Guardian,
4 March 2006
Taking the Grand Tour
"...Dinners in a Venetian palazzo, private visits to the Vatican, dress fittings with Valentino – for a truly unforgettable Italian holiday, take the made-to-measure approach.
Emily FitzRoy is very lucky – and she knows it. She has had a private view of some of the most beautiful art in the world and now she’d like you to go along too.
Her company Bellini Travel, organises tailor-made holidays, arranging every aspect of the trip from specialist guides to finding the best ice-cream parlours. While many incorporate top-of-the-range delights (dinner with a principessa in her Roman palace, for instance) she can also take people to the bars and restaurants where local people eat and serving some of the finest food in Italy.
So if you or I want to have a holiday with her, how would she go about it? “I deal directly with the owners and never recommend anywhere I haven’t been myself. In Rome for instance, you could go to the palazzo where the film Roman Holiday was shot. It’s a glimpse into how the Italian nobility still lives today”.
“Every time I go to Venice, Florence or Rome, there’s something new to discover, even in the middle of the city.” But she also loves some of the more hidden parts of Italy. “In Puglia, you can go to little fishing villages where nothing has changed for 200 years. It’s still so untouched and cheap – and less than two hours flight by RyanAir.” So where are these villages exactly? She’s not telling..."
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