JETSETREPORT

Ending Summer at Hotel il San Pietro

October 06, 2015 03.45 PM

Hotel Il San Pietro belongs to an elite group of Italian summertime hotels iconic to a privileged traveler class. Along the Amalfi, it's part of a fabled trio of family-owned hotels that include the Sersale Family's Sirenuse and the Santa Catarina in Amalfi. But with its dramatic hillside location and private beach ever-so removed from the tourist clamor of Positano, Il San Pietro remains atop the competition with the starriest crowds and highest room rates of any other hotel along the Amalfi Coast.

Head-on views of the sea distract your eyes upon arrival. Smell of jasmine, honeysuckle and lemon envelope the senses along a stone walkway with canopy of the most manicured trees you’ve ever seen. A series of elevators lead to a confusing number of destinations from the semi-circle pool to the rocky beach, if you're lucky one opens to the lobby on first try. Defined by walls of glass and impossibly shiny parquet floors, the lobby sprawls behind a grand terrace that lures daylong visitors looking for that 180-degree view and Aperol Spritz that comes with goblet-size olives. Regulars rarely frequent the lobby, instead they hit the private beach and waterfront grill accessed via an impressive elevator that's for guests-only. Along an elevated embankment, rows of terry cloth bedecked loungers cocoon summer's last revelers for those final months of October prior to the hotel's annual closing that lasts through April.

Hotel Il San Pietro comes with quirky in-house policies like cash required for all incidentals and no-swimsuit policy whilst traipsing through its lobby. Its rooms are also subjective, with private terraces and sea views but with forgettable decor choices that could use refreshing or just rethinking. For some, however, they're simply perfection as is the in-house restaurant that comes with 2-Michelin stars and nightly entertainment that beckons the spirit of 1960s Italian pop. As with many family-owned hotels, modernity is an afterthought with room service that stops at 10pm without exception and reception that struggles with Internet, credit cards and almost anything out of the ordinary. But that said, there's really no place like Hotel Il San Pietro especially in October along the Amalfi Coast.

Written by:

Michael Martin
Editorial Review Author
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