During their stay at Villa Il Sorito in Sorrento from 1924 to ’32, the writer Maxim Gorky and his friend Vladislav Khodasevich, the greatest Russian poet of the early twentieth century, used to cross the street to the Pensione Minerva to have a shower each Saturday. It was a favourite of other illustrious Russians, including the writers Sobol and Muratov. Moved closer to the sea, along the Massa Lubrense road, the hotel is a complex of 1930s buildings in red tuffaceous stone. Clinging to the rock, it affords a stunning view of the Gulf of Naples and elegant interiors inspired by Pompei.