28922 Verbania, Italy
tel: +39 0323 509711
fax: +39 0323 556379
info@grandhotelmajestic.it
P.IVA 00120340039
HISTORY
"It's the most voluptuous place in the world that I've ever seen. The surrounding nature enchants
with thousands of hidden seductions which give the sensation of being immersed in the rarest sensuality
and refinement." This is how Gustave Flaubert described this part of the Piemont coast where Lake
Maggiore opens up into the Borromean Gulf, a green bay between the centres of Stresa and Pallanza,
the two most brilliant gems of Verbano. The Grand Hotel Majestic is located in Pallanza, which faces
the island of San Giovanni, the thirty-year summer residence of Arturo Toscanini. It is a fascinatingly
beautiful Belle Époque hotel distinguished by its incomparable architectural dignity, grand frescoed rooms
and an extensive lakeside English garden. Its construction became the impetus for the city's booming tourism
in 1870. The optimal motivating attraction for nobles and the elite to choose to construct their luxurious
villas in this region was primarily the agreeable situation amongst the exceptional panoramic peacefulness
of the cape complete with surrounding mountains and mild climate.
On the Isola Madre and the lsola Bella, a short boat ride from the hotel, in the 1600's the noble Borromeo
family had two sumptuous palaces build, surrounded by some of the most impressively beautiful English style
gardens, surpassed perhaps, only by Villa Taranto which brilliantly preserves the most beautiful botanical
paradise in Europe (20,000 species of plants, of which 1,000 cultivated in Italy for the first time).
Villa Taranto is only a short walk from the hotel.
Actually, it was only after being spellbound by the bewitching teal blue intensity of these lake
landscapes, such as those captured from the terrace of the Grand Hotel Majestic, that Eleonora Duse
asked her seamstress to make her a dress "the same colour as the lake". During this period many artists
had the privilege of staying in the luxurious environments of this splendidly charming hotel, Grazia
Deledda and the composer Claude Debussy, the boats' of the Stuarts, the Queen of Romania, the Sovereigns
of Italy, the Imperial family of Germany, Indian princes and maharajah, landed here. In other words, all
the characters, symbolizing the "bon vivre" of the late 1800's passed in a fresco of elegance.
OFFERS
