The Grand Hotel des Iles Borromees is located in Stresa, a charming town on the shores of Lake Maggiore where it enjoys majestic views of the lake, the Borromean Islands and the Alps. A luxury hotel boasting a wide range of services, including swimming pools heated, tennis courts, bike rental and a private heliport. It also has a conference center and a well-equipped SPA and wellness center where you can relax with numerous treatments.
Grand Hotel des Iles Borromees History
The Grand Hotel des Iles Borromees is a majestic structure, a reference point for luxury tourism on Lake Maggiore. In fact, its beautiful époque atmosphere, the magnificent decorations and the beautiful gardens with a spectacular views of the lake have welcomed tourists for more than 150 years. Its construction began with the Unification of Italy to be inaugurated two years later, in 1863, establishing itself immediately as "The Grand Hotel" of Lake Maggiore, attracting in a short time the most prestigious clientele from all over Europe, English in large part, but also representatives of the German, French and Slavic nobility. Alongside the aristocrats, however, there were no exponents of the industrial or financial world.
In 1968 the structure was enlarged to cope with the increased number of visitors, creating a new wing on the right of the hotel. With the arrival of the Orient Express, the Stresa station became an obligatory stop on the famous London-Paris-Milan-Venice-Constantinople line, thus multiplying the volume of guests by making further expansions necessary: in the early years of the last century superelevation of three floors.
Throughout its history the Grand Hotel des Iles Borromees has seen within its walls many famous guests: Leopold II King of Belgium, the King of Sweden Oscar II, the maharaja of Burdevan of Bengal, King Charles of Luxembourg, the American magnates Rockfeller , Morgan, Vanderbilt, cultural figures such as Gabriele D'Annunzio and Eleonora Duse; in the book of the signatures you can find the autographs of Benito Mussolini or treasures like a flower designed by Renato Guttuso from 1985 or a strange winged pegasus by the Nobel laureate writer John Steinbeck. Also Ernest Hemingway was a guest of the hotel, arriving in Stresa for the first time in 1918 in convalescence for a war wound and mindful of the beauties of the place he set part of his famous novel "Goodbye to Arms".
Today the Grand Hotel Borromes has 131 double rooms, 25 junior suites, 5 single rooms and 11 suites including the splendid "Hemingway suite", unique in its kind. Each room has, among other things, a whirlpool and a fast internet connection, classic furnishings and marble bathrooms; guests can take advantage of a private helipad, swimming pools and tennis court.
The hotel's restaurant serves exceptional regional cuisine and, during the summer, you can enjoy the delicacies prepared by the chefs on the terrace. The hotel also has an elegant piano bar.
A particular mention deserves the surrounding park, embellished by a magnificent fountain and completely revisited between 1998 and 2000. The part overlooking the lake of the park is formal and maintains the original configuration typical of the Italian garden; the rest of the surrounding greenery has been modeled with sweeter forms, according to the stylistic features of the English gardens. A skilful use of mosaics, statues and paths traced to form squares, and more secluded corners that have lived by guests as a harmonious extension of the public spaces of the hotel to which in 2005 was added a large mosaic carpet to weave of polychrome marble that, together with the fountain, has become one of the most photographed subjects by tourists during the walk along the lakefront.
Thanks to the quality of the offer and the professionalism of the hotel staff, the Grand Hotel has been chosen as the venue for meetings that have had worldwide resonance. The famous spa attached to the hotel offers packages for psychophysical wellness for stays of two to seven days, led by a high-level medical team.