Family Story

The name Gallia is strictly tied to the history of the Italian hotel hospitality.

Carlo Gallia is struck by the history of Cesar Ritz and when he was just 17, he left his family to learn a trade which at the time was known as the "art of hosting foreigners".

For the following 15 years, Gallia would travel around Europe, alternating between tourism resorts and big cities. In 1904 he was called back to Milan to manage the hotel “Du Nord” in Piazza della Repubblica.

During the twenties and for the next 50 years, he managed the most important Milan-based hotel at the time: Grand Hotel Continental in via Manzoni where he hosted internationally renowned personalities in addition to royal guests.

Since the prestigious theater “la Scala” was nearby, he made sure his elegant lounges became a meeting place for artists and conductors.

By the end of the twenties, Carlo Gallia sold the hotel “Du Nord” and next to the newborn main station he built the majestic Excelsior Hotel Galia which has maintained its historical name up till today.

Opening in 1932, Excelsior Hotel Gallia hosted tourists from all over Europe and it would quickly become the reference point for high society.

The two hotels were crucial for the Country's cultural life as recalled by several historical and mundane events hosted at the time. In 1928, for example, Grand Hotel Continental was the operative base for the unfortunate expedition to the North Pole of the airship “Italia” piloted by Umberto Nobile.

By the end of the thirties, the hotel was chosen by the Germans and the Italians for forging alliances and for writing international treaties like the renowned “Pact of Steel” signed by the ministries for foreign affairs, respectively Count Galeazzo Ciano and Joachim Von Ribbentrop.

Exelsior Hotel Gallia, on the other hand, witnessed meetings with sports authorities who in the first years of the sixties gave life to the soccer market.

The Gallia family, always with an eye to the changes in society and the needs of travelers, became the leader for the important innovations in the tourism sector, like the first illumination with electricity of the Edison system or the preparation of meals for the first airplanes traveling the Milan-Brindisi route, giving rise to the first examples of aeronautic catering.

In the first years of the forties, Costantino and Luigi Gallia opened Grand Hotel Cervina in Cervina, one of the first major buildings to rise in the Breuil basin which quickly became the point of reference for the most exclusive clients who started to visit the location on a regular basis.

The Gallia brothers greatly contributed to the development of tourism in the country, attracting visitors from all over Europe. During the winter, the hotel had a private ski lift reserved for its own clients, while during the summer, tennis tournaments - renowned since they were held at high altitude (2050 meters) - were organized.

Thanks to the Gallia brothers, both the golf field and the bob track were built.

By the end of the fifties, the Gallia family bought Hotel Cavour in Milan, offering a dynamic product, almost unconventional for the times, for business oriented clients who preferred the plus points of the business tourism than the luxury of hotels.

The Gallia Palace Beach&Golf Resort was opened in Punta Ala and it quickly became one of the most elegant Tuscan hotels thanks to the vast expanses of flower meadows, to the crystal clear waters of the Tyrrhenian sea and to the green Mediterranean bush.

During the first years of the seventies in the mountain village of San Sicario, the Gallia family managed the hotel Rio Envers, affiliated with the prestigious association Relais&Chateaux.

In 1978 and for the following 20 years, a branch of the family managed Hotel Mediterraneo, the most prestigious 5-star hotel in the Sardinian capital.

Opening in Courmayeur in 1994, Gallia Gran Baita rapidly became a gem of the Val D'Aosta tradition, faithfully reproducing the atmosphere of a “big country home” in the mountains where every detail was carefully designed.

The finest hospitality of the Gallia family, now in its fourth generation, goes on and is constantly renewed like for the exclusive Hotel Cavour in Milan, Gallia Palace Beach&Golf Resort in Punta Ala and Lantana Hotel&Residence in Pula.

The Gallia family's mission continues down the road laid out by its founder: to evolve and to understand the new requirements of luxury hospitality while at the same time contributing to the development of the territory's tourism sector.

A far-sighted challenge that wishes to maintain the image of the Gallia Palace Beach&Golf Resort, which still lives and breathes the values and spirit of its founders, sharing these at an international level as proven by its affiliation with the prestigious circuit of the Relais&Chateaux as first Italian hotel in 1973.