Ten Properties Worth Crossing An Ocean For
Some hotels are famous because they earned it. A few of these have never needed to be famous at all.
The Most Recognisable Name in European Hospitality
Hotel du Cap Eden Roc remains the reference point against which every other grand hotel on the Riviera is measured, and it has held that position for the better part of a century without needing to compete for it.
Arriving By Boat, As Intended
The Cipriani in Venice is one of the few hotels in the world where the arrival is part of the experience itself. There is no road in. The water taxi from the airport is the only correct way to begin a stay here.
The Red Palazzo Above Positano
Le Sirenuse occupies the position every other hotel in Positano is photographed trying to match. It rarely needs to try.
Pools Carved Into the Cliff Face
The Four Seasons in Capri has built its reputation on a setting that does not exist anywhere else on the island, terraced pools set directly into the rock above the sea.
An Entire White Village Built as a Hotel
Borgo Egnazia in Puglia is less a hotel than a small town, constructed from scratch in the traditional Apulian style. The scale of the undertaking is easy to underestimate until you are standing inside it.
A Tuscan Coastline That Has Not Changed in Decades
Il Pellicano feels exactly as it did when it first opened, which is precisely the appeal. Nothing here has been modernised for the sake of modernising it.
Saint-Tropez Without the Part Everyone Complains About
La Réserve Ramatuelle sits just far enough outside the town to avoid the crowds entirely while remaining close enough to reach them in minutes, should you want to.
A Thousand Years of Continuous History in Umbria
Castello di Reschio has been in the same family for centuries, and the restoration has preserved that weight rather than smoothing it away. Few properties in Italy carry this much genuine history.
A Private Peninsula Between Nice and Monaco
Cap Estel occupies its own promontory, surrounded on three sides by the Mediterranean. There are very few hotels in the world with a setting this physically separate from everything around it.
The Estate Nobody Photographs
Villa Treville in Positano was once a film director’s private residence, and it has retained the feeling of a home rather than a hotel. This is the property on the list that almost never appears online, and the people who stay here generally prefer it that way.
The properties that endure longest are rarely the ones working hardest to be noticed.
