Last Glimpse of Summer: A Guide to Luxury Destinations in Europe

Breathtaking views, art, glamorous beaches and a bit of history are some of the options for ending the summer holidays on a high note while exploring Italy and its surroundings.

Here, WWD Weekend selects some of the most beautiful luxury destinations in Europe to check out.

Furore Grand Hotel

After a four-year renovation, the Furore Grand Hotel has reopened its doors. Located on the Amalfi Coast, near to the Furore fjord from which it draws its name, the five-star luxury hotel is surrounded by a park that spans almost five acres. The hotel has 35 guest rooms, mostly suites, equipped with balconies, terraces, private gardens and outdoor areas. Six of the rooms include private pools as well. Floors are adorned with Vietri ceramics and furnishings are handcrafted by local artisans. A white palette dominates all the areas.

Renowned Italian chef Enrico Bartolini oversees the entire culinary offering, while resident chef Vincenzo Russo leads the kitchen of the Michelin-starred fine-dining restaurant Bluh Furore, open only for dinner, and of the all-day dining restaurant Acquarasa.

The Mediterranean-style menu focuses on local and organic ingredients cultivated in the recently inaugurated syntropic garden. There is also a Ria Lounge Bar for drinks. 

A wellness center, Petramare Spa, covers an area of 5,380 square feet, and includes a heated pool, sauna, Turkish bath and Valmont spa treatments in addition to a Kneipp path. Yoga, Pilates, meditation areas and a panoramic gym are available for guests.  

The hotel is owned by the De Lutiis family, who have restored the building, promoting hospitality in one of the world’s most exclusive locations, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Furore Grand Hotel
Via Dell’Amore, 2 – 84010 
Tel. 08-99-35-73
furoregrandhotel.com

Grace La Margna

The boutique hotel Grace La Margna in Saint Moritz is located in an Art Nouveau building from the early 20th century, restyled by London-based Divercity Architects studio and interior designer Carole Topin. 

The hotel has 74 guest rooms and suites across two wings, La Margna and Grace, which provide a stunning view of the surrounding landscape. On the top floor, the Grace penthouse has a private terrace and a hot tub.

The spa covers 7,534 square feet and includes saunas, Turkish baths and a lounge. 

Luxury home furnishings brand Molteni&C helped decorate most of the areas.

The Maxmoritz restaurants celebrates Swiss cuisine, while the View, led by executive chef Andrea Bonini, offers Mediterranean specialties throughout the day.  A mint julep drink with Michter‘s whisky, sugar, mint and soda or a traditional Negroni are served at the N/5 Bar led by bar manager and master mixologist Mirco Giumelli. In the living room, guests can try teas from France’s oldest gourmet tea company, Mariage Frères, with pastries by pastry chef Ernst Gmür.

Hotel Grace La Margna Saint Moritz
Via Serlas, 5 – 7500 
Tel. 41-81-832-22-10
gracehotels.com

A’ Riccione Santa Margherita restaurant

Milanese food destination A’ Riccione has unveiled its first seasonal location by the sea. 

The restaurant will be open until Sept. 30 in Santa Margherita, in the Liguria region, seating 180 guests with an outdoor space with views of the sea.

To start, the menu offers crudités like Calvisius caviar and six varieties of oysters. Cold appetizers include a tuna tartare with yellow cherry tomato gazpacho, or avocado cream and basil bread slices. Paying homage to local tradition, there are fried anchovy cutlets, or roasted calamari with Riviera herbs on panzanella with a cream of piquillo peppers and basil. Among the first courses are “Spaghetto Santa” with walnut sauce, prawns, clams and marjoram and a reinterpretation of the trofie (a type of pasta) with pesto, red prawns, stracciatella, ginger and lime.

Freshly caught fish comes grilled, and there is also a tuna tataki with herbs, tamarind, curly salad and toasted almonds, as well as sea bass. Exclusively for this location, a few meat options are available, including a Jamon Iberico de Bellota with “pan de cristal” (Spanish bread) and tomate (a Catalan specialty tomato) and a cube roll of grilled black Angus beef with thyme potatoes and pepper sauce Sichuan.

The restaurant was founded in Milan in 1955 and is directed by brothers Dante and Giuseppe di Paolo together with executive chef Marco Fossati leading the kitchen.

A’Riccione Santa Margherita 
Viale Ammiraglio Canevaro, 2 – 16038
Tel. 01-85-215-689
ariccionemilano.it

‘Legami: Studies in the Costume Archive of the Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi’ exhibition

The exhibition “Legami: Studies in the Costume Archive of the Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi” is presented by Mahler & LeWitt Studios and Carla Fendi Foundation in collaboration with the Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi and curated by Guy Robertson. 

The show runs until Sept. 15 in the Ex Chiesa di Santa Maria della Manna d’Oro, which dates back to the 17th century on the Piazza Duomo of Spoleto, Italy.  

Mahler & LeWitt studios and the Carla Fendi Foundation joined forces to support a new project to exhibit the work of award-winning Dominican-American photographer Luis Alberto Rodriguez, in collaboration with Italian set designer Afra Zamara as part of the three-year residency program.

The artists selected costumes from historic operas and ballets to emphasize and assess the way dress defines identity. The installation was conceived to create a dialogue between the work of Rodriguez and Zamara, the church’s oil paintings, and the high-relief figurative compositions on the baptismal font.

The exhibition also aims to highlight the efforts by the festival in recent years to recover, conserve and catalogue about 3,800 costumes. The archive illustrates the history of performance at Spoleto’s festivals from the early 1960s to the 2000s.

The costumes were often created by the most prestigious Italian and foreign costume designers of the time and are a heritage of great cultural value. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with a contribution from Robertson and a conversation between Rodriguez and Sara Sozzani Maino.

Ex chiesa di Santa Maria della Manna d’Oro
Piazza del Duomo, 4 – 06049 
festivaldispoleto.com

‘Passeggiate Romane’ exhibition

The “Passeggiate Romane [Roman Promenades]” exhibition, presented at the MAXXI museum — National Museum of the Arts of the 21st Century — until Nov. 10, is an invitation to walk through the history of Rome. 

The spaces of the museum, which was designed by architect Zaha Hadid, have been set up with scenography conceived and created by Oscar winner Dante Ferretti. The works come from the archives of the Borghese Gallery, the National Gallery and the Capitoline Museums. The exhibition borrows its title from Stendhal’s 1829 book of the same name and is inspired by the books titled “Racconti Romani” by Alberto Moravia (written in 1954) and by Jhumpa Lahiri (published in 2022).

The works of more recent artists such as Giuseppe Capogrossi, Christo, Giorgio De Chirico, Gino De Dominicis and Luigi Ontani are placed together with masterpieces such as the views of Canaletto and the paintings of the Cavalier d’Arpino, or the sculptures and mosaics of the Roman era from the Capitoline Museums.

MAXXI – Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo
Via Guido Reni, 4a – 00196 
maxxi.art