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Eating Up Italy |
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The plates talk. From Venice to Siena to Florence, they’ve been talking. Good thing, because I don’t speak Italian. But in restaurants all over Italy, our waiters understand us perfectly. Potato ravioli with candied lemon sauce. Salmon fetttuccine in a light cream sauce. Clean plates speak the universal language. Tutto bene.
And that’s just the food. At our first hotel, my wife and I have a $2,000-a-night suite, complete with a butler named Umberto. Vacations are supposed to be an escape from everyday life. This is an out-of-body experience.
We begin in Venice, with Umberto at the Hotel Cipriani & Palazzo Vendramin. Movie stars and U.S. presidents stay at the Cipriani, and Umberto gets stuck with us. But he treats us like royalty, or at least the prince and princess of Sweden, who once stayed here.
The Cipriani is on the island of Giudecca, across the Canale della Giudecca from the famous Piazza San Marco. At dusk, we sit outdoors at Cips Restaurant, sipping Bellini cocktails and looking across the water at the Campanile and the Basilica di San Marco. After dinner, we walk along the waterfront, then hop a private launch to the vibrant café scene in St. Mark’s Square.
We don’t want to leave. But we’re headed for the coast and Marina di Castagneto Carducci in the heart of the Etruscan Rivera. We’re at the Grand Hotel Tombolo. The lobby is my favorite, with earthy colors (taupe, anyone?) and full-length windows that look out over the Ligurian Sea. It reminds me of Carmel-by-the-Sea. This setting is waiting to be immortalized in a romance novel.
We don’t want to leave this place either. But our tour takes us to olive trees and vineyards in the Sienese countryside and the Hotel Certosa di Maggiano, a 14th-century monastery converted into an intimate country estate. How intimate? Seventeen rooms, each a former monastic cell.
The monks never ate like this, under the arches of the central cloister. At night, candlelight and classical music transform the simple courtyard into an enchanting eatery. Before dinner, we see the chef picking fresh herbs in the kitchen garden. We stroll the path through the rose garden after dark, with fireflies lighting the way.
Buona notte.
From Siena, we’re off to Rome and the five-star luxury of the Hotel de Russie. A refuge in the center of the city, it’s located between the Spanish Steps and the Piazza del Popolo. Spend a few hours touring the city, then retreat into the hotel’s terraced garden, a wonderful break from the crazy drivers on the streets outside.
We get a private guided tour of the Roman Forum from historian Iris Carulli, an American who says she’s "an evangelist for Rome." We learn more from her in a few hours than all our history classes combined. "We’re standing on sacred ground for cultured people," she tells me as we look out over Capitoline Hill. I decide not to tell her I grew up in Fresno.
Our second hotel in Rome, the Regina Hotel Baglioni in the Via Veneto, offers art nouveau opulence. From our balcony, we sit and admire a view of Rome. We’ve been running all over—four cities in eight days—so we’re ready to stay still for a while and enjoy the antique furnishings. In the hotel lounge, the piano player discovers we’re from California, and sings "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" with an Italian accent. Tony Bennett never sounded so good.
Time to return to Tuscany, and Relais la Suvera. In a country where every piece of stone has a story, this place stands out. The Marchese Ricci and his wife, Principessa Eleonora Massimo, have turned their country residence into a Renaissance villa. I am lucky enough to meet the marquis and the princess—while wearing my baggy khaki shorts and seaweed-green "I Cleaned Up the Bay" T-shirt.
Our final stop is Florence, home of Michelangelo and the Hotel Helvetia & Bristol. We’ve had consistently good concierge service at our hotels, but this crew is the best. We make what we figure is an impossible request—the name of a good Chinese restaurant—and these guys nail it.
Some time after I get home, I have my annual physical. The doctor gives me the bad news about my cholesterol. Okay, I’ll eat oatmeal every day—heavy on the flaxseed—if I can just go back to Italy someday and clean my plate again.
If You Go
For more information about the hotels mentioned: Hotel Cipriani & Palazzo Vendramin, 39-041-520-7744, www.hotelcipriani.com; Grand Hotel Tombolo, 39-05-657-4530; www.grandhoteltombolo.com; Hotel Certosa di Maggiano, 39-05-772-88180, www.certosadimaggiano.it; Hotel de Russie, 39-06-328-88830, www.roccofortehotels.com; Regina Hotel Baglioni, 39-02-773-02/703, www.baglionihotels.com; Relais la Suvera, 39-05-77-960-300, www.lasuvera.it; Hotel Helvetia & Bristol, 39-05-526-651, www.hotelhelvetiabristolfirenze.it. Three-hour tours by Iris Carulli are $120, 39-06-689-6066, www.imcarulli.com.
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