Inspiration: discover the Blog

Private Mass at St Peter's and the Eternal City in lights — Rome in the most ceremonial week of its year, for the traveller who wants to attend it properly. There is a particular hour on the morning of the twenty-fifth of December in St Peter's Basilica — somewhere between half-past nine and ten, when the Pope's Midnight Mass of the previous night has been concluded for some hours and the morning's papal Mass has not yet begun — when the great basilica is at its most still. T

Private itineraries through the Dolomites — the German-Italian Christmas at its most authentic, in the weeks the markets are at their proper register. There is a particular evening in the second week of December at the Christmas market in the small Alto Adige town of Brunico — Bruneck, in the local German — when the snow has begun to fall on the wooden stalls in the central piazza, the mulled wine vendors are running at capacity, the brass quintet from the local conservatory

From Porto Ercole to Ponza — a quieter Italian charter route, for the traveller who has done the headline coasts and wants the islands between them. There is a stretch of the central Tyrrhenian, from the Argentario peninsula in southern Tuscany down to the Pontine Islands off the Lazio coast, that the international charter market has not yet found in any meaningful sense. The boats that ply these waters in August are largely Italian, the captains are largely from Naples or An

The most remarkable hour we know how to arrange in Rome — and what is involved in conducting it properly. There is no experience in our practice that we recommend more frequently, more confidently, or with more general approval from clients afterwards than the after-hours private opening of the Vatican Museums. It is, for most of the people who experience it, the highest single hour of any Italian journey. It is also a fairly specific arrangement that requires considerable ad

Private access to Italy's most storied horse race — a ninety-second event built on a year of preparation, and the most considered way to attend it. There is no event in Italy that explains the country to a foreign visitor as efficiently as the Palio di Siena. It lasts ninety seconds. It has been run, in essentially the same form, since 1656. It is not a sporting event in any modern sense; it is a civic and religious rite that the city of Siena has kept alive while the rest of

Volcanoes, caper vineyards and silent coves — a week in the seven islands that sit, half-forgotten, between Sicily and the open Tyrrhenian. There is a particular kind of anchorage one can take, in the late afternoon, in the small bay below the village of Pollara on the western flank of Salina, that is among the more memorable anchorages in the central Mediterranean. The cliff rises seven hundred metres above the sea on one side. The volcano of Filicudi smokes faintly to the w

Private vendemmia in Montalcino and Bolgheri — what it means to spend a day inside the harvest at one of the great Italian estates.

An insider's autumn in Piedmont — the Alba truffle market, the cellars in their post-harvest mood, and the rituals that make this October week unrepeatable. There is a small wooden stall at the back of the Alba truffle market, on the third Saturday of October each year, that is run by a man named Battista whose family has been hunting the white truffle in the woods around Roddi for three generations. His stock on a typical Saturday is perhaps twenty pieces, ranging from the s

The private art of the unforgettable celebration — what we have learned, over a decade of work, about Italian weddings done at the highest level. There is a particular look that comes over our most experienced wedding planners on the first call with a new client. It is a look of careful listening rather than of comfortable certainty. The reason is simple: every Italian wedding at the level we plan is, in some real sense, a wedding that has not been done before. The venue has

A seven-day Mediterranean passage at the season's first crest — the route, the anchorages, the meals taken on deck. There is a week most years, falling somewhere between the close of the Cannes Film Festival and the opening of the Monaco Grand Prix, when the western Mediterranean is at its most seductively underused. The boats are in the water. The harbour towns are open. The mistral has eased. The temperature is a perfect twenty-three by midday. And yet the heavy charter sea

Private Vatican access, papal audiences, and the Eternal City's finest suites — for the traveller who wants to attend Rome in its most ceremonial week. The first thing the Roman calendar does each year is lean in toward Easter. From the moment Carnival ends and Lent begins, the city is in a slow, accumulating preparation for the week that, more than any other, is what the calendar of Rome was built around. The Vatican publishes its Holy Week schedule. The pilgrims begin to ar

Barolo cellars, fireside dinners and the Langhe in winter — three days that explain why this corner of Italy belongs to those who have learned to wait. There is a particular cold in the Langhe in February that the locals describe as giusto — proper, correct, the cold the wine wants. It is not the harsh, dry cold of the Alps further north; it is a damp, fog-edged cold that sits low in the valleys, lifts by mid-morning, and leaves the vineyards smelling of wet earth and woodsmo

Private palazzi, masked galas and the city beyond the crowds, for the traveller who wants Carnival as it was — not as it is performed. The Carnival of Venice is the most photographed event in Italy, and yet the photograph and the event are scarcely the same thing. The photograph is the daylight Carnival of Piazza San Marco — a festival of costumed amateurs, posing for cameras, performed for cameras, and over by sundown. The event itself, the Carnival the Venetians have kept a