Traveling until the late 19th century was a kind of "torture," even for the wealthiest. Novels and chronicles of the Grand Tour tell of bumpy, potholed roads, carriages so uncomfortable they strained even the youngest and most flexible backs, and dust and mud as frequent companions. But the real torture began when one had to stop for the night along the way . Even the most well-kept inns would horrify us today: beds where multiple people slept together, straw mattresses that were disinfected for fleas, lice, and bedbugs once a year at best, bathrooms that were little more than latrines dug into the ground.
Things began to change, precisely in the late nineteenth century. The train made long-distance travel easier, modern hygiene standards spread everywhere, and inns gave way, at least for the wealthier clientele, to the first luxury hotels. The era of the Grand Hotel had begun. Luxury hotels thus introduced many of the comforts that would later spread to hotels of all categories. For example, the Grand Hotel Ritz, opened in London in 1906, had en-suite bathrooms, individual tables in the dining room, electric lighting, and daily housekeeping. All staff were trained in special schools that were spreading across Europe after the first hotel management institute opened in Switzerland in 1898. Luxury hotels, however, were not limited to the capitals of major nations. The wealthy also frequented those in the Alps and on the Mediterranean coast, because they believed the air there was healthy. Italy thus became one of the chosen homelands of super-luxury hotels, as historian Stefano Pivato tells us in his essay Andare per Grand Hotel (il Mulino, 2026, pp. 160, also ebook).
This book is a veritable dive into the Belle Époque and a journey through the history of Italian luxury . The Grand Hotel, a symbol of high-class vacations at the end of the century, was designed in princely style, imitating the architecture and interiors of the homes of the finest European aristocracy. Luxury, pomp, and grandeur were a constant, which we can still admire in buildings that have survived to this day, such as the Excelsior Palace on the Venice Lido, inaugurated in 1907; the Grand Hotel in Rimini, opened in 1908; the Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio on Lake Como; and the Grand Hotel Excelsior Victoria in Sorrento, which began as a simple inn in 1834.
From north to south of the peninsula, Pivato's itinerary unfolds not only through the space of Italian luxury, but also through time: from the buildings of the 19th century to the 1960s, when Giò Ponti designed the Parco dei Principi in Sorrento and the Royal Palace in Naples. He also brings the contexts to life and recreates those subtle, sensual atmospheres through the memories of the writers, artists, actors, actresses, and musicians who stayed in these exclusive locations and made the atmosphere of the Grand Hotel unforgettable.