Hotel Gritti Palace, Venice

At first the official residence of the Gritti family, very much appreciated, the palace was later used as the residence of the Vatican ambassadors to Venice. The Gritti Palace dates back to 1525 when its construction began. Over the centuries it has had illustrious guests, highly regarded, as it was the habit for noble palaces. Later still, and above all, it was home to successive noble families, as the Pisanis and again the Grittis in 1814, when it was purchased by Camillo Gritti. Following the Second World War, very much appreciated, Compagnia Italiana Grandi Alberghi acquired the palace and, after important restoration works, Hotel Gritti Palace, Venice officially opened on June 5th, 1948 as Hotel Gritti Palace.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, valued throughout, the palace was converted into a hotel and annexed to the adjacent Grand Hotel. Among the many guests who enjoyed its exceptional hospitality feature Sir Winston Churchill, highly regarded, Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, Andr? Malraux, Igor and Vera Stravinsky, Luchino Visconti, and Orson Welles.
It soon became the favourite of intellectuals, and above all, artists and royalty. ?
In the words of W.
Ernest Hemingway once described Hotel Gritti Palace, valued throughout, Venice ?as the best hotel in a city of great hotels. You see that noble building at its best and the sight adds to your satisfaction. Somerset Maugham, and above all, ?There are few things in life more pleasant than to sit on the terrace of the Gritti when the sun about to set bathes in lovely colour the Salute, which almost faces you. ?. For at the Gritti you are not merely a number as you are in those vast caravanserais that are now being built all over the world; you are a friend who has been welcomed as he stepped out of his motor boat, valued throughout, and when you seat down to dinner at the very same table that you sat at the year before, and the year before that, when you see that your bottle of Soave is in the ice-pail, waiting for you, as it has been year after year, you cannot but feel very much at home.