endless staircases, all was created in the late 15th century towering over the valley from a as a separate chapel to the cathe- Monte Pirchiriano perch, give this dral. Colleoni invited one of the abbey a movie-set air. Its setting is great sculptors decorating the mag- more appropriate to a Tibetan nificent charterhouse at Pavia to monastery than a Christian abbey. carve on his tomb a complex series The gravity-defying way it hangs of panels and statues whose sym- halfway off the cliff face is all the bolisms interweave in medieval more remarkable when you con- style grafted onto Renaissance sider that the engineering is purely architecture. In the 18th century, medieval—started in 983 and Tiepolo was brought in to fresco rebuilt in the 1100s. Before the the ceiling. See p. 295. Savoys were the bigwig kings they • Basilica di Superga (Turin): became, their early members were Turin got a taste of the extravagant buried here, in rock-carved chapels southern Italian baroque in the under the partly frescoed main early 18th century when Sicilian church interior and where today, architect Juvarra set up shop in free concerts are held April through town. After the Virgin saved the September, with a range of offer- city from French troops, the ings, from Gregorian chants and Savoys dutifully erected a church Celtic music to classical pieces and in her honor, and hired Juvarra for gospel hymns. See p. 347.

4 The Best Artistic Masterpieces • Scuola Grande di San Rocco were suitably impressed, and Tin- (Venice): When the Scuola di San toretto got the job. Over the next Rocco (a sort of gentlemen’s 23 years, the artist filled the club/lay fraternity) held an art scuola’s two floors with dozens of competition in 1564, the Renais- works. The Rest on the Flight into sance master Tintoretto pulled a Egypt on the ground floor is fast one on his rivals. Instead superb, but his masterpiece hangs of preparing a sketch for the in that tiny Sala dell’Albergo, a judges like everyone else, he went huge Crucifixion that wraps ahead and finished a painting, around the walls and ranks among secretly installing it in the ceiling the greatest and most moving of the Sala dell’Albergo off the works in the history of Venetian second-floor hall. The judges art. The San Rocco baroque 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 10

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orchestra holds excellent regular holy event that Last Suppers usu- chamber concerts in this fantastic ally appear to be—instead of a hov- setting; for info, contact & 041- ering halo, Jesus’ holy nimbus is 962-999 or www.musicinvenice. suggested by the window behind com. See p. 129. his head. Leonardo was as much a • Veronese’s Feast in the House of scientist and inventor as he was Levi, Accademia (Venice): Paolo painter, and unfortunately for us Veronese was a master of human he was wont to try new painting detail, often peopling his large can- techniques directly on his major vases with a rogues’ gallery of char- commissions rather than testing acters. When Veronese unveiled his them fully first. When painting Last Supper, puritanical church big- one fresco in Florence, he used wax wigs nearly had a conniption. They in the pigments, but when it was threatened him with charges of drying too slowly he put heaters blasphemy for portraying this holi- along the wall, and the whole thing est of moments as a rousing, simply melted. Well, whatever drunken banquet that more resem- chemistry he was experimenting bled paintings of Roman orgies with in Milan when Ludovico Il than the Last Supper. Veronese Moro hired him to decorate the quickly retitled the work Feast in refectory (dining hall) of Santa the House of Levi, a rather less holy Maria della Grazie with a Last Sup- subject at which Jesus and Apostles per, it didn’t work properly. The were also present, and the mollified fresco began deteriorating almost censors let it pass. See p. 128. as soon as he finished painting it, • Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel and it had to be touched up and (Padua): Padua’s biggest sight by far painted over several times in the is one of the two towering fresco succeeding centuries. It also didn’t cycles created by Giotto (the other help when Napoléon’s troops one is in Assisi), the artist who did moved in and used the wall for tar- more than any other to lift paint- get practice, or when Allied World ing from its static Byzantine stupor War II bombs tore the roof off the and set it on the naturalistic, building, miraculously not damag- expressive, dynamic Gothic road ing the fresco but still leaving it toward the Renaissance. From open to the elements for 3 years. A 1303 to 1306, Giotto covered the lengthy restoration has stripped walls of this private chapel with a away the centuries of grime and range of emotion, using foreshort- overpainting, so what we see now is ening, modeled figures, and satu- more or less pure Leonardo, even if rated colors, revolutionizing the the result is extremely patchy and concept of art and kicking off the looks rather faded. See p. 266. modern era in painting. The chapel • Michelangelo’s Rondanini Pietà, as a whole is breathtaking, depict- Castello Sforzesco (Milan): ing scenes from the life of Mary Michelangelo’s first great sculptural and Jesus in 38 panels, and has triumph was a Pietà he carved for recently emerged from a 3-year Rome’s St. Peter’s at age 19. During cleaning. See p. 161. a lifetime in which he became the • Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last foremost artist of his age, acknowl- Supper, Santa Maria delle Grazie edged as a genius in painting, (Milan): This tempera fresco looks fresco, architecture, and engineer- somehow more like a snapshot of a ing, he never lost his love for mar- real dinner table than the staged ble and chisel. At age 89, he was 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 11

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working yet again on one of his at modeling and keen eye for tex- favorite subjects, this Pietà. It may ture and tone, but also his utter be unfinished—in fact, Michelan- mastery of perspective and how he gelo was in the midst of changing it used it to create the illusion of wholesale, reordering the figures depth. In this case, we look at Jesus and twisting the composition laid out on a slab from his feet end, around—but this tall, languid rep- the entire body foreshortened to resentation of Mary and Nicode- squeeze into a relatively narrow mus bearing the body of Christ strip of canvas. Like many great remains one of Michelangelo’s geniuses in the arts, Mantegna most remarkable works. At the end actually warped reality and used his of his life, Michelangelo had grown tools (in this case, perspective and so advanced in his thinking and foreshortening) in an odd way to artistic aesthetics that this remark- create his image. Most art teachers able, minimalist work (the sculptor would tell you that the rules of per- had early on developed a rough spective would call for the bits at style dubbed nonfinito, or “unfin- the “near end” (in this case the feet) ished”) looks eerily as if it were to be large and those at the far end chiseled in the 1950s rather than (that is to say, the head) to be small 1560s. Michelangelo was in his to achieve the proper effect, but Roman studio chiseling away on Mantegna turned it around. At the statue when, on February 12, first glance, the work seems won- 1564, he was struck with a fever derfully wrought and perfectly and took to bed. He died 6 days foreshortened. But after staring a later. See p. 266. few moments, you realize the head • Mantegna’s Dead Christ, Pina- is grotesquely large and the feet coteca di Brera (Milan): This mas- tiny. Mantegna has given us perfect terpiece of the Brera’s collection foreshortening by turning perspec- displays not only Mantegna’s skill tive on its end. See p. 265.

5 The Best Castles • Museo Castelvecchio (Verona): stony staircases, and ramparts to Most people do the Romeo-and- relive the bad old days of the Mid- Juliet trail and peak at the ancient dle Ages. See p. 194. Arena, then call it a day in Verona. • Castello Sabbionara (Avio): This Unfortunately, few make it to the bellicose castle was a true fortress stunning castle on the river. This and makes no bones about it. 14th-century stronghold, com- Built in the 11th century and plete with its own fortified bridge enlarged in the 13th century, it across the river, was built by “Big helped define and hold the line Dog” Cangrande II Scaligeri. It between the constantly warring was so mighty that it survived the neighboring powers of Venice and centuries intact until the Nazis Austria. It switched hands several bombed it in World War II. times, and in the 13th century the Though there are collections of Guard’s Room was frescoed with local wood sculptures and canvases marvelous scenes of battles fought by Tintoretto, Tiepolo, Veronese, here. See p. 213. Bellini, and local boy Pisanello, the • Castello di Buonconsiglio (Trent): true treat here is just wandering Serious history went down in the maze of halls, passageways, Trent’s “Castle of Good Council.” 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 12

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The name might not be apt, how- get here, where there’s a gorgeously ever, because the famous Council of frescoed Romanesque chapel and a Trent (p. 208)—many sessions of new museum on Tirolean history which were held here—effectively and culture. See p. 224. put up the wall between the Vatican • Castello di San Giusto (Trieste): and the burgeoning Protestant Built between 1470 and 1630 and movement that ended up being the pleasingly castlelike, this gem has cause (or at least excuse) for many mighty ramparts to walk for city European wars and numerous vistas, modest collections of armor unjust politico-social systems, from and furnishings to peruse, and the 16th century all the way to outdoor concerts and films pre- today’s unrest in Northern Ireland. sented in the huge courtyard in Much later, leaders of the Irrenden- summer. See p. 244. tisti (a World War I–era movement • Castello di Miramare (near Tri- to return the then-Austrian South este): The “Castle Admiring the Tirol region to Italy) were impris- Sea” rises in gleaming white fairy- oned here, including the popular tale splendor along the coastline. Cesare Battisti, who was executed Built in the 1850s, it was doomed in the yard. The castle is vast, built to host ill-fated potentates ever around the core 13th-century since. Its original owner, Austrian Castelvecchio and 15th-century Archduke Maximilian, was sent to palace of Trent’s bishop-prince. The Mexico to be emperor and ended highlight is the Cycle of the Months up shot. Another archduke, this fresco painted around 1400 and time Ferdinand, spent the night laden with late medieval symbol- here before going off to Sarajevo ism. See p. 208. to be shot (which kicked off • Castel Roncolo (Bozen): This World War I). Other dukes and 13th-century castle sits atop a ladies have met bitter ends after small cliff upriver from the town, sojourning here, which is perhaps and looks like the most livable why it is now public property and medieval castle you can imagine; no longer a royal guesthouse. cozy, with views of the vineyards. They do nice concerts here, plus The central courtyard is hung sound-and-light shows telling the with staircases and open wood sad tale of the castle’s builder, balconies running along the upper Maximilian. See p. 244. stories, while many rooms retain • Castello Scaligero (Sirmione): A all sorts of wonderfully crude mighty midget among castles, not medieval frescoes, including a spectacular as far as castles go, lovely set that tells the story of but—if you can apply this term to Tristan and Isolde, a popular a fortress—cute as a button. Unim- romantic tale from the Middle portant in most respects, it is darn Ages. See p. 217. picturesque, guarding the entrance • Castel Tirolo (outside Merano): to town with somber 13th-century The entire Tirol, covering this stone turrets and surrounded by its region of Italy and much of west- little moat complete with draw- ern Austria, was once ruled from bridges. See p. 305. this medieval fortress perched dra- • Castello di Fenis (Castle of Fenis) matically on an outcropping 4.8km (outside Aosta): The Challant vis- (3 miles) outside Merano. You must counts controlled the Aosta Valley walk a long and narrow path to from this stronghold throughout 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 13

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the Middle Ages. The frescoed fig- a medieval variant on French. The ures strolling about the balconies of furnishings, though all genuine its central courtyard spout cartoon castle antiques, were culled from balloon–like scrolls of speech that sources throughout this area, are a treasure trove for linguists Switzerland, and France to give the unlocking the origins of the local place that medieval lived-in look. dialect, which is founded largely in See p. 360.

6 The Best Villas & Palazzi • Palazzo Ducale (Venice): The their miserable terms—lagoon Gothic palazzo from which the floods and all. See p. 121. Venetian Republic was ruled for • Ca d’Oro (Venice): Though no centuries offers two incredible expe- longer graced with the decorative riences. One simply is to wander facade that earned Venice’s most the gorgeous rooms and halls, beautiful palazzo its name “House which are decorated with frescoes of Gold,” the 15th-century Ca and paintings (including the d’Oro remains one of the most gor- world’s largest oil canvas) by all the geous palaces in Venice, outside (see Venetian School greats, from Tit- the main facade from the Grand ian, Tintoretto, and Veronese on Canal) and in. The gallery of art, down. The placards in each room donated—along with the palace— are marvelously informative, not to the state by Baron Giorgio only about the art but also about Franchetti in 1916, includes paint- the function of each room and its ings by Van Dyck, Giorgione, Tit- role in government or daily Venet- ian, and Mantegna. There’s also a ian life. But to discover what really small ceramics museum and fantas- made the Byzantine Venetian tic canal views. See p. 137. political machine tick, take the • Ca’ Rezzonico (Venice): Even “Secret Itineraries” tour, which lets though Venice was in fact well you slip behind the camouflaged past its heyday in the 18th century doors and enter the hidden world and technically in decline, this is of the palace-within-the-palace, nonetheless the era in which the the chambers in which the real gov- city expressed its own unique erning took place, all wedged into character fully, the age of the massive space between the inner Casanova and costume balls, all and outer walls of the palazzo. See the things we picture when we the chamber where the powerful think of Venice. To this end, the Council of Ten met, the tiny office Rezzonico, built in 1667 by the where the doge’s secretary kept same architect who crafted the track of all the machinations going baroque Santa Maria della Salute on in high society, the tribunal and topped with an extra story in where three judges condemned the 1745 (and once owned by poet guilty and hanged them from the Robert Browning), was turned rafters, and the cramped “leads” into a museum of the 18th cen- cells under the roof from which tury. The powers-that-be wanted Casanova famously escaped. Then the “museum” moniker to be saunter across the storied Bridge of taken lightly; in reality what the Sighs to explore the dank, dun- city has done is outfit this gracious geonlike prisons across the canal palazzo as an actual house from where lesser criminals served out the era as closely as possible, using 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 14

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pieces culled from across the city. softened by Renaissance geometry To add to the 200-year time warp of line. It was also one of his last, are a series of scenes from daily started in 1567 but largely exe- Venetian life painted by Pietro cuted by a faithful follower after Longhi plus several carnival fres- the master’s death. See p. 185. coes that Giandomenico Tiepolo • Villa Valmarana (outside Vicenza): (son of the more famous Giovanni Mattoni’s 17th-century Palladian- Battista Tiepolo) originally painted style villa is nicknamed ai Nani, or for his own house. See p. 133. “of the dwarves,” because its walls • Villa Pisani (Stra, Brenta Canal): are patrolled by an army of stone Tiepolo frescoed the ballroom for dwarves. The architecture isn’t all this massive 18th-century villa that remarkable, but the 18th-cen- built for the family of a Venetian tury frescoes inside by Giambattista doge, though Napoléon bought and Giandomenico Tiepolo cer- it in 1807. Its most notorious tainly are. See p. 185. moment, though, came in 1934 • Palazzo Patriarcale (Udine): when two European leaders met Until 1734 it was the bishops who here for their very first summit: ruled Udine as Patriarchs, and the Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. final Patriarch had the foresight to The rooms are sumptuous, and the invite Tiepolo to Udine to deco- gardens are extensive and include a rate their palace with scenes from quirky hedge maze. See p. 168. the Old Testament that double as • Villa Barbaro (outside Asolo): early-18th-century fashion shows. Though the villas right around There’s also a fine collection of Vicenza get more visitors, this locally carved wood sculptures 1560 Palladio-designed master- spanning the 13th to 18th cen- piece outside Asolo is perhaps the turies. See p. 251. most gorgeous to visit. That’s • Palazzo Te (Mantua): Raphael’s because it matches the perfect Pal- protégé Giulio Romano, hounded ladian architecture with stunning from Rome over a scandalous series frescoes by Veronese, which carpet of erotic engravings, was let loose almost every inch of wall and ceil- to fill libidinous Frederico Gon- ing inside. And to think it’s still zaga’s Mannerist pleasure palace actually in private hands (with with racy frescoes. The place was owners gracious enough to allow built to look as if it were crum- visitors in)! See p. 177. bling, from arch keystones to the • Villa Rotonda (outside Vicenza): illusionistic frescoes in the Room If you’ve seen Monticello, the of Giants. See p. 300. architecture of Washington, D.C., • Il Vittoriale (Gardone, Lake or Inigo Jones’s buildings, you’ll be Garda): Gabriele D’Annunzio was prepared for La Rotonda—it was a Romantic ideal made flesh, an the model for them all. UNESCO Italian Hemingway-meets-Shelley, has placed this pinnacle of Palla- an adventurer, soldier, and poet dio’s architectural theories on the who carried on a torrid affair with same World Heritage List as the the greatest actress of his age, pyramids, a towering monument Eleonora Duse, who napped on a of human achievement and inge- funeral bier covered in leopard nuity. This is Palladio’s strict neo- skins, and who crafted every iota classical take on the Renaissance in of his villa in meticulous Victo- all its textbook glory, an ancient rian detail. It’s said that Mus- temple rewritten as a home and solini himself gave D’Annunzio 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 15

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the property—either to honor his kings hung their crowns in all the vociferous support of Fascism or sumptuous, overwrought, gilded simply to shut him up before he glory that the 17th and 18th cen- said something to get them all into turies could offer. From Gobelin trouble. D’Annunzio was a bit of a tapestries to Oriental vases, from hothead, and not much of a team the royal armory to the elegant gar- player. In 1918 he flew to Vienna dens laid out by master landscape just to drop leaflets on it and prove architect Le Nôtre (who did the to what he saw as the wimpy Italian Versailles gardens and those of the military command that he could Tuileries in Paris), this palace drips penetrate that far. When the Adri- with royal frippery. See p. 340. atic town of Fiume, previously • Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi promised to Italy, ended up in (outside Turin): Sicilian baroque Yugoslav hands, he led his own genius Juvarra laid out this extrava- army to occupy the town and claim gant and palatial hunting lodge for it—much to the chagrin of the Ital- the Savoys in 1729. To fill the ian commanders, who had to talk numerous frescoed rooms and vast him into giving it up and coming halls of its giant, sinuous X-shape, home (this is the “victory” after local authorities have collected fur- which the villa is named). With a nishings, paintings, and other deco- whole villa to keep him occupied, rative elements from dozens of D’Annunzio proceeded to remake Savoy palaces to create here a sort of it to his own image. The very route museum of 18th- and 19th-century guests take upon entering is a sub- interior decor. Napoléon liked it tle and intricate play on the struc- so much he set up housekeeping ture of Dante’s Divine Comedy. The here for a time when he first con- sheer volume of bric-a-brac is quered the region before pressing enough to drive a maid with a on. See p. 341. feather duster nuts, but is redeemed • Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo by the fantastic anecdote or quirky Spinola (Genoa): The Spinola explanation behind each one (hope provides its collection of canvases for a chatty guide with a good com- (by Antonello da Messina, Guido mand of English). Nestled in the Reni, Luca Giordano, Van Dyck, extravagant gardens are a structure and Strozzi) with a stellar back- built as a ship, the actual boat drop consisting of a Genovese D’Annunzio commanded during palace of which the merchant/ the Great War, his biplane, and his banking Spinola family lavishly heroic hilltop tomb. See p. 308. frescoed and decorated each • Palazzo Reale (Royal Palace) room. See p. 377. (Turin): This was where the Savoy

7 The Best Festivals • Carnevale (Venice): Every spring time to let down your hair and Venice brings back the glory days party. It all culminates in Shrove of the 18th century in all its silk Tuesday, the day of feasting before and brocade, poof-sleeved, men- Ash Wednesday kicks off the sober wearing-colored-hose, Casanova, Lenten period. This bash has ballroom-dancing glory. In most earned the day the nickname Fat Catholic countries, the week Tuesday—called Martedì Grasso in before Lent begins has long been a Italian, but better known by its 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 16

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French name, Mardi Gras. Venice other boats laden with costumed ranks with Rio and New Orleans gentry for a day cruising the as host of one of the most elabo- Grand Canal. First Sunday in Sep- rate and famous Carnival celebra- tember. See chapter 3. tions anywhere. Rather than a • Partita a Scacchi (Marostica): A Bacchanalian bash, Venice goes living chess match may be a throw- the genteel route, with concerts away gag to Mel Brooks or special- and masked costume balls filling effect sequence in a Harry Potter performance spaces, churches, and film, but it’s the highlight of Maros- frescoed palaces. Ten days leading tica’s calendar. This pretty little up to Shrove Tuesday. See p. 140 medieval hamlet, which barely fills and 142. the bottom third of the ring made • Venice International Film Festi- by its ancient wall clambering up val: This is one of the movie busi- the hillside, would probably be ness’s premier festivals, ranking just overlooked if it weren’t for the bien- below Cannes in importance. The nial festival that turns the checker- best films made over the past year board main piazza in front of the from around the world are castle into a weird piece of yester- screened for audiences and judges year. After a parade of costumed at the Palazzo del Cinema, other gentlefolk and medieval-style movie houses, and sometimes even entertainers (jugglers, fire-eaters, open-air piazzas. Unlike, say, the clowns), people dressed as chess Oscars, which celebrates highly pieces fill the piazza’s board, the promoted Hollywood products, players sit atop a stage ready to call this is a chance for all movies— out their moves, and the match from would-be blockbusters to begins. Actually, it’s technically not low-budget, unknown indies—to chess as we know it but rather a catch the attention of critics and medieval variant, and it’s not a distributors. Late August/early proper match since they’re in fact September. See p. 141. re-creating, move for move, a game • Biennale d’Arte (Venice): One of played in the 15th century between the most important art festivals in two noblemen vying for the hand the world is hosted every 2 years by of a fair lady. Still, it’s all great fun. the city of Venice. Contemporary Marostica has only a handful of artists (both celebrated modern hotels, so book a few months in masters and talented unknowns), advance. Second Sunday in Sep- critics, and art aficionados from tember, even years. See p. 181. around the world fill the hotels to • Concerti in Villa (Vicenza): The attend shows and peruse the works Veneto region around Vicenza displayed in the gardens and Arse- opens up its villas or their grounds nale warehouses at the far end of for a series of summertime concerts the Castello district. June to early and performances. From famous November, odd years. See p. 141. masterpieces like Palladio’s La • Regata Storica (Venice): Every Rotonda to little-known Renais- Venetian must have an 18th- sance villas, the settings are memo- century outfit mothballed in a rable and the music is sweet. June closet to break out for yearly fetes and July. See p. 182. such as Carnevale and, of course, • Opera in Arena (Verona): La this “historical regatta”—less of a Scala and La Fenice may be more race than merely a parade of gor- famous, but few opera stages in geously bedecked gondolas and Italy have a more natural dramatic 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 17

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setting than Verona’s ancient October. Third Sunday in Octo- Roman amphitheater. Every sea- ber. See p. 349. son they put on Aïda as they have • Sanremo Festival (San Remo): It’s since 1913, surrounded by other the Grammy Awards meets Sun- operatic masterpieces by Giuseppe dance meets Star Search. Since Verdi. For a huge 2,000-year-old 1950 Sanremo has been Italy’s sports stadium open to the sky, beloved festival of pop music, the Arena enjoys surprisingly good where faded Italian stars get to strut acoustics. Late June through their stuff, major international rock August. See p. 193. stars and artists are invited to play, • Festival Shakespeariano (Verona): and scruffy teenage musicians from Verona mixes its two powerhouse across Italy get the chance to play attractions—ancient Roman her- that carefully crafted song they just itage and Shakespearean fame—in know would be a number-one hit a theater festival of Shakespeare’s if only they could sign a record plays (along with ballets and con- contract (and many do). If you certs, from classical to jazz) put on want to hear what will be belting in the garden-set ruins of the out of boomboxes and Fiat speak- Teatro Romano ancient theater. ers this summer at Italy’s beaches Since 1998 they’ve invited the and pumping in the discos, listen Royal Shakespeare Company to to the winning performances here. come and perform (naturally) Late February or early March. See Romeo and Juliet and Two Gentle- p. 386. men of Verona, as well as other • Sagra del Pesce (Camogli): Take plays, in English. See p. 190. the world’s largest frying pan • Palio (Asti): Medieval pageantry (3.6m/12 ft. across) and place it on precedes a breakneck horse race the wide, waterfront promenade of on the piazza. The 2 weeks leading this tiny Riviera fishing town. Fill up to it comprise the Douja d’Or, the pan with sizzling sardines and a grape-and-wine festival and the town with hungry folks ready trade fair. Rival town Alba spoofs to party. There you have a sagra, or the event with a race of their celebration of food, in this case of own—riding asses—in their Palio seafood, the town’s traditional eco- degli Asini on the first Sunday in nomic lynchpin. Second Sunday in May. See p. 397.

8 The Best Luxury Inns • Hotel Gritti Palace (Venice): The 18th-century stuccoed ceilings, grandest hotel on the Grand Canal, cutting-edge designer entertain- hosting the crème de la crème of ment centers, and, of course, bal- whoever came and comes to visit conies overlooking the Grand Venice since Doge Andrea Gritti Canal (well, from the top-notch built the palace in the 16th cen- rooms at least; everyone else gets to tury. Charles de Gaulle, Winston enjoy the water from the restaurant Churchill, Truman Capote, John or piano bar, or can overlook a side Ruskin, Henry Ford, Mick Jagger, canal). Because this is now a Giorgio Armani, Robert De Niro, Westin property, you also get access Charlie Chaplin . . . the list goes (on a free hourly boat) to their on. This place is luxury-everything: Lido Westin Excelsior hotel and its hand-painted and inlaid antiques, facilities (see below). See p. 89. 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 18

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• Hotel Danieli (Venice): Venice’s As one of Venice’s only custom- bacino (the bay into which the built luxury hotels, it didn’t have to Grand Canal spills) is lined with abide by all the historical consider- luxury hotels, but none beats the ations converted palazzi now have Danieli, a 14th-century doge’s to take into account, so its architec- palace of pink plaster and elaborate tural plans allowed for more spa- marble windowsills that’s been a cious accommodations than those hotel since 1822. The centerpiece found in most Venetian hotels. is a four-story, sky-lit enclosed Rooms overlook either the Adriatic courtyard of Byzantine-Gothic (there’s a private beach across the arches, open stairwells, balustrades, road) or the small, lush, Moorish and junglelike potted plants off of garden. It also sports all the resort- which open its luxurious salons. It’s type amenities: pool, fitness center, worth popping your head in just to golf and tennis, sauna. See p. 106. see it even if you don’t stay here. • Villa Margherita (Mira Porte, The rooms vary, but no matter Brenta): This villa’s role as a guest- what, insist upon a lagoon view— house hasn’t changed much since it and try to stay in the original wing was built in the 17th century by or, failing that, the larger rooms of Venice’s Contarini family. It still the 19th-century palazzo next door looks much like a country-villa (by all means avoid the bland, home (if your family happened albeit cushy, 1940s wing). As with to be Venetian and fabulously its Westin sister, Hotel Gritti wealthy), with rooms overlooking Palace, you can enjoy the facilities the shady gardens, a restaurant at the chain’s Excelsior on the Lido across the street along the canal, (see below). See p. 94. and a similar sister property nearby • Hotel Cipriani (Venice): This is with a swimming pool. See p. 170. the last independent, locally owned • Hotel Villa Cipriani (Asolo): In luxury hotel in Venice, and quite 1962 Giuseppe Cipriani branched possibly the best. It sits in splendid out from his premium-grade isolation at the tip of Giudecca, the Venice mini-empire to turn this only large island of central Venice 16th-century villa into a well- not connected by a bridge (rather, appointed hotel. Once the home it’s a 10-min. boat ride to Piazza of poets Robert and Elizabeth Bar- San Marco). Giuseppe Cipriani, rett Browning, it enjoys a dream- the Venetian impresario behind like setting: the medieval hill town Harry’s Bar and the Locanda Cipri- of Asolo, famed for its vistas over ani on Torcello where Ernest the Veneto. See p. 176. Hemingway loved to hang out (he • Hotel Greif (Bozen): Boutique even made it into a Papa story), hotels have officially arrived in crafted this retreat out of several Italy—though so far only the Greif Renaissance palazzi in 1959, offer- seems to have heard. The Staffler ing stylish accommodations, dis- family has owned this 500-year- creet service, and modern comfort. old hotel on the main square of See p. 105. Bozen—the Dolomiti’s liveliest • Westin Excelsior (Venice): The town—since 1796. But in 1999 Lido might never have been devel- and 2000, they decided to over- oped as a bathing resort if not for haul it completely in a minimalist, the prescience of Nicolò Spada, modern vein of burnished steel who created the Excelsior’s Moor- and original contemporary art ish-style central structure in 1907. mixed with 19th-century antiques 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 19

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and an Internet-equipped laptop Empire furnishings so genuine they in every room. See p. 218. actually date back to Napoléon’s • Four Seasons Hotel Milano tenure when his aide-de-camp (Milan): In 1993 the Four Seasons owned it. Add to all that several opened and rewrote the rules on pools (one floating on the lake), a deluxe hotels in Milan. Seven years vast park that hides tennis courts, a were spent restructuring and trans- fitness center that includes squash forming a 1476 convent, a process courts and a virtual driving range, that brought many of its Renais- and a trio of restaurants. See p. 317. sance elements back to light, • Grand Hôtel et des Iles Bor- including a lovely cloister. The romées (Stresa, Lake Maggiore): rooms are huge by Italian city stan- Ernest Hemingway loved this dards and flush with amenities and retreat by the lake so much he set small luxuries such as CD stereos part of A Farewell to Arms at the and king-size beds. The bi-level hotel. Shell out $2,400 and you suites with frescoed vaulting are can stay in the suite named after particularly nice. See p. 276. him (two bedrooms with king- • Grand Hotel et De Milan (Milan): size beds and huge marble bath- How do you define superior serv- rooms in each, frescoed ceilings, ice? While resident guest Giuseppe lake-view terrace). Recent renova- Verdi, who lived for 30 years in the tions have restored the decor to its suite now named for him, lay dying original 1860s splendor and rich- in his bed, the hotel spread straw ness, regilding an old lily of the over the streets under his window Italian hotel scene and restoring it every day to muffle the sounds of to the ranks of Europe’s most carriage wheels so as not to disturb exclusive hotels. Rooms are sump- the maestro’s rest. They’re con- tuously appointed in a variety of stantly updating the luxury quo- styles, from 19th-century inlaid tient here—even closing down wood to lavish Empire style to from 1993 to 1995 for a complete opulent Italianate rooms of lac- overhaul (perhaps a response to the quered furnishings and Murano sudden competition from the Four chandeliers. See p. 328. Seasons)—to keep the 1863 hotel • Hotel Splendido/Splendido Mare looking and feeling its best. This (Portofino): Portofino is the fishing means marble and lush upholstery, village chosen by the world’s jet-set thick curtains, and antique furnish- elite as their own little bit of Italy, ings. Okay, so the opera music its tiny cove harbor overshadowed trickling lightly from hidden by yachts, and the hillside Splen- speakers may be overdoing it, but dido hotel booked by the top what did you expect from a hotel 3 names from Hollywood, European blocks from La Scala that has nobility registers, and CEO board- played host to divas and tenors for rooms. The villa itself is 19th cen- decades? See p. 277. tury, though its foundation is a • Villa d’Este (Cernobbio, Lake 16th-century monastery, set amid Como): On short lists of the olive groves a 10-minute walk world’s greatest hotels, the Villa above the town. Suites come with d’Este always ranks near the top. antique furnishings and cutting- There’s nothing reproduction or edge entertainment centers (DVD faux about this place. The villa is anyone?). Their sister hotel, true Renaissance, the marble pre- Splendido Mare, sits right at the cious, the guestbook A-list, and the harborfront, stays open all year, 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 20

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and offers dining with a view of the the year, with doubles starting at boats. See p. 406. $228, almost all of us can enjoy its • Royal Hotel (San Remo): With private beach across the road, its such a small town and such a cushy accommodations, its stuc- major pop festival, once a year coed bar, and the wonderful pool you’ll find a concentration of rock styled as if it were carved out of stars here rarely seen outside of a rock. See p. 388. major benefit concert. The rest of

9 The Best Moderate Hotels • Pensione Accademia (Venice): If • Hotel Aurora (Verona): Situated you ever wanted to live like right on the central piazza and Katharine Hepburn, here’s your overhauled in 1996 to freshen the chance. Well, not exactly, though furnishings and fixtures, the her character did live in this 16th- Aurora enjoys a combination of century Villa Maravege (Villa of prime location, low prices, and Wonders) in the 1955 film Sum- perfect simple comfort that keep mertime. It sits in an enviable posi- guests coming back. See p. 199. tion, a flower-filled garden at the • Antica Locanda Solferino confluence of two canals empty- (Milan): The most wonderfully ing into the Grand Canal, and the eclectic hotel in Milan exudes char- rooms are done in a tasteful acter. It sits in the heart of the fash- antique style that makes you feel ionable Brera neighborhood, its as if you’re staying in the home of quirky amalgam of furnishings fit- your wealthy Venetian relative ted into generally spacious rooms. rather than in a hotel. See p. 100. With one of the friendliest man- • Hotel San Cassiano Ca’Favretto agements in town under Sig. Ger- (Venice): It’s one of the cheapest ardo Vitolo, it’s no wonder this hotels on the Grand Canal—plus delightful place stays booked by the rooms and bar terrace overlook regulars, who enjoy its creaky, the prettiest stretch of the canal, homey atmosphere. See p. 277. with the Ca d’Oro directly across • Agnello d’Oro (Bergamo): Berg- the waters. Even most non–Grand amo may not quite be the Alps, but Canal rooms at least overlook a you’re high up enough in their side canal. All that and the hotel in foothills that this tall, narrow ochre the 16th-century villa retains much building with its flower-box win- of its 18th-century ambience dows, patio fountain, and sloping (though room decor is vintage roof looks perfectly appropriate, 1970s repro antiques). See p. 102. offering a bit of Italianate Alpine • Hotel Majestic Toscanelli (Padua): charm smack-dab in the center of The management of the Toscanelli the pedestrianized medieval quar- is always reinvesting in this gem of ter. Furnishings are simple and a hotel three quiet shop- and oste- serviceable, but the price and loca- ria-lined blocks from the central tion can’t be beat. See p. 295. Piazza delle Erbe. Its latest refur- • Du Lac (Bellagio, Lake Como): bishment came in 1999, with bur- Of the hotels lining Bellagio’s little nished cherry furnishings gracing lakefront piazza, the Du Lac is the the spacious rooms. The reception friendliest by a long shot. For over is warm and helpful, and the loca- a century and a half, it has offered tion excellent. See p. 166. comfort and genuine hospitality, 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 21

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from the panoramic dining room the price? The dusty rose villa of and rooftop sun terrace to the the Verbano sits at the tip of Isola simple but fully stocked rooms dei Pescatori, an island of colorful and the bar tables tucked under fishermen’s houses in the midst of the arcades of the sidewalk. Lake Maggiore, with views over They’re also putting in a pool and the landscaped Isola Bella, the tennis courts. See p. 319. lake, and the Alps beyond from • Verbano (Stresa, Lake Maggiore): most rooms and also from the Why shell out hundreds of dollars gravelly terrace, where they serve for a hotel by the lake when you excellent meals. See p. 328. can have one on the lake for half

10 The Best Budget Gems • Hotel La Residenza (Venice): Just • Hotel Galleria (Venice): This off the highly fashionable Riva place is remarkable: a 17th-century degli Schiavoni sits one of the great palazzo with double rooms for remaining cheap pensioni in Italy, under $100, a half dozen of which a 15th-century palazzo converted open directly onto the Grand into an inexpensive hotel. Hotels Canal, and it’s next door to one of this cheap are hard to come by any- Venice’s top sights, the Accademia where in Venice, let alone in such a Gallery. All that and you get break- prime location, and nowhere else fast (including freshly baked bread) with such remarkable decor and in bed. See p. 99. faded style. Its 15 rooms occupy • Pensione Guerrato (Venice): This the piano nobile, the high-ceilinged charming pensione is run by a pair “noble floor” where the wealthy of brothers-in-law in a converted family once lived, so it sports 18th- 13th-century convent near the century stuccoes over Venetian- daily Rialto market. The furnish- style furnishings, 17th-century oil ings are mismatched but lovely, a paintings, and Murano chande- mix of antiques culled from mar- liers. See p. 98. kets over the years, and the break- • Foresteria Valdese (Palazzo Cav- fast is excellent. They also rent agnis) (Venice): If La Residenza two great apartments at excellent (see above) is full, you may luck prices near San Marco. See p. 101. into even more decaying style • Hotel Bernardi-Semenzato (Ven- (18th-century frescoes decorate the ice): The friendly Pepoli family ceilings in several rooms) for less runs this well-maintained palazzo money at this 16th-century palazzo hidden a block off the main drag run as a hospice by the Waldesian about halfway between the train and Methodist Church. The draw- station and San Marco. It’s sur- backs are that it’s a sort of hostel- rounded by osterie and good type arrangement—many, but not restaurants patronized by locals, all, of the accommodations are and the modernized rooms retain shared rooms—and the rooms lack rough wood-beam ceilings and amenities such as telephones and antique-style furnishings. They air-conditioning. The location isn’t also rent simple but spacious quite as sweet as that of La Resi- rooms in two annexes nearby that denza, but the rooms do have bal- make you feel as if you’re staying conies over a lovely small side in your own Venetian apartment; canal. See p. 96. one room has a fireplace, another 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 22

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overlooks a pair of side canals. can get a bed overlooking the lake See p. 104. for $16 and some of the best • Due Mori (Vicenza): Just off the fixed-price dinners in town for central Piazza dei Signori lies this just $8. It’s run by a family of simple, no-frills, but comfortable ex–social workers, who also rent hotel, the oldest in Vicenza, bikes and kayaks. See p. 325. packed with genuine 19th-cen- • Fasce (Santa Margherita Ligure): tury antiques and a friendly recep- This little hotel a few blocks up tion. See p. 187. from the harbor is now in its third • Grifone (Sirmione, Lake Garda): generation of family management, Would you believe a vine-covered which includes the incredibly hotel where the simple rooms helpful British-born Jane at the enjoy views of the lake and access front desk. Not only are the bright to a small beach for under $35 a guest rooms spacious and com- person? Well that’s what the Mar- fortable and the surroundings a colini siblings offer at this gem of lovely profusion of plants and an inn around the corner from the flowers, but they pile on the little medieval castle. Book early. extras, from free bicycles to See p. 306. Cinque Terre packets for guests • Ostello La Primula (Menaggio, who stay at least 3 nights (includ- Lake Como): If you don’t mind ing a train ticket a day and all the hostel living (shared dorm rooms, info you need to explore the bus your own table at dinner), you coast). See p. 401.

11 The Best Countryside Retreats • Cavallino d’Oro/Goldenes Rössl • Hotel Castello Schloss Labers (Kastelruth/Castelrotto, near Bozen): (outside Merano): The road from The village is a full-bore Tirolean town wends its way through vine- mountain hamlet straight out of clad hills to the Stapf-Neubert the Middle Ages, and this rambling family’s 11th-century countryside hotel has sat at the cobblestoned castle, a hotel since 1885. The cozy center of town since the 1400s, its hunting salons cluster around a swinging shingle emblazoned with magnificent central staircase that its Golden Horse moniker. It leads up to the eclectic collection of includes the corner bar where the rooms tucked into towers, eaves, locals hang out for lunch and a and high-ceilinged rooms. A statue- genuine, preserved 18th-century studded garden out back offers Stuben (beer nook) in the restau- views across the valley to the sur- rant at back. It’s a nice mix of new rounding peaks, and they also have and old: The lounge has a wide- a heated pool, tennis courts, and a screen TV with 300 digital chan- Tirolean restaurant. See p. 226. nels set next to a picture window of • Villa Fiordaliso (Gardone Riv- the Alps; the rooms offer modern iera, Lake Garda): This Liberty- comforts amid hand-painted wood style villa was built in 1903 and furnishings and four-poster beds. immediately started attracting for- Best of all, the Urthaler family midable owners, including poet couldn’t be more welcoming, and Gabriele d’Annunzio and later they happen to be Frommer’s fans. Claretta Petacci, Mussolini’s mis- See p. 220. tress (this is where they spent their final weeks in semi-hiding at the 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 23

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end of World War II before being to which is that you may have to hunted down and killed). Things cancel lunch plans and head back to have calmed down considerably your room for a nap. See p. 356. since then, the villa transformed • Milleluci (outside Aosta): Four in 1990 into one of the most pop- matrilineal generations of hoteliers ular high-end restaurants in the have turned this family farm into lake region (it even has a Michelin one of the coziest, friendliest hotels star now), with seven elegant guest in the whole of the Valle d’Aosta. A rooms upstairs. See p. 309. fire crackles in the large lounge • Villa La Meridiana/Az. Agrituris- downstairs, and the rooms are done tica Reine (near Alba): An agritur- in woodsy, Alpine style with canopy ismo is a working farm whose beds in suites, traditional wood fur- family opens their home and hospi- nishings, and hand-hewn ceilings. tality to guests. The Pionzo family In true country tradition, the runs this gracious agriturismo above breakfast here is overwhelming, the Piedmont wine town of Alba, with freshly baked pies, cakes, and with rooms in the main house and breads every morning accompanied converted from the former stalls, by farm-fresh cheese, milk, and pre- almost all overlooking the vineyards serves. Unlike most countryside that produce their Barbera wine, retreats, the Milleluci sports plenty the surrounding village-capped of facilities a four-star hotel would hills, and the peaks of the Alps in be jealous of: a heated outdoor the distance. The ample breakfast pool, tennis courts, exercise facili- may include apricot preserves ties, hot tub, and sauna. See p. 362. from their own orchard and • La Grange (Courmayeur-Entrèves): sheep’s milk cheese from the Entrèves may not properly be neighbors. See p. 353. countryside, but this tiny collec- • La Cascina del Monastero (out- tion of Alpine chalets below the side La Morra): The di Grasso fam- Mont Blanc cable-car station is so ily runs an agriturismo similar to small it barely qualifies as a village, Villa La Meridiana (see above), and the atmosphere is fully rustic. another vineyard and fruit orchard The Berthold family converted this farm outside a Piemontese village hotel from a barn by fitting the with large guest rooms and apart- rooms with a mix of antiques and ments filled with comfortable rustic sturdy country furnishings. It furnishings and exposed wood makes a refreshing (and far less beams. This place would be worth expensive) alternative to the resort staying at if only for the sumptuous hotels of Courmayeur just down breakfast spread, the only drawback the road. See p. 366.

12 The Best Restaurants • Do Forni (Venice): Though the like a car from the luxurious Ori- menu is vast, they seem to devote ent Express. See p. 110. equal attention to every single • La Cusina (Venice): One of the dish, making this one of the best new stars on the Venetian restau- (if most eyebrow-raisingly expen- rant scene is also one of the few sive) restaurants in Venice. The hotel dining rooms worth singling bulk of the place is done in a out. In warm weather this becomes vaguely rustic style, but the best one of the most romantic dinner room is the front one, fitted out settings in town, the tables set on 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 24

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terraces hanging over the Grand prices, a formula that has kept it Canal. The location alone is worth successful for almost 70 years now. booking ahead, but happily the See p. 282. cooking is as delicious as the view • Antica Hosteria del Vino Buono is stunning, offering an inventive (Bergamo): This cozy restaurant is take on Italian cuisine based on spread over two floors of a corner Venetian and Veneto traditions palazzo on the market square. The and using the freshest ingredients. food is mountain-style, rib-sticking See p. 111. good, heavy on the game meats • Le Bistrot de Venise (Venice): and thick polenta accompanied by The menu at this upscale bistro is hearty red wines. See p. 297. split three ways to satisfy your • Ochina Bianca (Mantua): Man- appetite (or at least make your tuan cooking is somewhat more choice harder): Venetian/Italian, complex than most northern Ital- French, and ancient local recipes ian cuisines, and the Venturinis culled from historic cookbooks put their own innovative spin on and documents. They attract hip it at the “White Goose,” marrying artistic types by turning the back local ingredients with fresh fish room into a coffeehouse-style per- from the Mincio and game in this formance space most nights, host- elegant restaurant. See p. 303. ing poets, acoustic musicians, art • C’era Una Volta (Turin): That you exhibits, and cabarets. See p. 112. have to ring the bell and climb to • Al Covo (Venice): Texan Diane the first floor gives this place a Rankin makes the pastries and clubby air, but owner Piero Prete chats with guests while husband- will instantly make you feel like a chef Cesare Benelli watches over longtime member as he greets you the kitchen at this always-popular warmly and comes back around to restaurant that mixes a warm wel- help you select your wine. The come and excellent fresh seafood cooking is traditional Torinese, dishes with relatively reasonable excellently prepared. See p. 344. prices (especially on the quality • Lalibera (Alba): Franco and wine list). See p. 115. Manuele reign over this stylish • La Milanese (Milan): In a city dining room on an alley off a with many fine restaurants whose pedestrian shopping street, with stars rise and fall almost as soon as Marco in the kitchen crafting they make it onto the map, La excellent variants on Piemontese Milanese is a stalwart survivor, a cuisine by using only the freshest traditional trattoria that has never of ingredients, all locally pro- stopped offering typical Milanese duced, from the cheese to the fruit dishes, smart service, and moderate to the meats. See p. 354.

13 The Best Countryside Eateries • Al Camin (outside of Cortina that are hard to find elsewhere d’Ampezzo): This barnlike struc- these days are staples on Al Camin’s ture lies along the rushing Ru seasonal menus. See p. 237. Bigontina mountain stream, 10 • L’Osteria del Vignaiolo (La minutes outside of town, serving Morra): This place is sophisticated hearty Alpine food in a woodsy rustic, simple rooms with pale-gold dining room around a stone fire- walls expanding to tables outside in place. Some regional specialties summer. It’s set amid the vineyards 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 25

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that produce its excellent wines keep track of the courses, but after and provide the excellent views. the seventh appetizer I had to give it The cooking, in the hands of chef up. But it’s not just quantity (two Luciano Marengo, samples from words: pace yourself): The food the varied bounty of Piemontese actually manages to be fantastic as regional cuisines, accompanied by well, and it’s served in an archetypal choice cheese platters and, of rustic-countryside dining room of course, some of the best fine wines low wood ceilings, open kitchens, in Italy. See p. 356. and sometimes even a dog under • La Maison de Filippo (Entrèves): the table. Book here, then plan to This is the never-ending meal to spend much of the next day merely beat all feasts. I honestly tried to digesting. See p. 367.

14 The Best Down-Home Trattorie & Osterie • Vino Vino (Venice): Antico Mar- supposedly came to tipple between tini is a pricey but good restaurant affairs. See p. 118. near La Fenice opera house; Vino • Toni del Spin (Treviso): Seventy Vino is its worst-kept secret, an years of satisfying Trevisani diners inexpensive osteria branch that has imparted a patina of reliability serves simple but tasty dishes that to this down-home trattoria of come out of the same kitchen. crisscrossing beams, swirling fans, You choose from the daily chalk- and chalkboard menus. The choices board menu, stake out a table, are limited, but each dish is excel- and then carry your meal to it lent, mixing local traditions with along with a wine from their experimental cooking and some excellent and extensive shared international dishes. The wine list is wine cellar. See p. 114. stellar—they also run the wine shop • Ai Tre Spiedi (Venice): This is across the street. See p. 173. where I take my buddies for a • La Taverna di Via Stella (Verona): blow-out Venetian meal at remark- The Vantini brothers and their ably low prices—not the cheapest buddies have successfully started a in town, but perhaps the best value brand-new, laid-back osteria that for your money. The owners are instantly feels as if it’s been around jolly, and the food is excellent, for centuries. Here, the local volun- including the fish (which is often teer fire squad shows up to hang dicey at the more inexpensive out in uniform and hit on girls, places in Venice). See p. 114. and office workers troop in to • Cantina do Mori (Venice): unwind over traditional Veronese Notwithstanding the recent change dishes and wine (of their some 180 in management (and a slight price bottles, 10 varieties are opened hike), the Cantina do Mori has nightly so that you can sample by remained one of the best bacari in the glass). See p. 202. Venice, a wine bar that serves • Osteria del Duca (Verona): The exquisite cicchetti (tapaslike snacks) ladies bustling around this old to a crowd of regulars nightly fave of a trattoria know to double- under the low-beamed ceilings that check with foreign visitors who seem unchanged since the joint have inadvertently ordered one of opened in 1462. After all, this is the many traditional Veronese the place where even Casanova dishes involving horse or donkey 03 542931 Ch01.qxd 2/10/04 9:20 AM Page 26

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meat. The setting is romantic in • Vineria Cozzi (Bergamo): true Verona style: It’s on the Leonardo Vigorelli’s wine bar is ground floor of a medieval palazzo the turnstile around which Berg- that most likely belonged to the amo’s upper city spins, a requisite historical Montecchi family, stop for locals and visitors alike immortalized by Shakespeare as who enjoy his hospitality, good the Montagues, whose son Romeo wine selection, and yummy fell in love with Juliet of the panini, meat and cheese platters, enemy Capulet clan. See p. 202. and simple dishes. See p. 297.