Hip Italy Hotels - Hotel Certosa di Maggiano, Siena, Italy

"One of the most romantic small luxury hotels in Tuscany"

Hotel Certosa di Maggiano, Siena, Italy A member of Relais and Châteaux since 1978

Just as one can either eat to live or live to eat, there are two similarly divergent ways to approach a journey: you can travel in order to reach a destination or you can pick a destination in order to have a reason to travel. If you're of the sybaritic bent that lives to eat, you're likely to view travel, properly done, as an experience unto itself, rather than as a necessary inconvenience in getting from A to B.

If that's the case, you'll want to discover the European phenomenon of the small luxury hotel-establishments of perhaps fifteen or twenty rooms and a great kitchen, places that allow you live the illusion of weekending at the villa of a wealthy and discriminating friend. It's an idea that got its start in France in the 1920s and '30s, when automobile travel was becoming a significant form of tourism, especially on the Paris-to-Midi vacation routes.

Quiet, comfortable hostelries offering fine food and all the creature comforts in park-like surroundings sprang up at convenient stages along the route south, and quickly became destinations unto themselves, where travelers would try to schedule two or three days of self-indulgence. Typically, they were in small villages or on the rural fringes of larger centres, away from noise and traffic.

Today you can find such establishments all over Europe. Many of the best among them are affiliates of the famous Relais and Châteaux organization, which coordinates bookings and promotion through its offices in Paris.

In 2004, there are 34 small luxury hotels in Italy that belong to the prestigious Relais and Châteaux organization.

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