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Whether you’re looking for your roots in Italy, or just soaking it up for the ‘Gram, take a tip: Trade in your big international chain hotel for something family-run. After all, Italy is about authenticity: real food, ritzy-rustic accommodations and stunning scenery.
Better still, many of the nation’s best family-run hotels make booking a breeze. With locations flowing from Tuscany to Campania, staying within a single, personality-driven family’s portfolio means that organizing a cross-country trip is as easy as a spritz at sunset.
One of the nations most luxurious family-run brands is Sina, a group of 11 hotels founded by Count Ernesto Bocca in 1958. Three generations later — with authentic, elegant hotels stretching from Venice to Capri — Sina has become a hidden gem of the crowded and competitive world of Italian hospitality, dedicated to immortalizing the fading, slower pace of Italian life.
Here’s the lowdown on where to stay.
The Sina Villa Medici is a symphony of elegance; the team works in concert to ensure that guests feel the stately glamour of Florence at every turn.
The 19th-century palazzo, located just outside the city center in a quiet, leafy district, has been modernized in tasteful but sumptuous Italian trappings — and fashion luminaries have taken note, transforming the garden and bar (a wood-clad offshoot of Harry’s) into one of the swankiest places to gather during annual fashion symposium Pitti Uomo.
The concierge team is also unparalleled and, under the direction of general manager Fernando Pane, organizes some truly epic Florentine itineraries where food, art, and fashion all shine.
Perugia is a winding, medieval stone city in the Umbrian hills built over the bones of earlier settlements that climbs one of the ridges to overlook the valleys below. In the morning, the bells ring lazily as fog blankets the city — burning off in the early sunshine and exposing the hills that slope down to the Mediterranean Sea. The Sina Brufani (opened in 1884) feels at home there, nestled onto its perch with the most dramatic view in the Perugia.
The views alone are worth the price of admission, but the stately age and interiors (parquet floors, roaring fireplaces, and medieval vibes) scream elegance — wearing a tuxedo there feels natural.
And while you would be forgiven for spending all your time swimming in the pool surrounded by 3,000-year-old ruins, Perugia is the jumping-off point for exploring Umbria, which boasts incredible wineries in Montefalco and an unmissable fashion day trip to see Brunello Cucinelli, a friend of the Bocca family, in nearby Solomeo.
Venice is a labyrinthine island city full of mysteries waiting to be explored, and the Sina Centurion, a former convent clad in ornate gothic architecture perched directly on the Grand Canal, is an ideally situated refuge in this tourist-filled city.
Located in the southern end of Dorsoduro, the Centurion is a quick walk from the Collezione Peggy Guggenheim and the best cicchetti bar in the city, Enoteca Schiavi, but to fully explore Venice, you’ll need to take to the water from their private boat landing.
The excellent concierge can organize a private shuttle to anywhere you want to visit in Venice. Explore Murano, where they have relationships with some of the best glass-blowing artisans, the Biennale grounds at the southern end of Castello, or have a gondoliere ferry you directly across the canal to the famous Saint Mark’s Square and the Doge Palace.
The secret favorite of the Bocca family is the Sina Villa Matilde, located outside of Turin on a private estate nestled into the hills of Piemonte. This property was the family seat, which they converted into a luxury hotel escape for the Winter Olympics in 2006.
Lay by the pool in the summer or use it as a home base during your visit in truffle season, where you are ideally positioned to enjoy some of the best food and wine Italy has to offer.
