Capri's oldest hotel, founded in 1822 when the island had barely registered on the Grand Tour circuit, was reimagined by Francis Sultana in 2021 as part of its entry into the Oetker Collection. Hotel La Palma had spent nearly two centuries accumulating the particular prestige that only location and longevity can generate — a whitewashed palazzo steps from the Piazzetta, the social fulcrum of an island where proximity to that tiny square has always been the primary measure of status. Sultana, the Maltese designer whose work draws from mid-century Mediterranean modernism and the decorative arts of postwar Italy, stripped the interiors back to their vaulted ceilings and lime-plastered walls before rebuilding them in a palette of sage green, warm walnut, and Aegean aquamarine that feels simultaneously archival and entirely contemporary. The 50 rooms and suites carry the atmosphere of a privately assembled house rather than a managed hotel — kidney-shaped dressing tables with brass hardware, sage-upholstered headboards against bare white plaster, ceramic lamp bases, and linen curtains threaded with turquoise trim. Scallop-edged parasols and mint-striped sun loungers arrange themselves around the rooftop pool with the kind of considered casualness that takes considerable effort to achieve, while the waterfront restaurant terrace, positioned directly over the Tyrrhenian with views across to the Faraglioni rock stacks, furnishes teak-topped tables and rattan chairs beneath a billowing white canopy. The whole property manages to feel both newly minted and completely inevitable.

50min hydrofoil from Naples; 30min hydrofoil from Sorrento; 50min hydrofoil from Positano or Amalfi

No description provided yet.