There is something incredibly soothing about waking up in an entirely white room, especially when you can then pad across the floor, lift the blinds and stare out onto a vast expanse of sea. We had arrived at Casa Angelina feeling exhausted – our frenetic city lives completely to blame – but, while it usually takes us a couple of days to properly unwind, here it happened almost instantaneously. Everything, from the white colour scheme to the faint smell of aromatherapy oils throughout the hotel, conspired to ease my tense shoulders, and set my mind into slow motion.
And then, of course, there’s the view. The hotel is set into a rocky cliff on Italy’s Amalfi coast, and is perched high above the Mediterranean Sea. It's quite simply stunning, unless, that is, you suffer from vertigo. And you don't even need to step outside to gaze at the horizon – the front of the building is made up from a series of huge, floor-to-ceiling windows, so that a fantastic panorama greets you wherever you look. Even a lift, set into the rocks, is glass-fronted, so you can soak up sea sights as you’re shuttled up to breakfast.
When Mr Smith and I arrived at Casa Angelina, we found a bottle of chilled prosecco waiting for us in our room. We drank it greedily on our balcony, watching the sun set in the distance, and tried to work out why a strong floral smell kept wafting towards us, even though there were no flowers in sight. Later, we discovered that there are a series of tiered rose gardens at one end of hotel and the flowers release their scent at dusk. Bliss.
From our balcony we could hear the comforting murmur of people gossiping in the bar below, but as soon as we re-entered the room and shut the door, it became so silent that we could have been in our own private villa; just us and the sea. That night, after bathing with delicious l’Occitane toiletries, we headed to bed early and slept better than we had for months.
The next morning, we headed up to breakfast in the lift (which even I, a confirmed lift-hater, was beginning to look forward to entering), where we were met by the most gigantic spread, including glazed miniature pastries, kiwi and passion fruit, mangoes, rich yoghurts, almond torte, poached eggs, smoked salmon, rye bread, fruit juices, hot chocolate and, of course, freshly ground Italian coffee. Mr Smith and I are both gluttonous and indecisive, which meant that we had to have at least three courses – each. Afterwards, we waddled down to the swimming pool, where we lay on thick cushioned loungers, snoozed and drank bellinis.
When the mercury levels rose to a level that we Brits struggled to endure, we headed back to our room for a siesta. And how tranquil our surroundings were. The decor at Casa Angelina is simple – white walls and furnishings, with white and perspex furniture. Bedroom floors are laid with white tiles (they are polished dark wood elsewhere in the hotel), and the overall effect manages to be serene without being starchy or dull. Wacky sculptures made from colourful Murano glass are dotted throughout the hotel, and the ceiling in the bar sparkles with hundreds of miniscule lights. Given how exclusive it is, the atmosphere is totally unpretentious.
In the late afternoon, we took the five-minute walk down to the local beach. We ate tomato and mozzarella salads, and watched the Italians applaud each other as they leapt off rocks into the sea. This is a rocky, volcanic coastline, which means the sand is a greyish colour – but the payoff is that the water is clean and exceedingly clear.
The following day, we took a taxi from the hotel into Positano. It's only a 20-minute journey from Casa Angelina, but driving along the Amalfi coast isn't exactly for the faint-hearted. The winding roads have a sheer drop on one side and the Italians think nothing of overtaking on corners. ‘When a traffic light is red, it is only a suggestion,’ our driver told us, before asking us to give him adequate warning if we felt sick and needed him to stop. Thankfully, we didn't.
Positano itself is a busy town with pink and sand coloured houses built in such a huddled, higgledy-piggledy fashion that they look as though they're going to squash one another. The different parts of the town are connected by a series of alleyways and steep steps. By the time we’d finished exploring and started thinking about a refreshing granita, our calves felt as though they'd had their best workout in ages. Afterwards, back at Casa Angelina, we eased our aching muscles in the small but perfectly formed indoor pool and sauna. A canopy of fibre-optic lights twinkled above us.
We followed this with dinner in the Casa Angelina restaurant; and a risotto, a turbot fillet and two bottles of red later, we tumbled into bed slightly the worse for wear. Before nodding off to sleep, we mumbled vague plans to one another about when we could squeeze in another long weekend here. It can’t come soon enough.
