Palazzo Abagnale

Here it’s something both simpler and more abstract: one floor is given over to “the light,” with a quote from the painter Edward Hopper; another to Pop Art, in the guise of Andy Warhol; and still a third to “black and white,” attributed to Francesco Bacone, a charming Italianization of the name of either the twentieth-century painter or the Renaissance philosopher and Viscount of St. Alban.

How they arrived at this concept is less important than what it eventually means to the guest. For all the distinctions between the styles of the three floors, the experience is possessed of a certain unity, a certain visual sparseness, a graphic impact.

And of course the location does its part as well. This is the heart of Sorrento, literally a hundred feet from the town’s central square. It’s a gorgeous Campanian town with a view of Mount Vesuvius, and it’s a quick train ride to Naples and a short drive to the upscale resort towns of the Sorrentine Peninsula — which means that despite the Palazzo’s decided lack of trad-Italian kitsch, you’re in no danger at all of forgetting where on Earth you are.