Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria

Enrico Caruso spent the last summer of his life, in 1921, in a suite at the Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria in Sorrento. He died in Naples that August, and the rooms carry his name. The hotel had then been open for nearly ninety years, and it is still run by the family that founded it.

History

The Fiorentino family opened the hotel in 1834 on the cliff that closes the town of Sorrento on the seaward side, where tradition places a villa of the emperor Augustus. Through the 19th century it grew into three buildings standing in a park, and in the years around 1900 its salons and winter garden were painted in the Liberty style, the Italian version of Art Nouveau, which they keep. The family is now in its fifth generation of ownership, which is rare among the grand hotels of Italy, most of which passed to chains long ago. Membership of The Leading Hotels of the World came later and changed nothing in the running of the house.

Architecture and design

The three buildings, La Vittoria, La Favorita and La Rivale, stand in two hectares of gardens planted with orange and lemon trees and olives, closed off from Piazza Tasso by a gate. The winter garden is the showpiece, with painted ceilings and wrought iron from the Belle Époque, and the terrace runs along the cliff edge with the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius opposite. A lift cut through the rock takes guests down to the port at Marina Piccola, where the ferries leave, so that the hotel is at once in the town and above it. Period furniture, majolica floors from Vietri and the original frescoes have been kept through successive renovations rather than replaced.

Rooms and suites

Rooms and suites are spread across the three buildings, and most have a terrace or balcony on the sea or the gardens. The Caruso Suite keeps furniture from the tenor's stay. The grander suites face the bay from the top floors of La Vittoria. Decoration follows the house style, with antiques, tiled floors and tall windows, rather than any contemporary fashion.

Dining

Terrazza Bosquet, the fine-dining restaurant on the terrace above the sea, holds a Michelin star, and its kitchen works with the lemons, fish and vegetables of the Sorrento peninsula. A second restaurant by the pool serves lunch in the garden, and the bar on the terrace is the place in Sorrento for a drink at sunset with the whole bay in view.

Wellness

The outdoor pool is set in the gardens among the orange trees and is heated for the shoulder seasons. La Serra, the spa, has treatment rooms and a small wet area.

Weddings and events

The Excelsior Vittoria is one of the most used wedding venues on the Sorrento peninsula. Ceremonies are held on the terrace or in the gardens, and receptions in the frescoed salons or outside under the trees. The hotel also takes conferences and company events in its meeting rooms, which is how it fills the winter months when the leisure season is quiet. As a luxury hotel in Sorrento with its own gate on the main square, it is also the obvious base for a wedding held elsewhere on the coast.

Location

The entrance is on Piazza Tasso, the main square of Sorrento, and the hotel's lift leads to Marina Piccola, from which ferries reach Capri in about 20 minutes and Naples in about 40. Sorrento station, the terminus of the Circumvesuviana line from Naples, is five minutes' walk. Naples airport is about 50 km away, between an hour and ninety minutes by road depending on the traffic along the coast. Positano and Amalfi are reached by the coast road or by boat from the port below.