A near-vertical coast, and the sea a long way below.
Thirteen towns cling to some thirty miles of limestone between Positano and Vietri sul Mare, each stacked up the cliff in pastel tiers above the water. The one famous road threads through all of them, a single slow lane cut into the rock a few hundred feet above the sea.
It is a coast that rewards patience and the right base. Mornings on the water before the day boats arrive, the heat coming off the lemon groves by noon, dinner on a terrace as the lights of Positano come on below. We place you where the view earns its reputation, and arrange the rest so the getting-there is the quiet part.
Why Our Clients Go
Our clients come for a short list of hotels that have run for generations and rarely need to advertise. Le Sirenuse and Il San Pietro above Positano, Santa Caterina at Amalfi, the Caruso and Palazzo Avino up in Ravello. Each holds perhaps a handful of rooms worth crossing a continent for, and those rooms are spoken for early.
We know which of them face the right way, catch the morning sun, and sit far enough from the road that you hear the sea and nothing else. We hold the relationships with the front desks and the general managers directly, which is how the corner suite with the wider terrace comes free the week you want it, and how a table at La Sponda appears on a Saturday in August.
We also know the coast beyond the hotels. That Ravello, six hundred feet up and quiet, suits some better than Positano and its stairs. That the sea is the only sensible way to move in high season. That the finest lunch on the coast is often a wooden boat, an anchored cove, and a cook who has done exactly this for thirty years.
How We Arrange It
- 01From New York, business or first through Rome or Milan on ITA Airways, or transatlantic to London first on British Airways; United's summer non-stop from Newark to Naples, in the Polaris cabin, is the neat exception when the dates line up.
- 02From London, Naples is a two-and-a-half-hour hop in Club Europe on British Airways or ITA, or a private jet into Naples or Salerno when the diary is unforgiving.
- 03Off the aircraft, the last leg is the good part. A helicopter from Naples onto a cliff-top helipad in roughly twenty minutes, or a private tender along the coast so you arrive at the hotel's own jetty rather than the road.
- 04A sea-facing suite with its own terrace, never a room that merely has a view: the corner at Le Sirenuse, a cliffside terrace at Il San Pietro reached by the lift carved down through the rock, the infinity pool above Ravello at the Caruso.
- 05A private gozzo for the day, the old wooden fishing boats, with a skipper who knows which coves stand empty at eleven, lunch taken at anchor, and Capri or the Li Galli islands within reach when the water is flat.
When To Go
Late spring
May into mid-June. Warm days, lemon blossom on the terraces, the sea just about swimmable, and the gardens at Ravello at their fullest before the season proper. The coast still moves at its own pace.
High summer
July and August. Hot, full, and thoroughly alive, the coast at its most glamorous. You move by boat, dine late, and settle the room a year ahead. This is what people picture when they picture it.
Early autumn
September into October. The sea at its warmest after a long summer, the light gone gold, the crowds thinning by the day and the terraces still open. Our own favourite, quietly.