So where on earth do you propose? Once your mind is made up that you
want to do the right thing and do it properly, then the world and its
romantic mini-breaks opens up before you.
And then you may find yourself, as I did, gripped by panic long
before you get down on one knee. Oh, the tyranny of choice. It's
October and the possibilities are endless. As is the probability that
you will completely screw things up. A Caribbean island, lapping surf,
rolled-up linen trousers: a little bit too Fantasy Island, a lot too
cheesy. Venice, a gondola to dinner, a proposal by candlelight: are you
having a laugh - she'll spot that the moment you casually drop in that
you've always wanted to visit Peggy Guggenheim's house and why don't we
make a long weekend of it? A London restaurant, a country hotel,
singing waiters, dancing dwarves: it's all been done before. The
element of surprise also rules out Paris - anywhere by Eurostar, in
fact. And don't even think Orient Express: you might as well have "I'm
going to ask you to marry me" diamond-studded on your forehead, and, if
she says no it's hard to make a graceful exit from a train hurtling at
125mph from happiness to heartbreak.
France is for the French, but Italy is for lovers, which is why,
dear reader, I found myself and my proposee at ...
The location
... the Hotel Cristallo in Cortina d'Ampezzo in the Italian
Dolomites. A romantic ski mini-break offers perfect cover for the
proposal planner. True, you have to fly to Venice to drive the 100
miles or so to Cortina, but if you really wanted to stop the alarm
bells going off, Verona (200 miles) is an option. But there's simply
too much to do to get rumbled. Last year's ski jacket must be got down
from the attic, to be rejected as too black/hot/cold/bulky/not going
with the new trousers you found in the Snow + Rock sale that wasn't on;
there's gear to get, lessons to book, routes to plan. Prettier than
Sestriere and bigger than Madonna di Campiglio - perhaps its two
biggest competitors for the Italian ski trade - Cortina is the ideal
place to combine skiing and romance.
And the weeks leading up to Christmas are the perfect time to go:
the town is as twinkly as a season's greetings card, and its streets
are full of shoppers, but the slopes are almost empty of skiers. This
is a very Italian resort. The nightlife is too quiet for the chalet and
club crowd and the skiing is too tame for the hard core. And while
there are the inevitable Russians and a few plucky Americans, the
Italians do not start to descend upon Cortina in earnest until the day
after Christmas. And there's nothing quite so romantic as a Paul &
Shark cable car ride for two to the top of the Tofana or Faloria and
stepping out to discover the runs down to the Ampezzo valley below are
your personal playground.
No motorway runs here: the mainly red runs zig zag through the trees
and what it lacks in challenging slopes it makes up for in beautiful
backdrops. Though the queues for the lifts and cable cars increase the
closer you get to Christmas, they are rarely more than 20 deep and
there will be days on which you will be the only skiers on a whole side
of mountain.
The comfort factor
There's only one place to stay in Cortina and that's the Hotel
Cristallo. Like the resort itself, it creaks gently with old-school
charm and sophistication. There are plenty of other good hotels, but
none with so commanding a presence or reputation. It's proud of its
history. Built in 1901, this palatial hotel is in the Gustavian style;
its wood-panelled and check-chintzed suites are named after its most
famous residents - Tolstoy and Nabokov being two. (HM King Horthy of
the Kingdom of Hungary stayed here, as did Shirley Bassey, but no names
above the doors for them.) It's everything you would expect of a member
of the Leading Small Hotels of the World group, except that with 73
rooms over five floors it is not what you would call small. It's grand,
certainly, but not oppressively so. There are comfortable, pretty
rooms, jaw-dropping views of the mountains, a choice of posh or
stube-style restaurants, a cracking bar and a crack-you-up piano
crooner who doubles as a gynaecologist during office hours (at least I
think that's what he said after a couple of the best vodka martinis
this side of The Sanderson Hotel).
The bathroom
Two basins, check. Bath, check. Shower, check. Loo. All present and
correct. But the real stuff is in the basement, where you'll find the
Transvital Swiss Beauty Centre. Don't be put off by the frankly scary
in-house video on your television that shows Cristallo staff in face
masks bent over the still-breathing corpses of guests: they may look
geared up to perform invasive surgery but they are really only there to
ease away your aches and pains after a day on the slopes. There's lots
of bumpf about it being an oasis of well-being, and plenty of
algae-wrapping, double-action, anti-age, bio-complex treatments; but
if, like me, you're a bit freaked out by all that stuff, the simple
massage is top. And those who, unlike me, don't get their boxers in a
twist about what to wear under the bathrobe (nobody actually tells you
what not to wear, do they?) assure me that it's the business.
The food and drink
It's Italy, and it doesn't disappoint. While the Cristallo has an
excellent restaurant, pride of place goes to its breakfasts with every
fresh fruit under the winter sun (which shone every day of our
late-December visit) and its martinis with a frankly excessive sideshow
of nuts and pastry nibbles.
The town boasts a Michelin-starred restaurant in the Tivoli and the
locals plump for El Toula as the most romantic, but the places that
best combine food and romance can be found in restaurants up the
mountains. The busier and livelier are next to the chairlifts, and very
good they are too. But take some of the quieter routes, by accident or
design, and you'll find ridiculously cute chalets with pink cyclamen
window boxes and roaring log fires in rooms lined with black and white
photographs of the glamorous élite who used to have this as their
winter retreat, and still do. Here you'll be rewarded with space and
time to enjoy some of the specialties of the area, beetroot-stuffed
ravioli and berry-drenched grappa being the most drooled after.
The people
In town, there's enough silver fox and collagen on display to allow
Big Brother's Pete Burns to prom the Corso Italia pretty much
unremarked upon in his colobus monkey coat. But it's classy, too: the
place has lost none of the effortless charm that established it as
Italy's premiere winter playground in the Twenties. On Christmas Eve,
the clans gather for midnight mass in Cortina's beautiful church in the
centre of town; a candlelit, choir-led wonder for the faithful and the
curious.
The area
There are higher mountains, blacker runs, faster chairlifts and more
variety elsewhere in the Dolomite "Superski" chain, but who cares? Not
the Italians who come back here year after year or who buy the chalets
that fan out from its pretty shopping centre (though there is nothing
so vulgar as a mall here, merely a few streetfuls of small shops in the
middle of the town keeping its residents and visitors knee-deep in
Gucci and Prada).
And there's choice enough, ski-wise: 140km of runs in five different
areas, and some of the prettiest cable cars and cable-car journeys
you'll find anywhere in the world.
The access
Four rooms are dedicated to people with disabilities. Children of
all sizes are welcome and small pets are allowed, for a daily surcharge.
The damage
A standard double at the Cristallo costs between €415 and €615
(£285-£420) per room per night, including breakfast, access to the
swimming pool, sauna, steam baths and courtesy shuttle to the town
centre until 10.30pm. The shuttle will also take you to the main slopes
in the morning and pick you up in the afternoon, but can be a bit
unreliable. In any case, taxis are cheap and plentiful. A week's stay
costs £1,210 per person, based on two sharing, including return flights
with British Airways from Gatwick to Venice and b&b, with Elegant
Resorts (01244 897519; elegantresorts.co.uk). Expensive? Perhaps: but
this is skiing and this is a top hotel. Worth it? I'd say so. Dear
reader, she agreed to marry me.
The address
Via Menardi 42, 32043 Cortina d'Ampezzo, Belluno, Italy (00 39 0436
881 111; www.cristallo.it).
So where on earth do you propose? Once your mind is made up that you
want to do the right thing and do it properly, then the world and its
romantic mini-breaks opens up before you.
. . . ..
There's only one place to stay in Cortina and that's the Hotel
Cristallo. Like the resort itself, it creaks gently with old-school
charm and sophistication. There are plenty of other good hotels, but
none with so commanding a presence or reputation. It's proud of its
history. Built in 1901, this palatial hotel is in the Gustavian style;
its wood-panelled and check-chintzed suites are named after its most
famous residents - Tolstoy and Nabokov being two. (HM King Horthy of
the Kingdom of Hungary stayed here, as did Shirley Bassey, but no names
above the doors for them.) It's everything you would expect of a member
of the Leading Small Hotels of the World group, except that with 73
rooms over five floors it is not what you would call small. It's grand,
certainly, but not oppressively so. There are comfortable, pretty
rooms, jaw-dropping views of the mountains, a choice of posh or
stube-style restaurants, a cracking bar and a crack-you-up piano
crooner who doubles as a gynaecologist during office hours (at least I
think that's what he said after a couple of the best vodka martinis
this side of The Sanderson Hotel).