In 1875 the Austrian Luigi Wimmer stayed at Gardone Riviera for health treatment; and, as it often happens to those who visit Lake Garda for the first time, he was immediately enchanted by the mildness of the climate. He therefore decided to settle down at Gardone Riviera and have a small hotel built on the lakeside, in order to give others a chance to appreciate the beauty of the Garda riviera. His brilliant intuition opened the way to the transformation of the rural village of Gardone into the most popular winter health resort in Mitteleurope. The hotel welcomed its first guests in 1884, but its success became so great that after a few years – 1897 – the first round of refurbishment was undertaken. On which, the historian Giuseppe Solitro wrote that ‘the Hotel Gardone – with no exaggeration – may be regarded as a village: with 300 rooms, all facing south, dining and conversation halls, reading, music and leisure areas; galleries with glass walls, baths, gardens with tropical flora, all illuminated by electric light and kept warm by radiators – the new luxury comfort of this time’. Thanks to these characteristics, the Grand Hotel soon became a popular destination for noblemen and intellectuals from all around Europe.