Grand Hotel Rimini

The hotel's course of choice is Rimini Verucchio Golf Club, inland in the Valmarecchia valley. Its 18-hole, par-72 layout opened in 1995 among vineyards and medieval hill towns and was designed by Brian M. Silva: rolling fairways framed by mounds, with bunkers and water placed where they bite. From the course you look across to San Marino and Monte Carpegna. There is also a 7-hole executive course, an academy with a practice ground, and pitching and putting greens.

The hotel's golf package requires at least two nights in a Liberty-style room with breakfast, adds a welcome drink and includes two green fees per person at Rimini Verucchio. Staff handle tee-time bookings and bag storage, and hotel bikes are free from May to September. If you want to play elsewhere, reception books other courses in the area with green-fee discounts.

The historic building has 121 rooms, from a single Executive of about 12 m² to the Regal Suites of around 75 m², every one of them facing the sea. The hotel says no two rooms are alike: many keep their original early-1900s parquet and period desks and armchairs, and bathrooms are finished in onyx, travertine or Bisazza mosaic. Grand Deluxe rooms add a sea-facing balcony or terrace.

A few steps away, the Residenza Parco Fellini is a four-star annex with 51 neoclassical rooms; its guests share every Grand Hotel facility. The Batani family has owned the property since 2007 and restored it at length.

Dinner is served in the Sala Ambra of La Dolce Vita, run by executive chef Claudio Di Bernardo, who cooks Romagna and Italian dishes with produce from Fattoria Batani, the family farm. Three menus pay tribute to Fellini, with a risotto 8½ and a fish brodetto modelled on the one the director loved. Summer lunch moves to the beach at Otto e Mezzo al mare, and breakfast is laid out in the Belle Époque salons or on the terrace above the pool.

The Dolce Vita Spa has a heated, remineralised pool with a counter-current, a Finnish sauna and a Turkish bath, plus a Private Spa you can book for yourselves. Facials use Dr. Barbara Sturm skincare and massages follow the Diabasi method; book treatments 24 hours ahead.

Outside are a 4,500 m² park, an outdoor pool and the 15,000 m² private beach, which the hotel ranks among the largest on the Adriatic Riviera, with widely spaced umbrellas, a children's pool and, in July and August, a kids' club.

• Lost domes: a fire in the summer of 1920 forced the permanent removal of the two domes that once crowned the building.
• Eight and a half stops: the in-house museum trail, "L'Albergo dei Sogni", has nine stations, "or eight and a half - Fellinian, no?", as the hotel puts it.
• A marriage of sorts: owner Antonio Batani says he was "this beautiful lady's fiancé" for years before he finally married her, meaning bought the hotel.
• Cocktails from the films: the bar pours a La Dolce Vita and an 8½, both created as a tribute to the director.