Hotel Santa Caterina

Giuseppe Gambardella was in the trade by 1870, when he turned his family home into a small inn, and in 1904, with his wife and his son Crescenzo, he opened the Hotel Santa Caterina with six rooms. There are 66 now, and the family has not let go: Giusi and Ninni Gambardella run it with their children. The hotel stands on the cliff at the edge of Amalfi, on the coast road towards Positano, with lemon and olive groves terraced down the rock beneath it. From a lounger under the lemon trees the town is in view across its bay: white houses stacked up the hillside, the harbour wall, and the boats coming in. Some rooms are vaulted, with arched doors opening onto a balcony over the sea.

Recommended for couples who want Amalfi a walk away rather than under the window, and for families happy to swap a kids club for babysitting and rooms that connect. Two lifts run down through the cliff to the beach club, kept for hotel guests: sunbeds on a platform over the rocks and a heated seawater pool, with Al Mare alongside for fish. The club opens from mid-April to October, so a March stay keeps to the cliff top. The hotel arranges boat trips along the coast to Li Galli and Capri, and runs a free shuttle into Amalfi. In the evening there is Glicine, where Giuseppe Stanzione cooks for dinner only, in a glass-walled room or on a terrace pushed out over the Mediterranean. For a honeymoon there is Chalet Giulietta e Romeo, set into the rock, with a round terrace jutting over the sea and a heated pool in a small garden of its own. Juliet had to make do with a balcony.