Latest news with #Il
New York Post
2 days ago
- New York Post
Iconic Italian luxury hotel Il San Pietro di Positano celebrates 55 years
Don't walk through Positano with Carlo Cinque if you're in a rush. Every few feet, shop keepers and hoteliers stop him to chat. Some are his friends, some are his relatives, all of them suggest the tight ties that bind Carlo's family — and its storied hotel, Il San Pietro di Positano — to this idyllic Amalfi Coast town. Just a few weeks shy of its 55th birthday on June 29, Il San Pietro remains possibly the best place to reenact a Slim Aarons photograph, to embrace the fantasy of living Italian life at its most stylish. Advertisement 6 Living is easy at Il San Pietro di Positano, 55 years into the hotel's storied history. Courtesy of Il San Pietro di Positano Hotel 'We are always at our guests' disposal. For us, it's a pleasure to provide everything they need to enjoy their stay,' says Cinque, 60. Named for his late great uncle, founder of the iconic luxury property, Cinque co-owns the hotel with his brother, Vito, 57. Their mother Virginia, 90, still lives on property, greeting guests during her daily garden walks. Carved into a rocky promontory, the hotel remains an essential stop on the Amalfi Coast. Guests stroll through terraced gardens, fragrant with jasmine and rosemary and abundant with citrus fruit, tomatoes, salad greens, herbs and eggplants. They can take a speedy elevator down to the vermillion-upholstered chaises longues arranged just over the crystalline ocean, and swim or sail in one of the hotel's two custom-built yachts. Exercise options include beachside Pilates, yoga and tennis; overlooking it all is an outdoor gym nestled under a copious lemon arbor and a pool reflecting the azure sky. Among the many delicious lunch options: homemade linguine studded with local lobster and the organic tomatoes grown onsite. Advertisement 6 Positano is now an iconic destination for luxury travel, but this hasn't always been the case. Courtesy of II San Pietro di Positano The Cinque family seems like such obvious arbiters of luxury travel now, but their path was initially seen as a folly. In 1934, 23 year-old Carlino Cinque convinced his dubious father to help him buy land that had been abandoned by locals emigrating to the United States and Argentina. At the time, Positano was a quiet fishing village. 'Everyone said Uncle Carlino was crazy. Why would you start a hotel in a town with no tourism?,' Cinque says. An autodidact who only completed third grade, Carlino Cinque opened the Hotel Miramare in 1934, catering to the fortunate Northern Europeans who wintered in Positano. During World War II, the Miramare housed British generals. Post-war, many of them returned, creating a market for Anglo visitors. Advertisement 6 A Michelin-starred restaurant is among the attractions of the sprawling resort. Stefano Scatà Cinque aspired to greater elegance, and began buying land two kilometers from the town center, on a cliff overlooking the Gulf of Salerno. Undeterred by the austere conditions, Cinque envisioned a luxurious resort, a sophisticated getaway that he opened in 1970. In the intervening years, his family added a Michelin-starred restaurant, a seaside tennis court, and a boutique with the silkiest caftans and expertly constructed, hand lined tote bags. 6 Exercise by the ocean is on offer at the hotel's seaside tennis court. Stefano Scatà Advertisement 'Uncle Carlino did all of this without an architect. He had an artist's vision, and he really respected the natural environment. When he built something, he'd go out on the boat and look at it from the water. If it offended the landscape, he would tear it down and rebuild,' Carlo Cinque says. 'It's the complete opposite approach of what anyone else would do to build a new hotel.' Carlino's dreamy nature, his great nephew says, found the perfect foil in his nephew Salvatore and his niece Virginia, both of whom had more pragmatic approaches. Natural hosts and savvy marketers, they excelled in welcoming a-listers like Franco Zefferelli, Brooke Shields, Julia Roberts and Dustin Hoffman, who was so enamored of the vegetable gardens that he took to harvesting his own produce, and joining the kitchen staff for their meals. The Cinques also gave back to the town, creating Positano's annual Sun, Sea and Culture festival in 1992. 6 Il San Pietro Positano says it boasts a 50% return rate among its enchanted guests. Courtesy of Il San Pietro di Positano Hotel Still, they sometimes grapple with being the town being a victim of its success. Positano, with fewer than 4,000 residents, struggles with the mass tourism plaguing so many other stunning Italian towns. A single road connects the town to the rest of the Amalfi coast, with large busses sometimes causing huge delays for motorists, and visitors clogging the picturesque but narrow streets. Guests at Il San Pietro can simply take the 5-minute boat shuttle from the hotel beach to Positano's harbor, avoiding the road traffic, and some opt not to leave at all. With just 55 rooms and suites and 200 staff, the resort feels like a private club, and has a return rate of 50 percent. Ambitious hosts, the Cinques are hardly resting on their considerable laurels: In the past year, they've added the Palazzo Santa Croce, a meticulously restored five-bedroom Baroque Palace, and the two-bedroom Casa Sunrise. They're also planning an indoor pool and an expanded spa at Il San Pietro. 6 The hotel's founder, Carlino Cinque, designed the hotel's additions to complement the area's natural landscape. Courtesy of Il San Pietro di Positano Hotel Advertisement Throughout, the family ethos is central, even defiant in an era when so many luxury properties are part of large international conglomerates. The Cinques are rumored to have rejected repeated offers from Bernard Arnault, a frequent guest. It is difficult to imagine they would ever cede their beloved hotel, so deeply entwined in their identity, or that they would stop being perfectionists. 'When we close for the season, we always work on improving the hotel. We tell our long-term clients that we're going to renovate their rooms, and they say, 'no, for heaven's sake, don't touch my room, it is so beautiful,'' Cinque says. 'Then when they return, they congratulate us, and say, 'but it's much more beautiful than before.''
RTÉ News
26-04-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Willie Mullins defends British champions trainer title
Willie Mullins successfully defended his British trainers' championship after getting the better of a final day showdown with Dan Skelton. The master of Closutton became the first Irish-based handler since Vincent O'Brien in the 1950s to lift the UK jumps trophy on the closing afternoon of last season and came out on top once again after a titanic tussle with Skelton which went down to the final throes of the campaign. Skelton started the day over £68,000 in front of Mullins, but an easy win for Oaksey Chase favourite Gaelic Warrior and then a surprise as Il Etait Temps topped the odds-on Jonbon in Celebration Chase saw the defending champion seize control. Training the second, third, fourth and fifth-placed horses in the bet355 Gold Cup set the seal on another success for Mullins, with Skelton having to settle for second again.
Ammon
23-03-2025
- Business
- Ammon
Italian newspaper says it has published world's first AI-generated edition
Ammon News - An Italian newspaper has said it is the first in the world to publish an edition entirely produced by artificial intelligence. The initiative by Il Foglio, a conservative liberal daily, is part of a month-long journalistic experiment aimed at showing the impact AI technology has 'on our way of working and our days', the newspaper's editor, Claudio Cerasa, said. The four-page Il Foglio AI has been wrapped into the newspaper's slim broadsheet edition, and is available on newsstands and online from Tuesday. 'It will be the first daily newspaper in the world on newsstands created entirely using artificial intelligence,' said Cerasa. 'For everything. For the writing, the headlines, the quotes, the summaries. And, sometimes, even for the irony.' He added that journalists' roles would be limited to 'asking questions [into an AI tool] and reading the answers'. The experiment comes as news organisations around the world grapple with how AI should be deployed. Earlier this month, the Guardian reported that BBC News was to use AI to give the public more personalised content. The front page of the first edition of Il Foglio AI carries a story referring to the US president, Donald Trump, describing the 'paradox of Italian Trumpians' and how they rail against 'cancel culture' yet either turn a blind eye, or worse, 'celebrate' when 'their idol in the US behaves like the despot of a banana republic'. The front page also features a column headlined 'Putin, the 10 betrayals', with the article highlighting '20 years of broken promises, torn-up agreements and words betrayed' by Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. In a rare upbeat story about the Italian economy, another article points to the latest report from Istat, the national statistics agency, on the redistribution of income, which shows the country 'is changing, and not for the worse' with salary increases for about 750,000 workers being among the positive effects of income tax reforms. On page 2 is a story about 'situationships' and how young Europeans are fleeing steady relationships. The articles were structured, straightforward and clear, with no obvious grammatical errors. However, none of the articles published in the news pages directly quote any human beings. The final page runs AI-generated letters from readers to the editor, with one asking whether AI will render humans 'useless' in the future. 'AI is a great innovation, but it doesn't yet know how to order a coffee without getting the sugar wrong,' reads the AI-generated response. Cerasa said Il Foglio AI reflected 'a real newspaper' and was the product of 'news, debate and provocations'. But it was also a testing ground to show how AI could work 'in practice', he said, while seeing what the impact would be on producing a daily newspaper with the technology and the questions 'we are forced to ask ourselves, not only from a journalistic nature'. 'It is just another [Il] Foglio made with intelligence, don't call it artificial,' Cerasa said. The Guardian
