If you could splurge, what hotels would you choose for Rome, Venice and Florence? Someone I know often spends 700 euros a night. With that budget, what would you choose?

In Rome, perhaps the St. Regis

Hi there!
Your friend might try the Westin Excelsior, located near the Ponte Vecchio. Not 700 Euros a night, but is a 5 star hotel will excellent patron reviews (see www.venere.com). There are other 5 star hotels, but this one has perhaps the best location of most of them if you want a view of the Arno.
For something exactly in the centre of it all, try the Rocco Forte Hotel Savoy. It is located exactly at the Piazza della Repubblica, which is the centre of historic Florence. Try this link for more information:
http://www.lhw.com/property.aspx?&pr...&Ext=GLsav
Have fun!

Link doesn't work! Lets try it again:
for the Savoy:
try "hotelsavoy.it" (for some reason, I can't get the link to work, probably because it is a .it site, but you know what to do!

Friend stayed at the Hassler in Rome. Will tried to remember where in Venice. Always George V in Paris. It is definitely NOT my way of traveling, but am considering a (really) splurge stay for my trip in Italy.

The Villa San Michele in Fiesole, in the hills outside of Florence...if I could afford to stay there, I could also afford a car and driver to take me to center city...

You'll get a whole bunch of useful threads if you simply search "russie".

And Villa San Michele sounds like an excellent idea for Florence.

Best wishes,

Rex

intrepid: where are you, aren't you going to trash this high roller?

Hotel Cipriani in Venice

--- Rome
Hotel de Russie - hotelderussie.it

----Venice, in my personal order of preference

Bauer Il Pallazzo - www.ilpalazzovenezia.com

Londra Hotel - www.hotelondra.it (ask for Room 504)

The Palazzo Sant Angelo (sinahotels.com) - Quite lovely, smaller, newer, on the Grand Canal but further away from P. San Marco. A picture from one of their rooms was the end page in the May 2005 edition of Conde Nast Traveller magazine. Sina hotels has some very interesting hotels in Italy

---Florence

Villa La Massa ( www.villalamassa.com or lhw.com), if you want to be outside Florence

If you want to be in the city, then IMO you need to be on the river, I would choose one of the Lungarno Hotels run by the Ferragamo family , go to
Lungarnohotels.com. I prefer the Lungarno Suites becaue the rooms are the largest and are in fact suites, a few have balconies. A lot of poeple like the Lungarno Hotel, but their largest rooms are only 42 square meters.

I can second the Lungarno Suites as being quite excellent and not E700/night. The one bedrooms have a nice small kitchen and two separate bathrooms with a great shower in one and a very nice bath in the other. Breakfast and newspaper brought to your room every morning. On the Arno about 50 meters from the Ponte V.

Thanks everyone. I'll check these out.

I second the recommendation for the Lungarno in Florence. We stayed at Hotel Lungarno, and while the room was not all that large, we had a lovely terrace overlooking the Arno. Services and location for exploring Florence were perfect!

Sorry I don't mean to imply that the Lugarno Hotel rooms are cramped, at 42 square meters they are certainly a perfectly OK size. (22 meters is a cramped small room even 28 for 2 people is pushing it IMO.) It's just that for a pretty hefty price IMO you are not getting a really big room. Of course they are generally bigger than many of the rooms at the Savoy and do have a river view.

For Florence, don't stay in the city - there's a fabulous new luxury villa hotel in the hills near Greve - www.villabordoni.com - with a gourmet restaurant attached - founded by David Gardner, who's famous for his Florence restaurants.

No, Richardsonsnm, I am not going to "trash this high roller" because he is very different from you..he doesn't stay in one of the most expensive hotels in town and then whine about how expensive it is like you did.

And, I'm not a high roller. I'm staying for a week in Tuscany for less than 700 euro. But, I'm thinking (IF it's a good bonus year) to try a splurge hotel in one of the cities this year. If it were a Paris trip, it would be the George V. I have no idea where in Italy - therefore the question!