California Park Hotel

California Park Hotel

, Via Colombo 32, Forte dei Marmi, Lucca.

Forte dei Marmi has been always one of the most exclusive and fashionable destinations in Italy. You can walk through the streets and look at luxury shops or just lose yourself among the villas and beautiful gardens of Roma Imperiale. You could also stay in one of those villas: the California Park Hotel.

Set back just a couple of hundred metres from the long sandy beach at Forte dei Marmi, the California Park Hotel sits in large verdant gardens filled with mature trees and shrubs and extensive lawns. There’s a large swimming pool complete with terrace, sun loungers, daybeds and parasols.

The restaurant is as stylish as you would expect of an upmarket Italian resort, open for breakfast, lunch and dinner serving all the flavours of Italian culinary tradition. There’s a beautiful lounge too, and verandahs around the building where you can sit in style and pick sun or shade according to your own choosing. Various beauty and therapy treatments are available and there’s a small but professionally equipped fitness room with Technogym machines.

Rooms range from 15m2 up to 38m2 according to budget and they all have a private balcony overlooking the pool or the gardens. They are beautifully decorated in soft, neutral colours and provide luxuries such as air-conditioning, television, Wi-fi, a minibar, a safe and bathrobes and slippers.

Forte dei Marmi is a magnet for lovers of sport, shopping, art and food. There’s every sort of watersports available along the beach area, along with tennis and golf. The long promenade is just the place for some gentle cycling too. The town is packed with all the big-name Italian boutiques: Prada, Cèline, Yves Saint Laurent, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci and others, but there are also local artisan businesses too that may have a gentler impact on the credit card! There are year-round art exhibitions in nearby Pietrasanta, as well as Pisa being conveniently close and Florence is just an hour’s drive too.