December 19, 2010

1:st day.

Our trip began a few minutes after nine AM, in Stockholm. After a quick stop at OKQ8 (a gas station) to refill the tank and buy some soda, we got going. As soon as we got out on the highway we understood this was going to take a while and that we might not get to the ferry in time.

The Alps are pretty crowded 14 weeks per year, by skiers and people working with tourism. This winter season has already started with bookings and preparation. Good to say that there is time for management of lift systems and hotel buildings all over the well visited resorts. Summer is declining as tourist season with the exception of a few weeks in July and August.

So now the Alps have time to breath fresh air without cars and buses. Nature goes its own way and soon comes the desired first white flakes everyone is hoping for, as a “must” for a new successful season.

I have seen pretty many hotels in my days as a travel consultant, especially hotels in the Alps.

But Hotel Bellvue, in the village of Cogne is the most beautiful I have ever seen. How comes?

Beauty is not a superficial identity of something, it is the soul of this something emanating on the outside. It could be that the soul is always beautiful, so something beautiful has a soul. A human being can hide her soul, and so can things owned by human beings, behind a surface. Many people and things seem to be beautiful on the surface, but they end beeing fake reproductions or products of plastic surgery, when you look a little closer.

says Maura Susanna, to introduce herself.

We sit in the dining room at La Torretta hotel, and sip a drink after a long day spent hiking in the special landscape of the mountains in fall. A little tired but also very relaxed; walking in the fog and woods, through the ancient villages of the Monterosa, is for me as good as honey. Today it is my birthday.

Paola and Nica are the spiritual and also very physical power behind hotel La Torretta in the Aosta Valley, and a lot more. They have restored Paola’s family possession into a beautiful house for resting your mind and your body, and they have funded a local organisation of hotel owners in the Aosta Valley, where the focus is on ”Slow”. Or as they declare in their programme: ” the most important thing is to stop in order to know places, spaces, silences, perfume, colours…” http://www.slowholiday.it/index.php/filosofia-eng.html

Except for the name of the club, ”Slow Holiday”, the ladies are really sparkling, and filled of energy and fresh enthusiasm. Probably a consequence of the application of this philosophy.

This is again coherent with some of the ideas behind the ”genuine tourism” that I am working for today. Thus La Torretta http://www.latorrettahotel.com/ is the hotel where I invite my guests during this October tour.