V.erdi is in the air, but also Proust, Monet, Joyce, Kipling. They are in their rooms, at the piano, in the landscape, even in the light and above all in the search by passionate travelers to grasp their traces and memories in the grand hotels where the great masters of yesterday lived. From Milan to Venice, from Trieste to Normandy and London, up to Lake Como, where Villa Passalacqua will be inaugurated in June, where Vincenzo Bellini, a guest from 1829 to 1833, composed important works, such as Norm. Special places, where history is intertwined with literature, music and art. To delve into their lives, at least for a few days.
Milan, at the piano of Giuseppe Verdi
Grand Hotel et de Milan. Dimorestudio. ph. Silvia Rivoltella
This is legend: a Milan Via Manzoni, then Corsia del Giardino, was covered with straw to muffle the noises of the horses and not disturb the sleep of Giuseppe Verdi, who was ill at that time. But everything else, al Grand Hotel et de Milan, inaugurated in 1863, is history. It was the “Milanese home” of many yesterday’s greats, including Verdi who stayed here in Suite 105 from 1872 to 1901. In the restaurant, the Don Carlos, among silver candelabra and delicacies prepared by chef Mauro Moia, stand out sketches, sets and portraits that recall Scaligeri and Verdi characters. The Maestro had a very close bond with the hotel and with Milan itself, where he made his debut at the Teatro La Scala in 1839 with the work Oberto, count of San Bonifacio and where he returned in 1887 with Othello. A triumph: after the first one his carriage was pulled by the arms of the Milanese, and he, returning to “Milan”, as the hotel was called, appeared from the balcony singing some arias to an adoring crowd. Her choice was no coincidence: it was a stone’s throw from La Scala and via Bigli, where her friend Countess Clara Maffei lived, soul of the literary salon where she met Alessandro Manzoni, Honoré de Balzac and Gioachino Rossini. The Grand Hotel et de Milan was truly home for him. He played the piano when he wanted, he loved to dine in his room, now the Verdi Suite, in the evening he went down for a game of cards and sent telegrams from the hotel office. Last year the hotel returned to new life after months of restyling, enhancing the nineteenth-century allure, but with more contemporary touches. It has remained the treasure chest of Milanese history, and hosts names such as Daniel Pennac, Marina Abramović, Anselm Kiefer. Verdi would certainly appreciate it.
Info: grandhoteletdemilan.it, double from 550 euros.
Venice, Monet’s favorite room
The terrace, overlooking the Grand Canal, of the St. Regis Venice.
To kidnap him was the passage of light on Grand Canal, which he admired from the window of the then Grand Hotel Britannia. Soft, warm, extraordinary from sunrise to sunset. It was the fall of 1908 and Claude Monet stayed in one of the five buildings which today, after a long restoration, has returned to its former glory and is part of the St. Regis Venice. That of Venice it was a short but prolific period for him, because here he began masterpieces, such as Le Palais Ducal, sold in 2019 at Sotheby’s for over £ 27 million, which depicts the facade of the Palace reflected on the water, in which shades of blue, pink, purple, white and orange intertwine to create the reflections of impressionist painting. Even Monet’s wife, Alice, was enchanted: «The views from our hotel room – she wrote to her daughter – are the most magnificent in all of Venice, and for Monet that’s all that matters».
The Monet Suite Living Room of the St. Regis Venice with a work by the painter Olivier Masmonteil.
And if the Grand Hotel Britannia was a meeting place for artists, including Sargent and Turner, and St. Regis Venice perpetuates the tradition: it has entrusted Olivier Masmonteil – the first resident artist – with the interpretation of the creative path of the French master . Thus were born works exhibited in two Monet Suites. Even the furnishing accessories, such as the carpets, recall his brushstrokes, and the interiors a color palette that gives reflections at any time of day. For a real tribute to Monet.
Info: marriott.it, double from 600 euros.
Trieste, a coffee with James Joyce
The James Joyce suite of the Victoria Hotel Letterario, in Trieste.
Trieste, as we know, is the literary city par excellence. For the big names who were born here, such as Italo Svevo or Umberto Saba, but also for others who have moved. This is the case of the Irish writer James Joyce, at home in what is today the Victoria Literary Hotel, in a building with a beautiful library, loved by artists, intellectuals and writers (the authors of a book get a 15% discount by donating it). Many book the James Joyce Suite, where embroidered tapestries stand out with quotes from his books and details that refer to the writer, who lived in the city from 1904 to remain there, with some interruptions, until 1915 (he will return one last time in the two-year period 1919-20, when the drafting of theUlysses). “Trieste is my second homeland,” he repeated. In homage to Joyce, as well as dedicated literary itineraries and Joyce Museum, the Bloomsday is organized every June 16, remembering the protagonist of the Ulysses, Leopold Bloom: you follow a themed path, because the city is strewn with placards in the places where Joyce has left her mark, but it is also nice to find her habits by stopping at the San Marco coffee, with original decor, al Coffee of the Mirrors, the “living room” of Trieste, and to the Pirona pastry shop, where Joyce delighted in the pleasures of the palate.
Info: hotelvictoriatrieste.com, double from 94 euros.
London, the metropolitan jungles of Kipling
The Kipling Suite of the Brown’s Hotel in London.
Another address steeped in literature. L‘Brown’s Hotel in London was founded in 1837 by Lord Byron’s former butler, James Brown, and many writers were regular guests, from Oscar Wilde to Arthur Conan Doyle, from Robert Louis Stevenson to Agatha Christie, who was inspired here for the 1965 thriller Miss Marple at the Bertram Hotel. One of the best known, however, remains Rudyard Kipling, who, while staying here, in 1894, finished writing The Jungle Book, after spending the first night of their honeymoon there, and to which Brown’s has dedicated a Suite, the Kipling: antique furniture combined with design objects, bright colors that turn green and English upholstery, as well as a precious original letter written by the author during his stay.
Info: roccofortehotels.com, double from 750 euros.
Carbourg, on the promenade where Proust used to walk
Proust’s beloved hotel, the Grand Hôtel Cabourg-M Gallery, in Cabourg, France, on the Normandy coast.
A privilege for those who loved À la Recherche du temps perdu, delve into the world of Marcel Proust. In Cabourg, France on the Normandy coast, his Balbec in the novel, the writer was at home since he was a child, first a guest of his uncles and then, from 1907 to 1914, of the Grand Hôtel Cabourg-M Gallery, where you can still breathe the charm of the Belle Époque and everything speaks of Proust, starting with Suite 414, dedicated to him. «No room has ever given me so many sensations of a clean, natural, genuine atmosphere, where the walls contain the past» he thought, as he wrote his Recherche and observed the sea «where the scattered gulls circled like white corollas».
A detail of the hall of the Grand Hôtel Cabourg-M Gallery.
You sip a cocktail on the esplanade that he had renamed “The Meridian of Love”, stroll along the “Promenade Marcel Proust”, next to the white and blue striped cabins, explore the countryside.a, among orchards, Gothic style churches and half-timbered houses with exposed wooden beams. The landscape that Proust asked Agostinelli, his driver friend, to illuminate at night with the car’s headlights. And finally, we visit the Villa du Temps Retrouvé, his holiday home, house museum that reopens in March. The Normandy of Balbec-Cabourg continues to attract dreamy travelers, in search of emotions. And of a lost time.
Info: grand-hotel-cabourg.com, double from 230 euros.
Proust’s bronze exhibited at the Grand Hôtel Cabourg-M Gallery, in Cabourg, France, on the Normandy coast.
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