Grande Real Villa Itália Hotel & Spa wins Condé Nast Johansens Awards of Excellence 2026

The Grande Real Villa Itália Hotel & Spa in Cascais has won the Condé Nast Johansens Awards for Excellence 2026 as the best hotel for corporate and social events.

The hotel where the last King of Italy lived is once again making history and bringing another award to Cascais: after the “Most Romantic Hotel in Europe 2025” award.

This time the Grande Real Villa Itália Hotel & Spa won the award for best hotel in the “Best for Meetings & Events” category by the Condé Nast Johansens Excellence Awards 2026.

This important win was announced on Monday, November 3, at a ceremony in London that honors the best of the world’s hospitality.

This is the second consecutive year that the Grande Real Villa Itália Hotel & Spa has won an award from Condé Nast Johansens, one of the most prestigious international publications of the Condé Nast group and a world reference in the world of luxury tourism and lifestyle. The winners of the 2026 Annual Awards for Excellence were selected by combining online voting, guest reviews, and evaluations carried out by the Local Experts team over the past year.

The Grande Real Villa Itália Hotel & Spa offers several modular spaces for meetings, conventions and corporate events, with natural light and views of the Atlantic. The hotel can host small management or training meetings up to large conferences with about 400 participants, offering complete technical and logistical solutions, enriched by other hotel features such as haute cuisine, a stunning view in which the pool and the sea merge, in addition to the iconic Real Spa Therapy, among the best and highly specialized in the country.

For social events, private celebrations and weddings, the hotel has rooms and outdoor areas that adapt to the size and profile of each occasion, with capacity for banquets of up to 300 guests. The terraces and gardens with sea views are often chosen for cocktails, presentations and ceremonies, in an environment that combines elegance, privacy and the natural landscape of Cascais.

The residence of Italy’s last king

The June 1946 referendum in Italy on the decision to retain or dissolve the monarchy saw voters voting to abolish it, and Italy was declared a republic days later.

Umberto II departed the country and he and other male members of the House of Savoy were barred from ever returning.

He lived out the rest of his life in exile in Cascais, on the Portuguese Riviera, living in the palatial Villa D’ Éste mansion, which belonged to the Pinto Basto family, for 11 years (1950-1961). However, a group of loyal monarchists funded his removal to his permanent residence next to that mansion which was renamed by Umberto himself Vila Itália. It was a palace where he organised the most lavish parties. The exiled king eventually died in Geneva in 1983.