We had a wonderful time staying at San Felice, it is a magical place. Here are some evening shots in and around the hotel.
Echoes of San Felice
Category Archives: hotel
Friends in Tuscany
We are lucky enough to have friends in Tuscany and we all got together for dinner at San Felice. It was a wonderful night, great food, great wine and great company.
Three Kiwis and four Italians, what a special experience.
Today we leave Tuscany
Today we leave San Felice and travel to Rome. It’s an early start, but the upside is capturing the view of Tuscany from our front door at 7am.
Welcome to San Felice
On Tuesday we moved from Relais Vignale in Radda to San Felice for a few days. Jean has really been looking forward to getting here and was like a kid on Christmas morning – up early on Tuesday, packed and ready to go before breakfast, just wanting to get here although it is only a 20 minute drive.
For those who don’t know, we visited San Felice last year and Jean fell in love with it – so this year we get to stay a few days.
San Felice is a hotel which is made up of an entire traditional Italian Borgo (village). It retains a village feel but has around 50 rooms and suites in the old buildings as well as two restaurants (one of which has a Michelin star), a pool, indoor and outdoor bars, shops, a wine tasting room and two churches.
Jean fell in love with the room, so she shot one of her famous one take videos.
After a couple of days by the pool and a dinner with friends last night in the casual restaurant, San Felice is living up to expectations. Jean doesn’t want to leave – which could be a problem on Friday when we move back to Rome.
From seafood and bustle to meat and quiet
We have been in Tuscany for a couple of days and the contrast with Positano is dramatic. Gone is the bustle and noise of the busy seaside town, replaced by the quiet of rural Tuscany. The noisiest thing we hear are the church bells ringing out on the hour or the distant sound of tyres on white roads (gravel roads).
The constants are the long lasting summer weather and the incredible sunsets.
We moved into Relais Vignale in Radda in Chianti a few days ago and it felt like catching up with an old friend. We booked the same room as last year so enjoyed our own private garden and a room with enough room to swing many cats – if we so wished.
Marco still runs the bar like a military operation and remembered us from last year. The pool was still there but with new seats and loungers. The big change was the restaurant – Vignale Ristorante – which has a new manager, who has taken it’s slightly tired and stodgy menu and reinvented it with traditional local cuisine with a modern feel.
The restaurant uses its terrace view to great effect and we spent the first evening enjoying some delicious food – lots of meat and not much seafood, excellent local wine and the view of the sun slowly setting beyond the olive trees.
If you’re staying at Relais Vignale in the next wee while (that would be you Tony W) give the restaurant a shot. I’m sure you’ll be in for a great evening.
We have also been able to catch up with our friends Olga and Dani. We’ve had meals out and meals in – including a traditional kiwi barbecue at their place, with an Italian flavour. Marinated chicken, Italian sausages and a huge slice of prosciutto went on the barbecue, accompanied by arancini, courtesy of Dani, focaccia courtesy of our NZ friend Tina and everything else courtesy of Olga.
There was food for a dozen people but the 5 of us made a good dent in it.
Two weeks in the sun
We’ve now been in Positano for a fortnight and have gone from a pasty white colour to a burnished brown (Jean) and a slightly brown tinge (Me). Our stress levels have dropped and our ability to spend time doing next to nothing has increased.
Positano is busy but less busy than last year. The number of people in the village each day seems less and everyone – including the locals – seem happier about that. The general consensus seems to be that 2024 is a return to 2022 visitor levels.
The main reason for this seems to be a reduction in the number of American visitors holidaying this year versus last year.
By coincidence, there is an article on stuff.co.nz today (originally from the Washington Post) looking at tourism on the coast and painting a pretty grim picture of the numbers and the crowding. Some of it rings true but, based on our two weeks, some of it seems to be more about last year than this year.
This last few days we had a visitor from the north staying with us. Our friend Tina has been on holiday in Tuscany and she came down to stay in the casetta for a few days. Days of wine and … more wine.
After two weeks it is time for us to move on to Tuscany – high speed train from Napoli to Firenze, then a rental car to Radda in Chianti and our place for the next few days – Relais Vignale.
As a farewell to Positano, here are a grab-bag of images from the last week.
Sweet treats
Tony works at Eden Roc hotel and, among other things, manages the breakfast service. He is a lovely man with a happiness and joy about him that is infectious. Even the grumpiest breakfast customer is inevitably won over by his charm and eagerness to make “Tony’s breakfast” the most important meal of the day.
Even on days that we don’t have breakfast at the hotel but come later to spend time around and in the pool, he appears with a small box of sweet treats for us (well me actually) – a selection of the cakes and pastries he knows I like – that we can bring back to the casetta and eat later.
And now we are home
After 7 weeks away, we landed in Wellington a few days ago. As you get older the jet lag becomes harder to recover from. I’ve been waking early in the morning with an overwhelming desire for dinner and then falling asleep again mid afternoon. Quite normal some might say.
On the way home we stopped in Dubai for 10 hours. Our lovely travel agent Petra, had organised a room at the Dubai International Hotel so we could shower and grab a few hours sleep. It was brilliant. Because the hotel was air-side we were met at our arrival gate and taken to the hotel with no need to enter Dubai. The hotel operates 24/7 – so we were able to have dinner at 1am before grabbing some much needed sleep.
In the room was an electric massage chair which one of us couldn’t resist trying – even when jet lagged and tired.
And the award for the best breakfast in Italy goes too …
Over the last few weeks we have experienced a range of breakfasts from a range of hotels. Some have been buffet, some al la carte, but all have been excellent quality and vast in the range of items they include.
But now we need to get serious and pick the best. There can be only one winner.
After much deliberation the winning breakfast goes to Hotel Barocco and their fine al la carte effort. The coffee is superb, the welcome treats of fruit, cakes, cheese and meats are delightful and the eggs with whatever you wish to accompany them are delicious.
Only a whisker behind is the breakfast is Eden Roc Hotel where our friend Tony runs the show. Tony has looked after us so well – with special treats each morning and a Prosecco to start the day. He has also made sure we left every morning with a package of pastries “for later” at Casetta Arienzo.
Back to Rome for a few days
On Saturday we moved from the Amalfi Coast to Rome. An hour and a half from Positano to Naples by car and 60 mins from there by high speed train to Rome.
Rome is still busy but the temperature has dropped from seven weeks ago from mid/late 30s to around 30 so life is much easier. Everyone seems more relaxed but the place is still packed with tourists.
It was great to get back to Hotel Barocco and to catch up with Fabio who runs reception with style and efficiency. This is a boutique hotel but the quality and friendliness of staff makes it stand out. If you are visiting Rome, please try it.
Our room also makes things special as we booked one of their junior suites with a view across Piazza Barberini. It’s decorated in shades of white and cream so Jean was delighted. it was her kind of room – hence both the photos and the movie.
We now have 3 days before our flight home which will be spent exploring the city, catching up on those last minute presents, as well as eating out. We have booked two restaurants for dinner – Aroma next to the colosseum and La Pergola in Hotel Cavalieri which is, I believe, the only 3 star Michelin restaurant in the city.
Updates to follow.
The last breakfast
Today we had our last breakfast at Eden Roc before we leave tomorrow hosted by the lovely Tony. It involved everything from Prosecco to poached eggs with Tiramisu and sweet treats added in there as well.
What a great way to start the day.
Recovering
Saturday’s dinner at the hotel was a big night out. Sunday was a really quiet day – spent largely in bed recovering from matching his and hers hangovers.
Jean has discovered that her nemesis is Limoncello. Last night it was in the form of a Limoncello Spritz. Two of them after dinner made for a rowdy ride home (thank you Pascal for organising this) and a quiet day to follow.
We managed to get out of bed and to the local store for supplies around 7:30 – that evening.
It reminded me of something similar from our stay in 2011. It was late in the year – around the end of November – and the hotel was shutting. We had gone along for dinner but after that the lovely Carlo explained that all the opened wine stock had to be either drunk or thrown away. You can guess how that went – it was epic.
The next day no one felt great – hence the family photo taken mid-afternoon.
Dinner at Eden Roc Hotel
Saturday night we dined at the hotel. They have made major improvements to the restaurant in the last few years and it’s paying dividends as the patronage has increased considerably.
One new addition to the facilities is Terrazza Paradiso, a terrace sitting above the rest of the restaurant, open to the air and with a spectacular view of the village and sea below. The lovely Carlo, who runs the Adamo ed Eva restaurant at the hotel, managed to get us a table on the Terrazza for a magical dinner which ended with two drunk kiwis being driven home afterwards.
This meal was also the debut of one the dresses Jean bought in Sorrento when we visited on Friday.
A day at the beach
Yesterday we visited Fornillo Beach and the Pupetto Beach Club. Fornillo Beach is one bay around from the main Positano beach and, as a result, a lot quieter. It’s quite a hike to get there as you walk around the coast on a path that rises and falls with the terrain and in today’s 39 degrees it tested our stamina but we made it and settled in for the day.
Beach clubs are common in Italy – a relaxed restaurant at the back of the beach and rows of umbrellas and loungers in front going right to the waters edge. There are staff constantly patrolling the loungers taking orders for drink and food – or lunch can be had in the restaurant if desired.
The Pupetto Beach Club is part of the Pupetto Hotel which is partly set in the cliff and partly hanging off the cliff above Fornillo Beach. The hotel looks great – we got an unofficial tour as we walked through it to get to the beach club looking at bit out of place in our beach attire.
Lunch was the least Italian meal we have had – cheeseburger and fries and a chicken salad. It tasted great and we needed that.
Walking home
Casetta Arienzo is about 800m from Eden Roc hotel and the intersection where the road through Positano village meets the main road to Amalfi. From here we can walk down to the village or stop at the hotel for breakfast, a day by the pool or dinner – or all three.
We do this walk pretty much every day so we forget how spectacular it is – with cliffs on both sides, the ones above us reaching skyward and the ones on the other side falling down to the sea. This afternoon I grabbed a shot of the cliff above the road as we walked back to Casetta Arienzo. Behind Jean the view to the ocean is equally spectacular.
La dolce far niente 