Grand Hotel Majestic già Baglioni

There is only one five-star hotel in Emilia-Romagna. It occupies an 18th-century palazzo commissioned by Cardinal Prospero Lambertini — the man who would become Pope Benedict XIV — built on top of a Roman road that predates Christianity by two centuries. You can see a section of the Flaminia Militare in the basement, preserved under glass, 189 BCE and still perfectly legible. Bologna has a way of doing this: slipping two thousand years of history into the footnotes.

Giuseppe Verdi stayed here. So did Pavarotti, Domingo, Carreras, Lady Diana, Sean Connery. The guest list reads like a roll call of the 20th century's most demanding people, which tells you something about the standard the Grand Hotel Majestic già Baglioni has maintained for over a century.

The Rooms

109 rooms divide between 18th-century French and classical Venetian styles — antique furniture, silk draperies, marble bathrooms, finishes that take craftsmanship seriously rather than merely invoking it. The Grand Suite looks out over Piazza del Nettuno and the medieval rooftops of the centro storico. Book it for a special occasion and do not apologize for the cost.

Food & Drink

The I Carracci restaurant is the hotel's crown. The vaulted ceiling is frescoed by the school of the Carracci brothers — Annibale, Agostino, and Ludovico, the Bolognese painters who changed the course of European art in the late 16th century — and dining beneath it operates simultaneously as gastronomy and art history. The kitchen takes Emilia-Romagna's ingredients with the seriousness they deserve: tortellini in brodo made correctly, tagliatelle al ragù that reminds you why the imitations elsewhere never quite work. The private Enoteca Morandi cellar holds over 300 labels. The Café Marinetti — named for the Futurist founder who used the hotel as his Bologna base — handles aperitivo with similar distinction.

The Experience

The spa runs to hammam, sauna, chromotherapy shower, and a well-equipped fitness suite. The service throughout is warm without being familiar, attentive without hovering — the particular calibration that only hotels with a century of practice tend to achieve. The location on Via dell'Indipendenza puts Piazza Maggiore, the Due Torri, and the UNESCO porticoes within a few minutes on foot.

Worth Knowing

Bologna's luxury hotel scene is thinner than the city deserves. The Grand Hotel Majestic already knows this, and it does not rest on the fact. Request a room with a balcony overlooking Piazza del Nettuno — the views at dusk over the Neptune fountain are not something you will tire of. Valet parking is available for guests arriving by car.

"The I Carracci restaurant alone is reason enough to stay. Everything else is a considerable bonus."
— Marco Silvano