Italy changes the scene with every turn of the road. Morning mist on a lagoon in Venice, where the boats move before the city wakes. A line of cypresses on a Tuscan ridge, and a farmhouse at the end of it. The Dolomites turning pink in the last light. A Roman square, the sound of a fountain, tables set for dinner. Then the coast: lemon terraces stepping down to the sea, a village stacked above a harbour, an island rising out of blue water.
The Italians have a word for how all of this is carried. Sprezzatura: an ease that hides its effort, the art that conceals its own art. We look for it in the places we choose: luxury that seems inherited rather than new, and never needs to announce itself.
A table set outside. A view that keeps changing. Nowhere to be until dinner.
Our Italian collection begins on the coast and beside the lake: a palazzo above the sea in Ravello, a family house in Positano, a grand hotel in the heart of Capri, and a botanical park beside Lake Como in Blevio. Different places, one shared instinct: that the truest luxury here is not grandeur but atmosphere, the light, the table, the centuries. There is a great deal more of Italy still to discover.
An aperitivo as evening arrives. A table with room for another course. An afternoon by the sea with nothing hurried into the next. In Italy the pleasure lies in leaving time for the small things, and in noticing them.
The cliffs of Capri, the terraces of the Amalfi Coast, the shores of Lake Como. Our collection moves between island, coast and lake, and each gives the journey a different frame.
Campanian tradition on a terrace in Ravello. Italian cooking with Japanese influences beside Lake Como. Hundreds of candles above Positano. Across the collection the table takes a different form each time, and each one is worth the evening.
Handpicked by AiA Waves
Belmond Collection
Ravello · Amalfi Coast, Italy
In Ravello, an 11th-century palazzo looks out over the Tyrrhenian Sea. Caruso brings together historic interiors, Mediterranean gardens and an infinity pool set at the very edge of the view. At Ristorante Il Pantaleone by Armando Aristarco, Campanian tradition meets a contemporary hand, with a terrace open to the Amalfi Coast.
The pool gives the scene its horizon, the palazzo its depth. Between them, garden paths, historic interiors and a table above the coast offer three ways to take in the setting.
Lakeside
Blevio · Lake Como, Italy
On the eastern shore of Lake Como in Blevio, Mandarin Oriental is set within a botanical park beside the water. At L'ARIA, Italian cooking takes on Japanese influences and the terrace keeps the lake in view: a setting for dinner, shifting reflections and an evening left open.
Here the lake holds the frame. The botanical park and L'ARIA's terrace give the setting its character, with the water becoming part of the day rather than simply the view.
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Selection
Capri Town · Capri, Italy
In the heart of Capri, Grand Hotel Quisisana opens onto Via Camerelle, close to the Piazzetta. Rooms and suites, gardens, poolside dining and the terrace of the Quisi Bar give this historic address a rhythm of its own, moving between the hotel and the town passing by outside.
An aperitivo on the Quisi Bar terrace puts the scene just beyond your table: Via Camerelle in the evening, Capri going about its own life. The appeal is that closeness to the island itself.
AiA Waves
Selection
Positano · Amalfi Coast, Italy
Opened by the Sersale family in 1951 in what had been their own house, Le Sirenuse looks across Positano to the sea. The pool terrace is a place to pause above the town; in the evening, hundreds of candles at La Sponda turn the attention to the table.
The view gives the evening its backdrop and La Sponda's candlelight brings it close. Behind it all is a family that was part of Positano before the hotel existed.