PrivatAir, Issue 9
Grand tours
 Huon
Mallalieu
...The doyen of Italian organisers is Charles FitzRoy, whose Fine Art
Travel has been operating for eighteen years, and now also tours in Spain,
France and Germany. FitzRoy's knowledge of Italy is unrivalled, and his
fellow tour-leaders include the classicist and garden writer Robin Lane-Fox,
the Earl of Gowrie and Prince Heinrich von Wittgenstein zu Sayn.
In Rome,
they can arrange private candlelit visits to the Sistine Chapel, and
to the Pope's private chapel with the Michelangelo frescos that the
public never see. On Ischia, Lady Walton, widow of the composer, shows
them
her garden packed with rarities, followed by lunch with her in the
villa. Historical continuity is all-important: "In Umbria, we had lunch
with
the Borgias, in Florence, with the Frescobaldis, who have lived in
the same palazzo for 1,000 years, and in Augsburg with the Fuggers."
The maximum number on a Fine Art tour is 25. For truly exclusive tours
and events, FitzRoy has set up Bellini Travel, run by his niece. "The
joy of Emily," it has been said, "is that she is both serious and
frivolous: she can take you privately, circumnavigating all the backpackers
to
the Vasari Corridor at the Uffizi, to dinner with the Feragamos, or to
the
best shoe shops in Rome."
She organises birthdays, weddings and honeymoons,
and knows her gelati as well as her onions and art. She has won the
ultimate accolade for any organiser, the enthusiastic approval of John
Julius
Norwich, the historian and expert on Venice, who wishes that Bellini
had existed for him 40 years ago...
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