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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]During the Belle Epoque, the Grand Hotel Vittoria in Pesaro had its own private, authorised casino, which was open both to its guests and to non-residents. It is still possible to admire the 50-, 100- and 500-lire chips that were used by illustrious gamblers to...
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]In October 1926 the playwright and writer Luigi Pirandello stayed in Pesaro, where he had been officially invited for the opening of the theatre-cinema named after the actress Eleonora Duse. He spent one week at the Grand Hotel Vittoria: it is said he loved spending the...
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]In November 1970, the Grand Hotel Miramare in Santa Margherita welcomed the emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, as a guest during his official visit to Italy. To compensate for the small physical stature of the sovereign, two cushions – suitably hidden from visitors’ view –...
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The international Pool of Coal and Steel Conference was held in the halls of the Grand Hotel Miramare in Santa Margherita in February 1951, with the Italian Prime Minister De Gasperi, the Foreign Minister Sforza, and the French Prime Minister Pleven and Foreign Minister Schuman....
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]During WWI, Ernest Hemingway, while stationed as an ambulance driver at Villa Ca’ Erizzo on the banks of the Brenta, often came to Nardini Distillery in Bassano for a shot of grappa. Grappa also figures prominently in many of his works, especially those dealing with...
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]In the 1948, after the complete destruction of the Ponte Vecchio at the end of the second World War, the covered bridge in Bassano del Grappa was completely rebuilt with private funds collected by the Alpini soldiers. Alcide De Gasperi, the first Prime Minister of...
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The mother of Queen Elisabeth knew Nardini grappa and it was so loved that it was the only Italian hard liquor served at her daughter Queen Elisabeth II wedding. In 1987, the Queen Mother, who, passing by Nardini on an official visit, impelled her escort...
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]In the final years of the 1800’s the tumultuous romance between actress Eleonora Duse and writer Gabriele D’Annunzio brought them often to Asolo and Bassano del Grappa, and inevitably to Nardini, to have a drink at “ their table” in the back room in a...
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] The first rent contracts and private letters addressed to the aristocratic Agostini family that mention the presence of a café on the ground floor of their residence in Pisa dates back to the last quarter of the eighteenth century, but the name “Caffè dell’Ussero” first...
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]“Thirty seconds at the Turchino!” In sports cafés and balancing on windowsills to bring the news to those in the street below, radio sets blared out Coppi’s lead over the Frenchman Teisseire in the Milano-Sanremo. Thirty seconds had stretched into five minutes at the Voltri...