London-Milan-Amsterdam: Grand Hotel et de Milan

 

My room wasn't ready, but it was a luxurious wait at the Grand Hotel et de Milan.  I had the privilege and pleasure of this hotel, because the President and one Vice President of my client were staying there and we had scheduled meetings that Thursday evening, December 12th.

Traveling for a management consultant like me are long and exhausting, but it certainly has its perks.  Over the past 10 years, for example, I've stayed at the Conrad in London, the Ritz-Carlton in Bahrain, the Four Seasons in Riyadh, the Grand Hyatt in Muscat, and the Dusit Thani in Dubai.

I was barely awake, when I checked in, and the staff were a bit too eager to accommodate me.  One of them, Valentina, must've noticed that I was out of sorts, and did her best to ease up while still fulfilling her responsibility to take care of me.  She directed me to the luxurious lobby, I captured in photos above, and arranged for me to have tea.

It piqued my interest, when Valentina said that Verdi took up residence at the Grand Hotel and composed some of his pieces:

The construction was commissioned to architect Andrea Pizzala (1798-1862) and was inspired by the Neo-Gothic movement. Near the end of the 19th century, the hotel gained significant importance as it was the only hotel in Milan to offer postal and telegraph services; for this reason it was frequented by diplomats and businessmen. The hotel rose to prominence in 1872 when composer Giuseppe Verdi established his residence in one of the suites, given the hotel proximity to the famous opera house La Scala. The building was completely refurbished in 1931 and equipped with tap water and telephones in every room. During World War II, in 1943 the hotel was bombarded and the fourth floor was destroyed; after the end of the war, architect Giovanni Muzio was engaged in 1946 to restore and renovate the building. The hotel was very popular with fashion designers in the 1960s and 1970s, when Milan began hosting annual fashion weeks. One last important renovation took place in the early 1990s when a defence wall dating back to the 3rd century was brought to light and featured as a peculiarity of one of the hotel's restaurants.

Reference: Grand Hotel et de Milan.