Season’s Greetings In Sorrento

Margaret Hussey checks into Sorrento’s Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria and discovers a host of history, festive traditions and great food.

Hotel Review: Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria – Sorrento, Italy

There’s a wonderful Italian proverb, ‘Natale con i tuoi, Pasqua con chi vuoi,’ which loosely translates as ‘Christmas with your family, Easter with whoever you want.’

Christmas is a big deal in Italy when it comes to celebrating with your clan, so it couldn’t have been more apt to be staying at the wonderful Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria in Sorrento. This independent fifth-generation-run hotel (or sixth if you count sons Luca and Peter), is led by CEO Guido Fiorentino – and family is at the heart of everything. And somehow this hugely impressive five-star hotel – with its frescoes, chandeliers, artworks, marble, swags and pelmets – still manages to feel homely. That’s hugely thanks to Guido, his wife Ornella and their sons as they mingle and chat to guests, seeming to know their many repeat visitors by name.

All of the hotel’s 79 rooms are individually designed, with some suites paying homage to famous guests including Italian tenors Enrico Caruso and Luciano Pavarotti. Other stars who have visited over its more than 190 year history include Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, Richard Wagner and Oscar Wilde.

Twinkling lights and baubles are everywhere at the Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria.

And at Christmas, the Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria goes full out. Twinkling lights and baubles are everywhere and there is a huge Christmas tree in the foyer, surrounded by Panettone (more on that later). The hotel is also bang in the middle of Sorrento, off Piazza Tasso, and is within walking distance of everything. When we visited, the square’s Christmas lights were being turned on – to much oohing and ahhing from the crowd and the universal soundtrack of Mariah Carey.

Christmas here is delightful. There are fewer crowds, a very pleasant temperature of about 15°C and great shopping to be found. Minutes from the hotel, along the winding streets, all festooned with fairy lights, you can grab some incredible leather goods at bargain prices, from belts for €10 to handbags from €30 and all amazing quality. Ditto the olive oil, limoncello and Gragnano pasta, said to be the best in the world. Sorrento is also known for its inlaid wood and family firm Biagio Barile has a showroom here in a deconsecrated church. They make exquisite jewellery and trinket boxes, and supply Gucci and Dior as well as Liberty.

The Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria’s 79 rooms are individually designed.

Unlike northern Italy, mulled wine is not a thing in Campania. It’s more hot chocolate and stalls selling doughnuts, macarons, liquorice and artisan jams and honey. It’s all very lively and family orientated. Just minutes from the stalls, the street scenes are mirrored inside at Villa Fiorentino and its Masters of the Nativity exhibition. Curated by Neapolitan artist Giuseppe Ercolano it’s an immersive look at the craftsmanship and detail that goes into Italian Nativity scenes and cribs. Some are on a vast scale with 18th-century handcrafted figures in terracotta and wood and incredibly detailed food and drink items, as central to Italian life then as it is now.

Back at the hotel, we get to sample the best of it. At the Michelin-starred Terrazza Bosquet, with views over the Bay of Naples and further afield to Ischia and Procida, the tasting menu is sublime. As a veggie, I had the Southern Italian Cardoncello mushroom with smoked Caciocavallo cheese and a risotto with yellow tomato. For omnivores, dishes included red mullet with green beans and sea bream with smoked potato mayonnaise. And then there was the Italian bread trolley, with the most delicious array I have ever seen. This area is known for its citrus fruits so we tried a moreish lemon bread matched with a lemon butter.

Home-grown oranges elevate Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria’s homemade Panettone.

The hotel has a citrus grove in its five acres of gardens and even in December we could see oranges and lemons on the trees. The home-grown oranges are used in their homemade Panettone and it is one of the fluffiest and tastiest I have ever eaten. The fruit is in their marmalade too, which you can enjoy at breakfast along with their orange and almond pie and a host of cakes – Italians love cake for breakfast – as well as cheese, eggs, fruit and hot food cooked to order. What better way to start the day, especially with those views across to Mount Vesuvius?

The Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria is one of the Leading Hotels of the World and can help with organising excursions, too. We took a trip to the volcano’s foothills: Cantina del Vesuvio, a family-run winery. Its Lacryma Christi (‘Tears of Christ’) wine is made using only organic fertiliser, producing just 60,000 bottles a year. It’s quality over quantity, they tell us. And that quality – thanks to the nutrients in the volcanic soil – is pretty special. Drinking a glass of their sparkling rosé with Vesuvius directly behind us was awesome.

Pompeii is also nearby, so we took a spin out to the UNESCO World Heritage site. It closes earlier in the winter, but the shorter time is more than compensated for by the lack of crowds. Wandering through the streets, you cannot help but admire the ingenuity of the Romans in the year 79 with their takeaway stalls, underfloor heating, waterways and drainage. The art on the walls uncovered after the eruption is a fascinating snapshot of their lives – and excavations and restoration are still going on.

Thanks to fewer crowds, Christmas at Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria is delightful.

If art is your bag, the Correale Museum is an often overlooked gem in Sorrento. It was donated to the city in the 1920s by aristocratic counts Alfredo and Pompeo Correale and has one of the largest collections of still life paintings in Italy, as well as works by Artemisia Gentileschi and Angelica Kauffman. There are Japanese, Chinese and European ceramics as well as clocks and exquisite marquetry and inlay work. The 18th-century villa is a few minutes walk from the Excelsior Vittoria, and the Fiorentino family are big supporters.

Meandering back to the hotel, I popped by the Marina Piccola where you can hop on ferries for day trips to Capri, Positano and Naples. It’s very quiet in winter with fishermen and the gentle sound of the water. The hotel has its own elevator to the beach too, if you don’t fancy the walk back up. I do and thankfully have a restorative massage booked at the hotel’s small but beautifully appointed La Serra spa. It’s very well thought through with a beautiful courtyard garden. 

Try the hotel’s signature Sorrentino drink at La Pergola.

The lovely pool was undergoing maintenance work when we visited but you can imagine how glorious it would be on a hot summer’s day. And it’s the perfect place for a cocktail thanks to its poolside L’Orangerie restaurant. Instead we decamped to the hotel’s La Pergola bar, which has an indoor and outdoor area and is a great spot on the Piazza Tasso for people-watching. The hotel’s signature Sorrentino drink (limoncello and Prosecco with ice and lemons) was devised at the hotel by world-renowned bartender Colin Field in 2013. Elsewhere in the region it has morphed into the Limoncello Spritz, with the addition of soda water. But Guido insists this is the original, the best, the classic. Very much like his hotel. 

BOOK IT

Rooms at the Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria start from €637 per night on a B&B basis, based on two people sharing a garden view room, including Resort Tax and fees. Book at excelsiorvittoria.com

Margaret’s return flights from London to Naples emitted approximately 492.2kg CO2e. ecollectivecarbon.com