Press Articles
PrivatAir, Issue 9
Grand tours
Huon
Mallalieu
...The doyen of Italian organisers is Charles FitzRoy, whose Fine Art Travel has been operating for eighteen years, and now also tours in Spain, France and Germany. FitzRoy's knowledge of Italy is unrivalled, and his fellow tour-leaders include the classicist and garden writer Robin Lane-Fox, the Earl of Gowrie and Prince Heinrich von Wittgenstein zu Sayn.
In Rome, they can arrange private candlelit visits to the Sistine Chapel, and to the Pope's private chapel with the Michelangelo frescos that the public never see. On Ischia, Lady Walton, widow of the composer, shows them her garden packed with rarities, followed by lunch with her in the villa. Historical continuity is all-important: "In Umbria, we had lunch with the Borgias, in Florence, with the Frescobaldis, who have lived in the same palazzo for 1,000 years, and in Augsburg with the Fuggers."
The maximum number on a Fine Art tour is 25. For truly exclusive tours and events, FitzRoy has set up Bellini Travel, run by his niece. "The joy of Emily," it has been said, "is that she is both serious and frivolous: she can take you privately, circumnavigating all the backpackers to the Vasari Corridor at the Uffizi, to dinner with the Feragamos, or to the best shoe shops in Rome."
She organises birthdays, weddings and honeymoons, and knows her gelati as well as her onions and art. She has won the ultimate accolade for any organiser, the enthusiastic approval of John Julius Norwich, the historian and expert on Venice, who wishes that Bellini had existed for him 40 years ago...