The Curation: Volume 38
Italian Winter: 6 itineraries with 32 hotels, The Zanzibar Hotel List, new hotels and upcoming hotel openings around the world, and everything I've read recently.
Today’s Agenda
Italian Winter: 6 itineraries, including 32 hotels
Rating the 30 books I’ve read since we last book talked in July
The Zanzibar Hotel List, including explanations for all and background on my research process and on Zanzibar at-large
A wide-ranging list of new and upcoming hotel openings across the world
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Italian Winter
This has been a frequent request in my DMs, emails, and comments. I have so many ideas! Let’s make Italian Winter a proper noun like its summer counterpart.
Itinerary 1: Truffles, Wine & Ski (or Not to Ski?)
This one does require a car, and starts with a flight into Milan Malpensa. This is for the people who want to have the wine and dine Italian experience and also head to the mountains for some ski.
You’ll start in Piemonte (Piedmont), which is a unique place in Italy that is equally exciting to visit in every season. It’s truffle country, and the types very by time of year. From mid-September to January, it’s the famed white truffle season. The top of the truffle hierarchy, many would say. While many of the great hotels in the region do close for the winter season, others stay open year-round. My top choice would be the grand, from-another-era Castello di Guarene. It makes you feel like you’re Someone, it has a great spa, you can splurge without rent splurging on a room with a 10-foot antique canopy bed, and it’s well-located. While Guarene is an indulgence in opulence and history, Nordelaia represents the Piemonte of today. It’s a spa hotel that’s not just a spa hotel, a wellness destination for people who don’t necessarily use that word in everyday life, and overall a beautiful luxury hotel that’s perfect for winter. For more staunch minimalists, Le Marne Relais should be a contender. Three or four nights.
Then, you’ll start heading up into the mountains, to the edge of Piemonte and the Valle d’Aosta to La Bursch for a night. This is both to see more microcosms of Italy, and to break up the drive (not that it’s long). Plus, it’s a roadtrip – that’s the point, the fun!
From there, you’ll continue up, up, up into the mountains where you have two options. Option one is to go to the tony ski town of Courmayeur, right near the French border, to ski and stay at the wonderful Auberge de la Maison. Option two is to head to Cogne for more of a winter wonderland experience in lieu of slope skiing and stay at the old-world, truly special Bellevue Hotel. Three or four nights, and then you’ll fly out of Milan.
Itinerary 2: To Eat (Culturally & Culinarily)
Because it’s so boiling hot in the summer, and its typical (fantastic) food is largely rich, Emilia-Romagna is the ideal winter destination. No car required.