Borgo Santandrea

The armchairs here are roughly as old as the building. The hotel on this cliff above Conca dei Marini went up in the 1960s, and the two families who took it on spent almost four years rebuilding it, mostly with craftsmen from the Amalfi Coast, then filled it from their own collection of mid-century design. Part of it is grey stone and arched windows; part is white plaster curving against bare rock, with a shoal of ceramic fish swimming up one arch. The rooms sit between 50 and 79 metres above the sea. A Superior Room has a blue and white chevron floor and glass doors onto a balcony among the olive trees. The white pebble beach is at the bottom. Two of the eight lifts go down to it, or a path winds through olives and centuries-old myrtles past the saltwater pool, which makes the path the better way down and the lift the better way back.

Recommended for couples, and for families with children of eight and over, who would rather see the coast from the water than from the road. Six boats work from the jetty, from a Riva Cento down to Il Barchino, the little boat, out to Capri or as far as Paestum; even the free shuttle into Amalfi goes by sea as well as by car. Book one of the three kinds of suite with a pool of its own. In one, a round plunge pool sits on a stone terrace behind a glass balustrade over the sea. Dinner is Alici, on a terrace over the water, where Crescenzo Scotti cooks the simple classics of Campania. Alici is Italian for anchovies, which is about as modest as a restaurant name gets.