Detailed Review
The Hotel Helvetia & Bristol is situated at Florence’s historical centre by Via Tornabuoni, the city’s most exclusive shopping street. The Ponte Vecchio, the Duomo and Piazza della Signoria are also only a few minutes walk away, making this luxury hotel an ideal location for sightseeing as well as stylish living.
The facilities
The Helvetia & Bristol’s Bibendum Bar and Restaurant offers a delicious Mediterranean menu that changes every four months with the seasons. The chef aims to match the contemporary with the traditional by transforming old Tuscan recipes into creative haute-cuisine dishes. The Bibendum’s decor is similarly cosmopolitan, with warm colours inspired by the souks of North Africa and Art Nouveau design touches. This five star hotel’s restaurant is great for buisness lunches, as well as taking a break from all that shopping on Via Tornabuoni! Guests may also enjoy dinners and cocktails aftre dark, as the restaurant is open late every day of the week.
The rooms
This luxury hotel has 67 air-conditioned rooms and suites. All rooms are uniquely furnished with items such as inlaid armoires, antique tables and splendid Chinese porceline lamps. The bathrooms are built with Carrara marble and all have whirlpool baths. Each room also has access to the internet and cable TV.
Press Quotes
"This Belle Epoque hotel is the most central of the top luxury properties in town, host in the past to the Tuscan Macchaioli painters as well as De Chirico, playwright Pirandello, and atom-splitting Enrico Fermi." Frommer's
Independent Reviews
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"This traditional grand dame in the heart of Florence, calls the Duomo and the Uffizi its neighbours - a true Belle Epoque gem."
Hotel Helvetia & Bristol
By Jamie Dunford Wood
The thing that hits you first about this hotel is the smell - of old polish and fine leather. It’s a well established grand dame of Florence, but one that has been modernised for 21stC tastes with elegance and style, while losing none of its classiness. The 64 guestrooms are decorated with tasteful engravings on fabric patterned walls, in a variety of subtle colour and fabric combinations, with fine antiques and lamps, with hifis as standard. Bathrooms are old fashioned. Downstairs, grey stone and cream walls mix with wood panelling, parquet flooring and oil paintings in classic Florentine style. There is an emphasis on top quality servic here, a rarity in Florence, so for many this is the only place to stay. It’s also in a perfect position - central but quiet, unlike the Savoy, for example, where buskers can keep you up half the night. True, there’s a touch of scruffiness in places, but its a lived in scruffiness rather one that suggests lack of care.
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