If We Were Heading to Italy This Summer. This Is Where We Would Stay
From iconic institutions to the places no one's heard of yet. This is our cult list.
Italy in summer is its own category of travel. The light is different. The food is better. The pace, when you find the right place, slows down in a way that nowhere else quite manages. But where you stay changes everything. So here is our BB edit. The hotels we would actually book, from Lake Como to a volcanic island most people have never heard of.
Passalaqua, Lake Como
The world's best hotel — officially — and it earns it every single time. Only 24 guests at once, an 18th century villa above Moltrasio, and a sense of magic that is simply impossible to replicate. The gardens, the boats, the lunches that become dinners. There is a reason we keep talking about it. Come for three nights and you will understand why.
Il Pellicano, Porto Ercole
The original Italian summer hotel. Rocky coastline, effortless chic interiors, and guests who return every single year — because nothing has ever quite matched it. No infinity pools, no spectacle. Just the Tyrrhenian Sea, exceptional food, and a cult following that has been loyal for decades. This is where Italian summers were invented.
Splendido, Portofino
This might be the most cinematic hillside in Italy. Belmond's Portofino address is the kind of hotel that makes you feel like you have stepped into someone else's very beautiful life — the terraced gardens, the harbour views, the sense that the whole of Liguria was arranged specifically for this vantage point. If we had to choose one Belmond hotel in Italy, this would be it.
Le Sirenuse, Positano
Bougainvillea, terracotta, and a view of Positano that stops you every single time. This is one hotel that genuinely lives up to the hype — and the hype has been building for decades. The Amalfi Coast at its most iconic, from a terrace that feels like it was designed for the sole purpose of making you never want to leave.
Borgo Santandrea, Amalfi Coast
No road access. No busy crowds. Arrive by boat through the lemon groves and discover the Amalfi Coast's best kept secret. Carved into the cliffside between Amalfi and Positano, Borgo Santandrea is the property the coast didn't tell anyone about. The pool is extraordinary. The whole experience feels like a discovery — which, on one of the most visited coastlines in the world, is increasingly hard to find.
Mezzatorre, Ischia
Ischia is the island the Italians have been keeping for themselves — and the Mezzatorre Resort and Spa is exactly why. A converted watchtower above the Tyrrhenian Sea, volcanic thermal waters on the doorstep, and an atmosphere that feels entirely removed from the summer crowds of the more famous islands. Italy's best kept island. Italy's best kept hotel.
Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco, Tuscany
A Tuscan summer dream. 4,000 private acres, your own Brunello di Montalcino vineyard, and the Val d'Orcia stretching out in every direction. The food, the wine, the walks through the estate at golden hour — this is what Tuscany looks like when you have it entirely to yourself. For the traveller who wants the countryside to feel like a world unto itself.
Borgo Egnazia, Puglia
All the vibe. None of the noise. One of our favourite spas in Europe and the best food we have eaten in Italy. Borgo Egnazia is not so much a hotel as it is a village — trulli architecture, extraordinary Pugliese cuisine, and an atmosphere that is somehow both epic and deeply real. The G7 was held here. The locals still come for Sunday lunch. That balance is everything.
Cala di Volpe, Sardinia
The benchmark for Sardinian luxury since 1963. Curved terracotta walls, emerald water that doesn't look real, and the most cinematic coastline in the Mediterranean. Six decades on the Costa Smeralda and still the one everyone is trying to outdo. Some hotels just set the standard — this is one of them.
Sikelia, Pantelleria
For the traveller who thinks they have seen Italy. A volcanic island closer to Tunisia than Sicily, Pantelleria is Italy's most genuinely surprising luxury retreat — dammusi stone villas, natural thermal pools, and a landscape unlike anything else in the Mediterranean. You think you know Italy. You haven't been to Pantelleria.
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