While a late addition to our itinerary, I was glad we were able to work the week in Italy into our plans. Venice is a great city to try to get lost in, taking turns in the lead, winding through the alleys and over bridges until reaching a dead end. The city is large enough to have enough to explore, and small enough, you never feel too lost. 

It was fun to see the difference between the Swiss and Italian mountain towns. In Switzerland, everything seemed like out of a fairy tale story book – clean, well kept, everything in it’s place. Driving through the Italian mountains, the towns felt a bit more weathered, rustic and real  – more lived in. People in both places were very warm. It was a nice contrast to experience both. 

La Perla Hotel Corvara is a place we’ll return. There are only a few hotels I’ve been to in all of our travels where we experienced such a high level of service from top to bottom. In many hotels, it’s rare to see even a General Manager out in the public areas with the guests, seeing a hotel with ownership so involved in the day to day operation is even more rare. At La Perla, the owners were everywhere engaging with the guests, and the staff was following their lead.

In my time working for The Ritz-Carlton hotel company, a customer’s “Sense of Well Being” was used as one of the metrics in evaluating overall guest satisfaction. La Perla Hotel is a prime example of a hotel that delivers the consistent high level of service that the Ritz used to aim for and checks all the boxes for providing the “Sense of well being” for their guests. It helps explain why families return for the same week year after year, some for 35+years to spend their family vacation. Even after being couped up in the hotel on two rainy days, we all loved our stay there and felt such a positive connection with he property. We are sure that we’ll return again soon.