Grand Hotel Continental - Starhotels Collezione

Grand Hotel Continental - Starhotels Collezione

On Via Banchi di Sopra, at Piazza Salimbeni in the heart of Siena, three streets from Piazza del Campo and the Duomo, the Grand Hotel Continental occupies Palazzo Gori Pannilini, a noble residence begun around 1501 and rebuilt into its present form in 1677 by the architect Carlo Fontana, a pupil of Bernini, at the commission of Pope Alexander VII Chigi as a wedding gift for his niece Olimpia on her marriage to Giulio de Gori. The palazzo became a hotel at the turn of the twentieth century, drawing the aristocrats and intellectuals of the Grand Tour, Queen Margherita di Savoia among them, and after a long restoration that uncovered its frescoes and brought its stonework back into use, it reopened as the only five-star hotel within Siena's medieval walls, with 51 rooms and suites spread across the palazzo's upper floors. Since 2016 the hotel has belonged to the Starhotels group, and it is run today under general manager Nathalie Beaugonin. Inside, the building keeps its original terracotta floors, its beamed and frescoed ceilings, and bathrooms finished in Carrara marble, with furniture and paintings dating to the 1800s distributed unevenly enough that no two rooms match. The internal courtyard, once the entry point for carriages, is now covered by a glass skylight and given over to Sapordivino, the hotel's restaurant and lounge bar, where chef Luca Ciaffarafà cooks a modern Tuscan menu built on fresh pasta and local meat. Below the palazzo, in a medieval tower that predates the building above it, the wine cellar runs tastings daily, and the Salone delle Feste, the hotel's ballroom, still hosts the weddings and events the property has staged since the seventeenth century. A pool and tennis courts exist, but at a sister Starhotels property outside town, reached by shuttle, since the historic center leaves no room for either. Staying here is closer to occupying a well-kept aristocratic house than a hotel in the ordinary sense, the kind of place where the ceiling above your bed predates the country it stands in and the staff stopped remarking on it decades ago. It suits travellers who want Siena's medieval core without giving up modern comfort, and who would rather study four hundred years of frescoes than a minibar list. Rooms facing the Duomo and the rooftops earn their reputation, and the ground-floor public rooms, all vaulted stone and gilt frames, do most of the work of making the building feel lived in rather than preserved. You should not come if you are arriving by car, Siena's traffic restrictions make pickup and drop-off a real irritation, and more than one guest has waited on the street trying to locate the valet. You should not come, either, if a pool or spa on site matters to you, both require the shuttle. You should come for the palazzo itself, for a bedroom with a fresco older than most nations, and for a location that puts Piazza del Campo, the Duomo, and the Palio route within a ten-minute walk. The short version: A five-star hotel in a 1501 Sienese palazzo, rebuilt in 1677 by Carlo Fontana for the Chigi family, with 51 rooms, a medieval wine cellar, and a courtyard restaurant, three streets from Piazza del Campo.