Hotel Cipriani offers guests the chance to see Venice from the director’s chair
22nd August 2011 – Every year, illustrious members of the international film industry flock to Venice to showcase their latest projects at the world’s oldest film festival, the Venice Film Festival. With its intricate matrix of waterways and canals, and eclectic mix of rustic and opulent buildings, it’s not hard to see why Venice has played backdrop to some of the most iconic movies of all time, including The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Merchant of Venice and The Italian Job. To celebrate the festival and pay homage to these films, Hotel Cipriani has created a film tour that will visit locations around the city where scenes from these famous movies were shot.Escorted by a private guide, avid film buffs will be taken on a gondola ride past the Piazza San Marco where scenes from From Russia with Love and Orson Welles’ Othello were filmed. Guests will then move on to Caffe Florian, the historic coffee bar where several of the final scenes in Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley were shot. Then on to Campo Santa Maria del Giglio where Woody Allen falls in love with Julia Roberts in the musical Everyone Says I Love You.
Film fans will be whisked past the Academia Bridge and on to Palazzo Contarini where Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons gave performances of a lifetime in The Merchant of Venice. Other stops on the tour include Campo della Salute, where George Lucas and Steven Spielberg bought the blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to life, and the church of San Nicolo dei Mendicoli where scenes from cult film Don’t Look Now with Donald Sutherland were captured.
The Hotel Cipriani Film Tour costs €90 (approx £79) per hour, lasts between two to four hours for a maximum of four people per tour, and can be tailored to suit movie lovers’ particular requests. The Venice Film Festival will take place from 31st August to 10th September, 2011.
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Orient-Express, (NYSE: OEH, www.orient-express.com) the name behind an elite collection of travel experiences, first came into being in 1883 as one of the world’s most exciting and indulgent train journeys. Today that evocative name also embraces hotels, cruises and other luxury rail adventures in 24 countries, across five continents. The Company has offered exceptional luxury travel experiences since 1976, when it first purchased Hotel Cipriani in Venice and then shortly afterwards, recreated the celebrated Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, linking London, Paris and Venice, along with other European cities. Today, the company owns or part-owns and manages 49 businesses, 40 of which are highly acclaimed hotels, each unique in style, from the Mount Nelson in Cape Town and Rio’s Copacabana Palace, to the Grand Hotel Europe in St. Petersburg and Maroma Resort & Spa on Mexico’s Riviera Maya. There are six luxury tourist trains, two river cruise operations and ‘21’, one of New York’s most iconic restaurants.
For further information, please contact Sara Mirza or Emily Wilson at Orient-Express on 020 7921 4069 or sara.mirza@orient-express.com, Emily.wilson@orient-express.com
