Luxury Hotels Atlas / Places / Italy / Ravello / Villa Piedimonte
Villa Piedimonte
Ravello, Italy · Independent · Near Luxury
The house is said to go back to the twelfth century, when merchants of the Amalfi republic built up here among the lemon terraces, though what you get now is deliberately modern: twenty-two keys, ten of them rooms and twelve sea-view suites off one long terrace. There is a pool, a botanical garden that does the sunsets, a breakfast room and no restaurant, which is the honest trade. Oscar Niemeyer's white concrete auditorium is next door and Ravello's Duomo a ten-minute walk.
- 22 rooms
- Neighborhood: Ravello / San Giovanni del Toro
About Villa Piedimonte
- The Oscar Niemeyer Auditorium next door opened in 2010, a white concrete wave with a single round window aimed at the sea, designed by the Brazilian architect when he was already in his nineties.
- The hotel has its own parking, which almost nothing in Ravello does, plus a free shuttle down into the town.
History
Villa Piedimonte stands on Via della Repubblica at the northern edge of Ravello, on terraces of citrus above the coast road. The house is described by its owners as a conversion of a twelfth-century residence which, by local tradition, belonged to a family of wealthy merchants of the maritime republic of Amalfi. That attribution is a legend rather than a documented deed, and the building as a guest sees it is thoroughly contemporary inside.
The hotel is run by Dioniso's Hotels of Naples and holds twenty-two keys: ten rooms along the lit corridors of the main house and twelve sea-view suites opening off the villa's long terrace, in categories from Classic Comfort up to Deluxe Suite. Many have furnished private terraces. There is a swimming pool on a terracotta terrace, a botanical garden on the upper level that catches the sunset, and a bistro room serving a continental breakfast, light lunches and light dinners, which can also be taken by the pool or in the room. There is no full restaurant and no spa. The cliffside path up to the small lobby runs through lemon trees, and the hotel keeps its own car park and a free shuttle into the centre.
The setting
Ravello sits high on the ridge between the Dragone and Reginna valleys, away from the coast road, and has spent a century and a half as the Amalfi Coast's quiet cultural town. Villa Piedimonte is about half a kilometre from the centre, a ten-minute walk to Piazza Duomo, and its immediate neighbour is the Oscar Niemeyer Auditorium, the white concrete curve with a single vast circular window facing the sea that opened in 2010 as the home of the Ravello Festival. Villa Rufolo, whose garden Wagner declared to be Klingsor's magic garden, is in the centre by the cathedral; Villa Cimbrone and its Terrace of Infinity are at the far end of the ridge. Amalfi and Minori are a short drive down the hairpins, and parking in Ravello is famously difficult, which is why the hotel's own car park matters.
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