Hidden Italy: Where to Stay in the Deep South by Catherine Fairweather
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San Clemente Palace
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As they like to say in Italy, the north and south are different countries. My Roman friends still raise an eyebrow when I say I am holidaying in Puglia; it is not fashionable, it is still ‘the back of beyond’. And yet, beyond overflow of concrete in some cheap coastal developments, this most ancient part of Italy, colonised first by the Greeks 700 years before Christ, has much too offer; intense wines, with arguably the best olive oil and certainly better food than Tuscany, and above all few foreign tourists. On a two week drive through Campania, Basilicata and Puglia last year we also discovered pristine whitewashed hilltop villages, classical ruins and Norman castles, with empty expanses of coastline and deserted stretches of road in between. Along the way we stayed in a Saracen turret above the Tyrrhenian sea, holed up above a gothic cloister in Ravello, slept in a cave dwelling in the troglodyte city of Matera, and found wonderful hotels secreted behind the fortified facades of the masserie - the country estates of the nobility in Puglia.
AMALFI COAST
The Amalfi coast is certainly not off the beaten track, but if you avoid July and August and know where to stay you can avoid the hordes. The austere sculptured towers which stud the Amalfi coastline like giant sandcastles were built against the Saracen invaders in the 14th century. Some of them, with 360 degrees views over mountain and sea, are now available to rent and make idyllic eyries (except at the height of summer: exposed to the July sun, they turn into furnaces). UK-based CV travel offers Torre Trasita in Positano with a vast roof terrace for secluded sunbathing. Alternatively a less expensive option is xxxxxxx tower to the west of the village simply furnished with a staircase that curls like a nautilus shell down to mosaiced circular bathroom.
Or climb higher to Ravello. The best views can be enjoyed from the gardens of the Villa Cimbrone which you will have the run of when the gates close to the public at sunset, if you book into the adjoining villa cum hotel. With its open terraces, vast tiled and sometimes frescoed bedrooms , vaulted ceilings and a semi- attached medieval cloister, the villa was restored at the beginning of the century by the man who designed Big Ben, Ernest Beckett, Lord Grimthorpe, a fixture in London’s Bloomsbury Group. This is where Greta Garbo eloped with her love Leopold Stokowsky. With luggage it’s a long 15 minute schlep on foot from the main square and the services are not up to the luxurious standards of the Palazzo Sasso or the Hotel Palumbo in town. However, the relaxed and faded elegance of Villa Cimbrone will make you feel smug, like a privileged guest at a private ancestral home. There is no pool, so again, the high season should be avoided but there is a good library with sofas to sink into if the resident mastifs haven’t got there first.
Further down the coast the land flattens out . Just beyond the classical ruins at Paestum (magnificent, by the way) there is the little fishing village of Santa Maria di Castellabate. In the summer it is a popular place with Italians and has a quaint old-fashioned 50s movie charm. Screened off behind high walls and towering umbrella pines is the 18th century Palazzo Belmonte, the home of the last Prince, a man of immense physical stature who will occasionally invite his favourite guests for drinks in the glamorous inner sanctum of the private wing. Another wing of the former hunting lodge functions as a hotel; large breezy chintzy suites with facilities for self catering if you can bare to drag yourself away from the views at the palazzo’s restaurant. There is a private stretch of beach beside the seried ranks of blue sun umbrellas and a pool in the 8 gorgeous acres of scented garden which is packed in school holidays with English parents admonishing their little Camillas and Johnny in clipped tones. For peace and quiet you will need to avoid the season or escape to the unspoilt pine wooded reserve of the Licosa peninsula nearby.
Hotel Villa Cimbrone
Palazzo Belmonte
BASILICATA
A full days’ drive from Salerno on the barren A3 highway takes you through northern Basilicata, the poorest region of Italy. It’s a hauntingly beautiful lunar landscape punctuated by strange gnomic rock formations eroded out of the limestone and lonely hilltop villages. At Potenza, if you are not waylaid by a detour to the extraordinary Norman, Frederick II castle at Melfi, follow road 7, the old Roman Appian Way. It will take you past the town of Tricarico, more Arab than Italian in flavour, and a good stopping place for lunch. The road then winds through an ancient oak forest to Matera and the Sassi, its ancient troglydite centre, over which kestrels hover. A guide in the tourist office can lead you , at a price , through the labyrinthine maze of alleyways and fresco covered rock chapels. Recently renovated and under the protection of UNESCO, the Sassi has been recolonised by a few of the towns 55,000 inhabitants and there is an attractive new hotel (predictably called ‘The Sassi’) excavated out of the soft tufa rock . The smallish room are pleasantly decorated and have balconies and terraces overlooking the ruins and an imposing Romanesque cathedral. It is a perfect base for exploring the Norman cathedrals and castles on the coast at Trani and Molfetta.
Hotel Sassi
NORTHERN PUGLIA
The landscape of the great limestone plateau that makes up the Murge in this part of Puglia is characterised by tidy fields and smallholdings and strange looking drystone houses called trulli - like conical pepperpots . There is a whole town and an hotel built from them at Alberobello which will enthral your kids who should also be diverted by the grottoes of Castellana, and the thermal baths at Torre Canne. Nearby there is also the immaculate Baroque town of Martina Franca, the whitewashed hilltop villages at Locorotondo and Ostuni which are more oriental than Italian in spirit.
Taking its name from the groves of pomegranates which surround the estate, IL Melograno is a 16th century masserie , a walled farm-complex, now part of the illustrious Relais & Chateaux consortium, with prices to match . The owner is an art dealer and the bedroom décor is pretty full-on. The food is good although the atmosphere in the restaurant is perhaps a little formal and reverential with guests eating in hushed tones and uniformed waiters performing tricks with silver cloches. Alternatively the hotel manages a little trattoria on the seafront - La Peschiera - converted from an old Fishery. For more casual accommodation stay at the lovely Masseria Marzalozza outside Fasano , an old rustic Hispanic style palazzo set in a palm studded garden on an estate producing olive oil from its 600-year-old trees. Most of the food served in the restaurant is home grown and the pool set between classical columns is definitely exotic.
Il Melograno
Alberobello Dei Trulli 0809323555
Masseria Marzalossa – Fasano tel 0804413024 www.marzalossa.puglianet.it
SOUTHERN PUGLIA
South of the ravishing Baroque citadel of Lecce the road straggles on to the furthest tip of the ‘heel’ through the Salentine peninsula which separates the Adriatic and the Ionian Seas. The peninsula has a true finibus terrae feel ; a true lands’ end with wild and empty beaches between Santa Maria di Leuca and the remote town of Gallipolli on the southwestern shores.
Between tobacco estates, vineyards and thousand year old olive groves the baronial overlords of a little town of Depressa, the Winspeares, rent out farmhouses at excellent rates. Baroness Winspeare also has a shop in the town which is worth visiting for its Sicilian and Pugliese artefacts, lace, linen and antiques from all over Italy . Her son Francesco runs a wine and olive oil shop, Castel di Salve, in the charming seaside town of Tricase nearby. Near to the old Crusader town of Otranto the Bacile di Castiglione have converted their ancestral home into atmospheric guesthouses complete with dovecotes, swimming pool and shaded arbours. There is a choice of apartments in the grounds or large suites in the main wings. The proprietors grow citrus, aubergines, basil, peppers and tomatoes in the gardens to which guests are invited to help themselves. The amiable Baron also rents out an apartment off the piano nobile of the family palazzo in Lecce and will take guests, who ask nicely, on his motor launch to explore the sensational secret underwater grottoes of the coastline. They knock the Grotto Azurro in Capri into a cocked hat .
Palazzo Bacile di Castiglione – Spongano 0832 351 131
Vino Castel di Salve, via Tempio 24 : Shop selling excellent local produce owned by Francesco Winspeare
Winspeare Antiques and for enquiries about farm rentals: Depressa 0836 96183
Inexpensive and some of the best ceramics and pottery from Nicolo Fasano in Grottaglie
Capri
How to appreciate the over-appreciated
The Blue Grotto - Go before it opens at 9AM or after 5PM when it closes and swim into the cave, something you can’t do during business hours. Despite the crowds at all other times, it’s still worth the candle if you can get it to yourself.
Sea Excursion around the Island - there are other grottoes to see, Grotta Bianca and Verde, which the day-trippers from Naples don’t get to; there are also lovely views of the cliff-girt island. But only for fine days – check the weather.
La Piazzetta - the famous meeting place of the island (along with the terrace of the Quisisana Hotel) is less frantic after hours. Have a campari there before dinner, or relax on the terrace of the Quisinana hotel. Again, the magic returns at dusk.
Faraglioni - Walk down to these famous rocks along the delicious smelling (and very hot at midday) pine needle-carpeted pathway to swim at da Luigi where you can also have lunch. Crowded, but fun.
La Certosa - the 14th century Carthusian Monastery which can be reached easily from the Piazza and can be visited on the way down to the Marina Piccola. You can pick up a boat from Marina Piccola or have a swim and lunch at La Canzone del Mare, the restaurant made famous by the song, “In the bar on the Piccola Marina, life came to Mrs. Wentworth Brewster...”
Via Tiberio - walk up, if you have only one long walk in you, to Villa Jovis (9AM- one hour before sunset, but check with the hotel). Villa Jovis, at 310 meters, was the most important of the 12 villas on Capri. From here, Tiberius ruled the Roman Empire for the last 10 years of his reign. It is said that the sheer cliff next to the villa, Salto di Tiberio, is the point from which he hurled his victims into the sea below.
Anacapri - it is well-worth taking one of those wonderful old taxis, if you can get one, to drive you up to Anacapri, a hairraising ride of hairpin turns and sheer drops. In Anacapri, you must visit two places: Villa San Michele with its superb setting and pretty gardens (however, delay your entrance so as to squeeze in between tour groups, or go towards the end of the day, when they are jostling to get on the last hydrafoil home); and the church of San Michele - with the most extraordinary floor of majolica tiles showing Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and their expulsion from it.
Some Caprese Restaurants: La Savardina da Eduardo, one of Capri’s best, set amidst orange trees. Da Paolino, this time in a lemon grove. La Cantinella Capri, an extension of the Michelin-starred restaurant in Naples. Fabulous fish. La Capannina, more great seafood, al fresco. Da Gemma, cozy place for dull days. Da Gelsomina la Migliara (Anacapri), home made wine and pasta including mushrooms from Monte Solaro, the high mountain of Anacapri. Wonderful risotto.