. The hotel is full of nooks and corners to sit and have a coffee Anantara's latest European beauty, perched 80m up a sheer cliff and stretching more than 200m along it, is directly above Amalfi town, a photogenic warren of cobbled streets, tiny piazzas and steep alleys. You'll need a strong stomach for the winding 90-minute drive from Naples, and if you're scared of heights look away now. But it's a spectacular journey, carving through the lemon terraces, which career so steeply down the cliff that they can only be picked by hand. The hotel is full of nooks and corners to sit and have a coffee or a limoncello and admire the view. The Monk's Walk runs across the middle, and lucky monks: the bay of Amalfi far below, lemon trees on one side, bougainvillea above. The walk connects the main hotel to the casual pizza restaurant and spectacular 15m infinity pool beyond, hacked out of the cliff with little olive trees at each end. The hotel's pool is carved into the cliffside The interior is decorated in neutral, calming tones Hotel decor is simple but luxe, in neutral tones and natural materials: creamy walls, dark stone floors, wooden shutters. My room had a comparatively compact bedroom, a tiny shower and iffy wi-fi, but the bed was huge and comfy and the bathroom products fabulous ― full-size Acqua di Parma. The draw was the terrace: the size of my London flat, complete with sunloungers and hot tub. It looked out over the bay, filled with superyachts the size of cruise ships. Leonardo DiCap){kind=link}
Hotel “experiences” tend to be cookery classes or a sunset cruise. Very few can offer a monk, but then very few are housed in a 13th-century former monastery halfway up a cliff. The clue to Anantara Convento di Amalfi is in the name, and Brother Marcus is a Franciscan friar from nearby Ravello. He’s a wise and calming presence, knowledgeable about the history and architecture of both the hotel and his home town, and greets everyone with “Pace e bene” (“peace and good will to you”).
Anantara’s latest European beauty, perched 80m up a sheer cliff and stretching more than 200m along it, is directly above Amalfi town, a photogenic warren of cobbled streets, tiny piazzas and steep alleys. You’ll need a strong stomach for the winding 90-minute drive from Naples, and if you’re scared of heights look away now. But it’s a spectacular journey, carving through the lemon terraces, which career so steeply down the cliff that they can only be picked by hand. The hotel is full of nooks and corners to sit and have a coffee or a limoncello and admire the view. The Monk’s Walk runs across the middle, and lucky monks: the bay of Amalfi far below, lemon trees on one side, bougainvillea above. The walk connects the main hotel to the casual pizza restaurant and spectacular 15m infinity pool beyond, hacked out of the cliff with little olive trees at each end.
Hotel decor is simple but luxe, in neutral tones and natural materials: creamy walls, dark stone floors, wooden shutters. My room had a comparatively compact bedroom, a tiny shower and iffy wi-fi, but the bed was huge and comfy and the bathroom products fabulous ― full-size Acqua di Parma. The draw was the terrace: the size of my London flat, complete with sunloungers and hot tub. It looked out over the bay, filled with superyachts the size of cruise ships. Leonardo DiCaprio was in the area at the time, lunching with his parents up the road in Positano.
If you can tear yourself away, Ravello is half an hour up the road. It’s worth a visit for its steep, winding streets lined with shops selling colourful local pottery, impressive duomo and Villa Rufolo, a medieval ruin that hosts a Wagner festival every summer. For lunch, try Brother Marcus’s local, Mimí Pizzeria, and sit outside, surrounded by jasmine and vines. If you see a Franciscan friar, say hello because it’ll be him: there’s only him and a 90-year-old left, and the 90-year-old wears a suit, not a habit.
Back at the hotel, the food is so enthusiastically Italian that they winched a pizza oven in by helicopter, and devised the menu with a pizzaiolo (a chef who specializes in making pizzas) from one of the oldest pizza-making families in Naples. The result is authentically light, chewy, delicious. The more formal restaurant, Dei Cappuccini, boasts a chef who did a stint at the Fat Duck and has a light touch with local, seasonal ingredients: tortelli with zucchini, Sicilian red prawns, local fish, risotto with soft herbs. And everywhere, in everything, are those lemons, from the menu to the oil they use in the spa and the bowls of them scattered about the place. The experienced spa manager is passionate and enthusiastic and her staff respond, with full-on massages and featherlight facials. They were using Valmont products when I visited, but that may change.