This is the glorious hotel, Cenobio dei Dogi, in Camogli, Genoa - on the Ligurian coast, just south of the French Riviera and about 2-1/2 hours from Orta. (Apparently, Italians do not refer to this area as the "Italian Riviera," the way we Americans do. To them, it is just Liguria.)
Remember upper-middle-class country-club life, circa 1970? Even if you weren't there... even if, like me, you merely skirted that world, or your "memories" are of movies that included scenes from upper-middle-class life in 1970... you know what I'm talking about.
Remember the wealthy housewives spending summer afternoons "working on their tans," later showering off and lathering themselves in "apres-tanning" lotion before donning white dresses to show off their fabulously toasted bodies? Remember the alcohol, pool boys, stacks of warm towels, service-on-the-patio, and the somnolent voices, muted by the hot, heavy afternoon air?
Welcome to Cenobio dei Dogi.
It's all still here, friends. The waxed terracotta tiles in the spacious, sunny, open bar area (the heart of the hotel)... the kitchy "skylights" ("wall lights"?) built its walls, exposing the kicking legs of children thrashing in the pool to anyone wandering through...the delicate, cream and pale blue faux-bamboo style of the furniture and mouldings. But especially, the people.
The overly-tanned, unsmiling Russian and European vacationers who come out before breakfast to place a towel and book on a lawn chair so that no matter how many hours later they finally arrive, that chair will be waiting for them. The overly-dressed French families with their overly-handsome French fathers speaking softly to one another at dinner. The loud, British children banging on the plate-glass windows of the dining room while their mother buries her face in her hands and says softly, "Please be quiet, darlings."
But most of all, the elderly women, perhaps in their 70's, who parade around in their two-piece suits with vodka tonic in hand, their white skin toasted to an almond brown... these are the women I remember from my youth. And, I'm proud of them. Hands on hips, they feel as beautiful as they did in their 20's. And why not? They are still slim, still healthy, wealthy enough to be vacationing at a gorgeous hotel... women of Russia and Europe, I salute you.
Despite everything I have written to turn you off, I adore this hotel. I love its 70's-ish decor and menu. I adore being served drinks and chips and pretzels- so unhealthy, such a flashback to my childhood - by the pool. I love lolling in the sun, as if no one had heard of skin cancer, watching the kids frolic in a pool with a "life guard" whose job it appears to be not to help in case of emergency, but to keep the children out of their parents hair so the latter may drink and doze uninterruptedly.
If my drink runs dry - if I can't find a chaise because the damn Europeans have "reserved" them all - if I have a chaise, but need to adjust it - a pool "boy" comes running to help. These are brawny, browned Italian men whose physiques would call up lustful thoughts in the minds of any woman, no matter how chaste. Plus, they are Italian - albeit, northern Italian - it is their job to call up lustful thoughts. They regard you admiringly but with that exquisite sensitivity that keeps them just this side of too bold, so that you feel flattered rather than threatened.
Three days at Cenobio dei Dogi, and you will feel like a different person. The rocky private beach alone is worth the price of admission. Watching the French families interact - the 14 year old girls smoking next to their fathers, the boys on their IPhones with time to talk to no one actually at hand - is a delicious, naughty treat.
I'd like to stay a month.
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