Il San Pietro di Positano

Il San Pietro is built into a sheer cliff face a little south of Positano, on a site so vertical that the hotel is arranged as a series of terraces descending towards the water. The Cinque family opened it in 1970 and still run it, and much of its character comes from that continuity — the antiques, the majolica tiles, the bougainvillea that has been climbing the terraces for half a century.

There is no street entrance to speak of; you arrive at the top and work your way down through gardens, sitting rooms and terraces, every level opening to the same enormous view of the Tyrrhenian and the Positano hillside. Rooms are individually shaped by the rock they are cut into, each with its own terrace, and many with sea-facing bathtubs.

A lift bored through eighty-eight metres of cliff drops guests to a private beach and rock platform with a tennis court, dive centre and boats for the Capri run. Zass, the hotel's restaurant, holds a Michelin star, cooking Campanian produce and seafood from its own kitchen garden and the water below.