Proper Travel — Curated Italy

10 Best Hotels
in Italy

From a cliffside palazzo above the Amalfi Coast to a Venetian palazzo on its own island — the hotels that define Italian luxury.

"Italy does not simply offer beautiful hotels. It offers the sensation that you have always belonged there — that the light, the stone, the silence were arranged just for you."

Hotel Cipriani Venice
01 Venice, Veneto

Hotel Cipriani

Set on the tip of Giudecca Island, the Cipriani stands apart from Venice in the most literal sense — separated from the city by a private stretch of lagoon water, yet close enough to feel its every breath. The Venetian skyline unfolds from the pool, the terrace, the suites. There is nothing else like it. Arrigo Cipriani opened his hotel in 1958 to create a retreat for those who loved Venice but needed to breathe. The result remains the most quietly extraordinary address in all of Italy.

Lagoon Views Private Pool Oro Restaurant Historic
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Le Sirenuse Positano
02 Positano, Amalfi Coast

Le Sirenuse

A 18th-century palazzo tumbling down the cliffs of Positano, Le Sirenuse is the Amalfi Coast in its most concentrated form. The Sersale family has run it since 1951, and the atmosphere is one of aristocratic ease — antique ceramics, terraced gardens, the famous Franco's Bar, and a pool suspended above the Mediterranean with no visible horizon. Every room faces the sea. It is the kind of hotel that makes you cancel your return ticket.

Cliffside Sea View Franco's Bar Family-Run
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Four Seasons Florence
03 Florence, Tuscany

Four Seasons Florence

Two Renaissance palazzi, eleven acres of private garden — the largest private garden in the city of Florence — and a sense that the Medici might have approved. The Four Seasons Firenze occupies Il Palagio, a 15th-century palazzo with original frescoes by Pontormo, and La Villa, an 18th-century neoclassical annex connected by wisteria-wrapped arcades. The garden alone is reason to visit: ancient cedars, a parterre of box hedges, a heated outdoor pool hidden behind rose walls.

Private Garden Renaissance Frescoes Il Palagio Two Palazzi
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Villa d'Este Lake Como
04 Cernobbio, Lake Como

Villa d'Este

The grande dame of Lake Como — and perhaps of all Italian hotel-keeping. Cardinal Tolomeo Gallio built this cardinal's villa in 1568, and for 450 years it has been gathering the world's most discriminating guests. The floating pool on the lake, the terraced gardens designed for strolling in the golden hour, the rooms full of gilded mirrors and silk damask — Villa d'Este makes no concessions to fashion, and is richer for it. Even regulars feel the pulse of awe on first sight of the gilded entrance hall.

Lake Como Floating Pool 16th Century Gardens
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Passalacqua Lake Como
05 Moltrasio, Lake Como

Passalacqua

The World's Best Hotel in 2023 (and 2024), Passalacqua arrived on the shores of Lake Como with a quiet certainty that it would not need to shout. Twenty-four rooms and suites in a 1787 villa, designed so that every guest feels like the sole owner — staff outnumber guests, the orangerie garden is unchanged since Bellini composed here, and the lake shimmers through lime trees. It is intimate in the way only great houses can be, and that intimacy is its genius.

World's Best Hotel 2023 24 Rooms Only Lake Views Private Villa
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Hotel Splendido Portofino
06 Portofino, Liguria

Hotel Splendido

Perched in the hills above Portofino's famously perfect harbour, Hotel Splendido is the Italian Riviera's most storied address. A converted 16th-century monastery, it was discovered by the Duchess of Windsor, adopted by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and has never lost its particular glamour. The terraced gardens cascade toward the sea, the pool gazes out over the harbour below, and the scent of jasmine and bougainvillea follows you everywhere. Belmond manages the magic with characteristic discretion.

Portofino Harbour Belmond Italian Riviera Terraced Gardens
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Borgo Egnazia Puglia
07 Fasano, Puglia

Borgo Egnazia

A self-contained village — trulli, masseria, a borgo — built from local limestone by the Melpignano family with an almost fanatical attention to authenticity. Borgo Egnazia looks as if it has existed forever, though it opened in 2010. The spa, Vair, is one of the finest in Europe. The cuisine is emphatically Puglian. The light at dusk turns the stone amber. G8 summits have been held here, but the resort's greatest achievement is feeling effortlessly local — a rare quality in a world of interchangeable luxury hotels.

Trulli Village Vair Spa Puglian Cuisine Golf
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San Domenico Palace Taormina
08 Taormina, Sicily

San Domenico Palace

A 14th-century Dominican convent transformed by Four Seasons into the most dramatic hotel in Sicily. The monastery cloisters, the frescoed chapel, the monks' cells now turned into suites — the history sits heavily and beautifully in every stone. From the cliffside terrace, Etna rises to the north and the Ionian Sea stretches south. HBO filmed scenes of The White Lotus here, but San Domenico Palace was a star long before that. The terrace dining alone is worth the journey to the toe of Italy.

Four Seasons 14th-Century Convent Mount Etna Views Sicily
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Il Pellicano Porto Ercole
09 Porto Ercole, Tuscany

Il Pellicano

Born from a love story — an American oil heiress and a British RAF pilot who found this plot of cliff and pine and built a house — Il Pellicano has always been about romantic escape. The coves below are accessible only by the hotel's water taxis. The rooms are in pale cottages among the pines. The clientele is largely Italian old-money and those who found the place decades ago and have simply never left. There is no spectacle here, only the precise pleasure of sea, stone, and impeccable food.

Tuscan Coast Private Coves Pine Cliffs Intimate
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Castiglion del Bosco Tuscany
10 Montalcino, Tuscany

Castiglion del Bosco

A medieval hamlet in the Montalcino hills, a working Brunello vineyard, 5,000 acres of Sienese countryside, and a Rosewood hotel that feels like you've been invited to stay on a friend's estate — an exceptionally well-connected, impeccably tasteful friend. The 39 suites and villas are spread through restored farmhouses and the borgo itself. The spa looks over vineyards. Campo del Drago, the estate's restaurant, pours wines grown within sight of your table. Of all the Tuscan estates, this one holds the greatest sense of belonging.

Rosewood Brunello Vineyard Medieval Hamlet Montalcino
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