Italy Upscale: On the Road to the Renaissance

Summer is now in full swing and when it's summer, it's time to go to…Italy! With apologies to all the other wonderful destinations in the world, Italy continues to be one of the top places Americans want to visit every summer. And what better places to visit than the Renaissance cities of Verona, Florence and Milan!

Of course, I managed to beat the rush (a bit) because I traveled to Italy last month on an independent tour program arranged by Andrea Grisdale and her team at IC Bellagio, a boutique Italy specialist. Our first stop was Lake Como, which I wrote about a couple weeks back in this space.

But there was much more to come after Como, where we searched for George Clooney and stayed in the Grand Hotel Tremezzo and the Palazzo del Vic Re, a new boutique property opened by IC Bellagio last month.

Our first stop, post-Como, was in Verona, famous for its Roman amphitheater and a little play called "Romeo and Juliet." We were ferried to Verona in a comfortable Mercedes mini-bus, stopping in the medieval hilltop town of Bergamo, where we walked the narrow cobblestoned streets, visited the cathedral and had lunch, with the requisite gelato.

We arrived in Verona in the late afternoon and checked into the Hotel Palazzo Victoria, a very comfortable 74-room boutique property housed in 14th century Palazzo. The hotel is centrally located in the old city of Verona, just steps away from the town's top attractions. The hotel's decor is a mix of classic and very modern, with marble bathrooms, flat-screen TVs in the rooms. Palazzo Victoria also has a popular Victoria Club bar and restaurant, Borsari 36, with a "show" kitchen led by a Michelin-starred chef.

Our immediate goal was to get a quick tour of Verona with a well-informed guide furnished by IC Bellagio. He took us to the city's old Arena Amphitheater, a Roman theater that still offers musical performances today, with famous opera and pop music luminaries featured on a regular basis. Indeed, our guide pointed out a building where he said Leonardo di Caprio had bought an apartment overlooking the arena. 

After that our guide took us to what is now one of Verona's top attractions — the Juliet House. This is the site where Romeo allegedly wooed Juliet. And it can get quite crowded at times, with masses of travelers moving into a small courtyard to view the house's balcony and buy romantic souvenirs. As our guide informed us, however, the house is not really Juliet's.

PHOTO: Juliet's House is one of Verona's major tourist attractions.

Indeed, Juliet is a fabricated character, though there were most certainly star-crossed lovers who could have run afoul of their feuding families in Verona. Shakespeare never actually set foot in the city, but he saw productions of other plays and read stories about the romantic duo, from which he wrote his own version.

After Juliet's House, we walked through Verona's picturesque main square. Our guide pointed out where Madonna (the current one!) had purchased an apartment. Verona certainly seems to have attracted its share of celebrities, just like Como. We then walked through the city's shopping district and over to Adige River to see the Castle of San Pietro on a hill on the other bank. In all we got a pretty good idea of what Verona has to offer; it's certainly worth a one- or two-day visit.

That night we had dinner at 12 Apostoli, arranged by IC Bellagio. Considered to be the best restaurant in Verona, it also has some rather unique Roman ruins in its cellar, which our host showed us, as well as a "celebrity" wine room where many famous Italians have dined and left their signatures and photos.

The next day we took the Trenitalia high-speed train, Frecciabianca, to Florence via Padova. It was a quick journey with transfers provided from the hotels to the station; much faster than any train experience I've had in the U.S. I'm accustomed to high-speed rail in Europe and was pleasantly surprised that the Italian system is equally as good as those in France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and other countries.

We arrived in Florence and were met by driver who took as to our next hotel, the Villa del Massa, sister property to Lake Como's Villa D'Este. I've stayed at Villa del Massa before, so I was familiar with the fact that this bucolic property is located directly on the Arno River about 15-20 minutes' drive from the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. The hotel offers a free shuttle into the city. But it's a great place to escape after a day touring Florence.

PHOTO: Villa del Massa offers a bucolic and luxurious place to stay just outside Florence.

The 37-key Villa del Massa is located in a park-like setting complete with swimming pool. There are three buildings, including the main four-story villa, an adjacent small villa with a presidential suite, and a third building that houses more rooms and the restaurant, which has a patio overlooking the Arno.

We checked into our presidential suite, which sleeps five and has private terrace and lawn. Then headed into Florence on the shuttle to meet our IC Bellagio guide. Now I've been to Florence a number of times, but the rest of our party had not, so our guide gave us the requisite visit to the Ponte Vecchio, with its many jewelry shops, and the Piazza della Signoria, one of the city's main squares, which includes the Palazzo Vecchio and the replica statute of "David."

We also visited the Piazza del Duomo, which includes the city's giant cathedral, Gothic bell-tower, as well as a number of other sites, including Dante's Chapel and some other venues, many which I'd just read about in Dan Brown's "Inferno," which takes place largely in Florence, Venice and Istanbul.

PHOTO: Palazzo Vecchio is one of the iconic buildings now made famous again in Dan Brown's book. 

We returned to the Villa del Massa to rest before heading back to find a local trattoria for dinner. The next day we met up with another IC Bellagio guide for a "culinary" tour of Florence. She took us to small local food stores, featuring bread, pastries and wine (nothing like have a few glasses of wine before 11 a.m.!).

But the highlight of the tour was a visit to Florence's massive San Lorenzo indoor food market, called Mercado Central. There you can find all types of meats, cheeses, fruits and vegetables, plus baked goods and pastries. On the upper level there is a whole food court full of restaurants and cafes serving the freshest ingredients —much, much better than any food court in the U.S.

We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping or touring on our own. I walked back past the Uffizi gallery and over the Ponte Vecchio and over to the Palazzo Pitti, where the Medicis ruled the city. I paid a fee to enter the Boboli Gardens just behind the palace, with the idea that I'd find some of the sites mentioned in Dan Brown's book, which I was carrying around with me like an American tourist.

I also wanted to trace the "secret" passage mentioned in the book from the Palazzo Pitti across the Ponte Vecchio to the Palazzo Vecchio. I soon found that passageway, but my efforts to find the places in the garden that are mentioned in the book were less successful. Or maybe it was just too hot a day to hike around the garden!

We returned to Villa del Massa, got cleaned up and then dined on the terrace overlooking the Arno well into the evening. Altogether it was two very satisfying days in Florence, a return visit for me but an introduction for the others in our party.

The next day we were transferred by minibus to the Florence rail station to get another high-speed train (this one even more impressive than the first) to Milan. I had not visited the city since I was very young, so I was looking forward to seeing how it had developed over the years. I remember Milan as a somewhat dirty, industrial city, one my parents usually tried to avoid, except for the time we visited the Duomo and the "Last Supper" painting.

PHOTO: The famed Duomo in Milan is located at the heart of the city.

Today, however, Milan is a bustling bastion of chic fashion, high-end stores and wide boulevards, not at all what I remembered. We stayed at the 118-room Four Seasons Milan, a restored 15th century convent just steps away from the city's high-end boutiques, Quadrilatero D'Oro, and not too far from La Scala and the Duomo. The hotel has an inner courtyard and garden (part of the old Cloisters) an indoor pool and a spa, plus a lively lounge and restaurant.

At this point, our group was sadly a bit "toured" out, but I still wanted to get a better sense of Milan, so I joined another IC Bellagio guide on a whirlwind tour by minibus of the city. We visited an art museum in a popular quarter of the town, as well as the city's massive castle, a large moat-encircled edifice that now houses a number of museums. We also visited something I never knew Milan had — canals. Indeed, the Naviglio Canals Quarter, which has one major canal, has become a lively and popular part of the city, full of restaurants and cafes.

We then journeyed back to the main square around the Duomo, which also has a massive adjacent galleria of high-end stores and cafes, leading to La Scala, the famed opera house. The line on the most popular gelato store in town was way too long, so I guess I have a reason to go back now.

That night, IC Bellagio had suggested a trendy new restaurant, Larte, not too far from the Four Seasons. This modern eatery incorporates a coffee bar, chocolate bar, open kitchen and tavern all in one — and the food was superb.

We walked off our meal in the still-light Milanese evening, enjoying the city's main square, the Duomo again and the galleria. It was our last night in Italy after an all-too-quick trip. But we know we'll be back!