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 Ravello, the most lustrous of Amalfi's many splendid pearls, is the ideal site to base yourself for exploring a unique landscape that has inspired the likes of composers Richard Wagner and Edward Grieg, the painters William Turner and Miro, and authors, D.H.Lawrence, Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal, who still spend part of each year here. Greta Garbo successfully sought refuge from the maddening crowds and prying paparazzi in Ravello, and ever since, it has become a favorite haven for Hollywood stars. |
 Hotel Caruso is located on the highest point of Ravello: the hotel is perched on a cliff top 350 meters above the sea featuring spectacular views of the Mediterranean and the celebrated Amalfi Coast. Hotel Caruso was originally built in the 11th century as a palace by a patrician Roman family who set out to reach Constantinople, the new centre of the Roman Empire, but failed because of a storm at sea. |
 They established themselves in Amalfi and, thereafter, in Ravello, where they built the Palazzo D'Afflitto - the name (meaning 'the afflicted') a reference both to the memory of the shipwreck and to 'afflictions suffered because of faith' by the family martyr Eustachio. The Marquis D'Afflitto's original palace was largely destroyed, as were the rest of Ravello and the Republic of Amalfi, by the Republic of Pisa, which was a warring competitor on the Mediterranean routes. |
 The remains lay deserted until the mid-1500s, when a period of reconstruction began. The present palace was completed in the 1600s, when much of its ancient splendor and original ornament was restored. A further period of neglect followed, until 1893 when Pantaleone Caruso, a hotelier and vineyard owner, and his wife Emilia Cicalese, rented five rooms in one of the wings of the palace. |
 They opened as the "Pensione Belvedere", so named because of the splendid view of the hanging garden plunging down the mountainside to the sea. Caruso covered the open air courtyard behind the entrance, and installed the two 13th-century lions and the Roman pillars on the steps leading to the hall. In 1903 a New York Times journalist visited, and his subsequent article inspired many wealthy Americans, over wintering on the European rivieras, to visit. |
 The hotel came to occupy the entire "palazzo", with 24 rooms, and its name was changed to Hotel Caruso Belvedere. It became a favorite haunt of the Bloomsbury Group and, between the world wars, of many influential Americans. After the second world war, the hotel was run by Pantaleone Caruso's sons, Paolo and Gino, and guests returned to be greeted by the same 18th-century frescoes, the Norman arches, the park and its pergolas, the two stone lions guarding the entrance and the fabulous view that had defined the hotel right from the beginning. |
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