Palace Grand Hotel Varese
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A perfectly intact Liberty-style masterpiece by the architect Sommaruga, it is set in a park on the Colle Campigli, with views over the lakes all the way to Monte Rosa. All is Belle Époque: the building, entrance canopies, the lobby with its seven-metre tall windows, the halls, bar, restaurant, cha...
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Antica Locanda di Sesto
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A fourteenth-century inn on the right bank of the Serchio, originally on the estate of Count de Nobili, it was a resting place for merchants from Lucca passing through the Garfagnana with their carts, or "barrocci". The "barrocciai" were offered a stable and hay-barn on the ground floor while more h...
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Osteria Cannone
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One of the most famous taverns in Bologna. Located in a strategic position, in 1900 it offered its delights to merchants coming in from the plains who off-loaded their wares from boats which arrived on a whole network of canals, like in Venice. The old-fashioned sign and the little entrance have rem...
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Adri Cake
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In 1959, when her family took over Stratta, Adriana Monzeglio started looking after the shop, while her sisters took charge of the banqueting. It is to her exquisite taste that we owe this refined, most delicate of cakes, which has been adored for decades. It often graces wedding receptions: sponge ...
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Stratta Sweets
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These are probably the world’s only soft-centred sweets still entirely made by hand. The original recipe dates from 1836 and the process involves thirteen carefully monitored steps, at the end of which the sweets are wrapped, using a semi-automatic machine made in 1933. Their pastel colours then b...
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Giandujotti just as they were in 1867
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Soft and delicate on the palate, Giandujotti by Stratta are an exquisite combination of select raw materials and meticulous preparation. Just as they were in 1867, when the "Giandujotto" was first created for the local carnival, taking its name from the "Gianduja", the stock character of Turin. The ...
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Ancient Inn Luchin
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A baker’s boy, Gio Batta Luca Bonino, “Luchin” to his friends, set up on his own and opened a place in the ancient carruggi alleyways. Since then, the farinata served by this ancient inn has been legendary on the Riviera, together with its old-fashioned Genoese recipes, minestrone, meat loaf a...
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Parkhotel Luna Mondschein
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The mediaeval “Manschein” tavern was a staging post for those travelling through the valleys. In the late fifteenth century, an edict signed by the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I, conferred a heraldic crest upon the Osteria Luna. An ancient ledger shows how the Tyrolese patriot Andreas Hofer, ...
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Piazzetta of Portofino
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Like the terrace of a grand hotel, or a café or restaurant overlooking the sea, the Piazzetta is a salon of life and culture. Ever since the early twentieth century, and especially during the Dolce Vita, history has passed through in a whirl of aristocracy, literature, art, cinema and luxury. Princ...
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Hotel Menardi
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A former peasant-family home – still with original nineteenth-century furnishings – this gem of the Dolomites stood on the Royal Imperial Road of Alemagna, linking the Kingdom of Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. From 1836, when the Menardi family rented out oxen and horses to assist with h...
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Restaurant Al Mangia
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Now in its fourth generation, the oldest restaurant in Siena was opened by Senno Senni in the famous Piazza del Campo, right opposite the Mangia tower. Requisitioned by the German army for their officers’ mess, after the war it became a symbol of the Dolce Vita, with patrons including the royal fa...
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Torta Paradiso
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The Torta Paradiso first came into existence in Enrico Vigoni’s pastry shop in the late nineteenth century. The story goes that Vigoni experimented long and hard before finding the recipe and, when an aristocratic lady tasted it, she instinctively exclaimed: “This cake is paradise!”Whether or ...
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The most family-run
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Of the almost 240 historic establishments in the Association, almost 100 have been run by the same family for two or more generations. Here we see those with the longest lineages, in a list of great prestige that pays tribute and honour to the establishments and to the family names that have been so...
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The most “whispering gallery”
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A person opposite the entrance in the left-hand corner of the Sala Cardinali of the Grand Hotel Cocumella in Sant’Agnello di Sorrento, which contains portraits of the four high prelates that Sorrento gave to the Church, can distinctly hear all that is being said in the very opposite corner.
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The most opera
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Since 2000, Pasticceria Gemmi Il Loggiato in Sarzana, in the province of La Spezia, has been hosting an international competition for young opera singers. With big-name sponsors including the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and the City of Sarzana, it discovers and promotes artists under the age of 35...
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The most jazz
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Hotel Universo in Lucca, home of the “Universo Jazz Club”, a cultural creation of Marianna Marcucci, which puts on a highly acclaimed and popular programme of jazz sessions with international stars.
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The warmest in war
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During the Second World War, some members of the Agnelli family, the owners of the Fiat car company, spent the winter at the Hotel Tornabuoni Beacci in Florence and, in great secrecy, had a lorry-load of coal brought to the hotel from the Turin factory.
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The largest majolica façade
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A masterpiece of the Italian Liberty style, made by Luigi Fabris of Bassano, with a record size of eight hundred square metres, the Grande Albergo Ausonia & Hungaria on the Venice Lido has Europe’s largest façade in polychrome majolica. Beautifully restored, it is a miracle that it has surviv...
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