Layne Randolph
While living in Italy for nearly a decade, Layne was legal counsel for Fendi in Rome and, as a side gig, a freelance travel writer. After relocating to Sonoma County, California, she dusted off her journalism degree to craft stories full-time as Roma to Sonoma. She's led readers into the cellars and vineyards of hundreds of wine brands as a copywriter and contributor to publications such as Wine Enthusiast, AFAR, Napa Valley Life, Haute Living San Francisco, and Decanter. Layne is a certified Napa Valley Wine Specialist pursuing WSET's Level 3 certification, and in 2022 and 2023, the Napa Valley Vintners chose her to be a Fellow with the Wine Writers' Symposium. She focuses her prose on travel, wine, and wellness and dreams of places to add to the five continents and 51 countries she has explored.
Bormio, just south of the Swiss border in the Italian Alps, is also conveniently situated only a few hours from Milan. You won’t be the first to make the trek, however. The natural hot springs here, now the lovely resort of Bagni di Bormio, (the Baths of Bormio), have been in continuous use for thousands of years. Pliny the Elder was already going on about their beneficial properties back in the first century A.D. And throughout the ages, Leonardo Da Vinci, European royalty and the like, regularly flocked here to “take the waters.”
The Hotel Bagni Vecchi (Older Bath Hotel) is a smaller and cozier traditional Valtellina mountain-style hotel, while the Grand Hotel Bagni Nuovi (Grand New Bath Hotel) on the other hand is a sumptuous mid-19th century Victorian extravaganza, replete with grand dining and dancing halls and Murano glass chandeliers throughout. Both were built around the terme (natural hot springs), meticulously preserving the original Roman baths but also enhancing them by adding a subterranean spa that boasts modern cedar saunas and mineral water Jacuzzis. The trump card of the terme, however, is an outdoor Roman thermal pool perched up against the mountain that looks out over the ski slopes and picturesque Alpine valley. Add to this the charming town of Bormio itself and it comes as no surprise at all that the Bagni di Bormio has been popular for a very long time.
Layne Randolph, Italian Notebook, 2007
Layne Randolph
While living in Italy for nearly a decade, Layne was legal counsel for Fendi in Rome and, as a side gig, a freelance travel writer. After relocating to Sonoma County, California, she dusted off her journalism degree to craft stories full-time as Roma to Sonoma. She's led readers into the cellars and vineyards of hundreds of wine brands as a copywriter and contributor to publications such as Wine Enthusiast, AFAR, Napa Valley Life, Haute Living San Francisco, and Decanter. Layne is a certified Napa Valley Wine Specialist pursuing WSET's Level 3 certification, and in 2022 and 2023, the Napa Valley Vintners chose her to be a Fellow with the Wine Writers' Symposium. She focuses her prose on travel, wine, and wellness and dreams of places to add to the five continents and 51 countries she has explored.
