Luxury Hotels Atlas / Places / Italy / Rapallo / Rosabianca Boutique Hotel
Rosabianca Boutique Hotel
Rapallo, Italy · Independent · Near Luxury
It opened in 1901 as a seaside annexe for travellers who could not get a room at the Grand Hotel Savoia up the road: two floors and a terrace beside the public gardens, in the years when people came to Rapallo for whole months at a time. The flood of 1915 wrecked it, and the rebuild added two storeys and the Liberty front it still wears. Fourteen rooms now, every one facing the water at the point where the Rapallo promenade begins, with Luca Mastromattei cooking Ligurian food at the Atelier.
- 14 rooms
- Opened 1901
- Rooms from 183 sq ft (17 m²)
About Rosabianca Boutique Hotel
- Nietzsche walked the steep paths above Rapallo in the winter of 1882 and came back down with the first part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, convinced that all genuinely great thoughts are conceived while walking.
- Ezra Pound lived in Rapallo from 1924 to 1945 and wrote much of the Cantos there. W. B. Yeats kept an apartment on the seafront from 1928, drafted Byzantium in 1930, and described the bay as a thin line of broken mother-of-pearl along the water's edge.
- The hotel restaurant started on the fourth floor and moved down to the promenade after the war, where it made its name on fish, seafood soups and spaghetti with clams.
- Two treaties carry this town's name: the 1920 settlement of the Italian and Yugoslav border, signed at the Villa Spinola, and the 1922 pact between Germany and Soviet Russia.
- Entry-level rooms start at 183 sq ft (17 m²).
History
Rosabianca stands at the point where Rapallo meets the sea, where the promenade begins and the view opens across the Gulf of Tigullio. It opened in 1901 as the Albergo Ristorante Rosabianca, and its original purpose was modest: a guesthouse on the water for visitors who came for the nearby Grand Hotel Savoia. Two floors and a terrace, a few steps from the public gardens and the bathing establishments, in the first age of international travel, when guests arrived not for a night or two but for weeks or months.
The flood of 1915 destroyed much of it. The rebuild added two further floors and gave the hotel the Liberty facade it still has. The restaurant began life on the fourth floor and moved down to ground level, directly onto the promenade, after the war, where it built a reputation on quality fish cooking: fritture, soups, spaghetti with clams. In the 1980s Luigi Giovanni Caire and his daughter Emanuela improved comfort and services while keeping the historic fabric.
Under newer ownership the house has been reworked again as a fourteen-room boutique hotel, all rooms facing the sea, in categories from 17 square metres up to a 60-square-metre suite, with natural materials and a pared-back contemporary palette. Chef Luca Mastromattei runs Atelier Gourmet & Cocktails, working Ligurian tradition with house-baked bread and homemade preserves.
The setting
Rapallo is the old anchor of the Gulf of Tigullio and one of the unlikelier literary capitals of Europe. Nietzsche came in November 1882, took a small hotel room on the water, and walked the paths toward Zoagli and Portofino while the first part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra took shape. Ezra Pound settled here with Dorothy Shakespear in 1924 and stayed until 1945, writing much of the Cantos in an attic flat on Via Marsala above the Caffe Rapallo. W. B. Yeats arrived in 1928 under doctor's orders to do nothing, worked on A Vision, drafted Byzantium in 1930 and kept an apartment on Corso Colombo until 1934, where a plaque now quotes his description of the town. Max Beerbohm, Gerhart Hauptmann, Basil Bunting and Louis Zukofsky were all part of the same circle. Politically the name travelled further still: the 1920 treaty fixing the Italian and Yugoslav frontier and the 1922 German-Soviet accord were both concluded here. From the hotel door the promenade runs along the water, with Portofino, Camogli, Santa Margherita Ligure and the Cinque Terre all within reach.
Restaurants and bars
- Il Salotto — Restaurant · fine seafood cuisine
Experiences
- Seafood restaurant — The restaurant became known for fine seafood, including jumbo prawns, fish soups and spaghetti with clams.
Amenities
- Welcome gift in room
- Welcome drink on arrival
Open Rosabianca Boutique Hotel in the atlas for live weekend rates, photos, and the full folio.
More hotels in Rapallo
- Grand Hotel Bristol Resort & Spa — Independent · Accessible Luxury
- Excelsior Palace Hotel — Independent · Core Luxury