Mr & Mrs Smith

So, we're heading for the Amalfi coast, after a detour to Pompeii, which this Mr Smith (no fan of a crumbling Doric column, me) hopes will be brief. My fellow traveller, however, has other ideas, confessing to a hitherto unrevealed fascination with the Romans. Seems he’s hooked on classics, and a whistle-stop tour to tick the history box turns into a marathon expedition.

When we roll up at La Minervetta, all parched and sun-weary, the turquoise-tiled lobby and white walls feel cooling and refreshing. The Fifties villa above Sorrento, which started a restaurant and a small hotel and was reworked by architect Marco da Luca into a boutique hotel, has a prime clifftop position, overlooking the Bay of Naples, that postcard-perfect swathe of the Amalfi Coast immortalised in The Talented Mr Ripley. Steadfastly refusing to turn its back on the bay, the hotel has floor-to-ceiling windows in every room, and its three sun terraces (the upper for cocktails, mid-level for chilling and a Jacuzzi pool on the lowest) are perfect platforms for admiring the panoramic view.

And what a view it is: fishing vessels bob prettily, boats carry day-trippers back and forth to Capri – and you’ve only got Vesuvius in the background to complete the scene. Inside the hotel, the visual impression is of clean contemporary lines. Splashes of navy and red canvas break up the all-over white; freeform eclecticism means European design mags are piled neatly on Indonesian coffee tables; old ships’ maps hang alongside flamboyant modern art; and brightly coloured ceramic bowls overflow with lemons. The overall effect is cosy, comfortable and welcoming – stylish, but never styled. Minervetta's homely yet well-travelled feel is ably abetted by the Dornbracht bathroom fittings, Frette robes and Crabtree & Evelyn toiletries – all boutique hotel classics in their own right.

At sundown, we head to the upper terrace, order a Negroni each, and relax on stripy canvas steamer chairs, gazing lazily across the bay at Vesuvius. Our reverie is briefly interrupted by the faint and very distant sound of raised voices from the harbour below. We strain to hear, and can just about make out that a heated debate seems to have broken out between two fishermen in a single wooden boat. A flame-haired temptress literally wades into the fray to sort them out; eventually, the two hotheads are pulled apart, and retreat to nurse their bruised machismo. We half expect someone to pass the hat round, but this is no show – just a display of Neapolitan fuse-blowing.

It’s all peace and harmony in our world and, suitably clad for a summer night, we trip 300 steps down to the harbour for dinner at Delfino, where the Med laps mesmerically beneath our boardwalk table. The staff speaka da kinda Eenglish you’d think confined to amateur dramatics, but the fresh fish, tricolore salad and jugs of rosato they deliver are authentic, down to the last drizzle of locally pressed extra-virgin.

We skip pudding and join the passeggiata round the town square, seeking our new passion: lemon granita. It’s the ideal street food: refreshing, tasty and low-cal. (Just as well, since over the course of the weekend, we try it from every outlet going.) We can reliably recommend you don’t bother with anything from a machine or a gelateria; for the best, visit one of the street vendors, who’ll shave off a cupful of fragrant crystals from a barrel set over ice. And don’t even think about any of the new-fangled flavours they try to tempt you with. Melon schmelon. Lemon’s the only option worth considering. No point messing with a true classic, after all.

The soft tolling of church bells provides our wake-up call on Saturday. Time for buckets of cappuccino and platefuls of fresh fruit on the terrace with all the other Mr & Mrs Smiths: Swedish architects, French designers and, er, us. What a smart, stylish Euro community we make. We decide to grab an early hydrofoil and head for the island of Capri to sate our upmarket-shopping appetites. We’re not the only ones... The island’s full to bursting with tourists, and MaxMara, Gucci, Prada, Tod’s et al already have their autumn/winter collections in stock, which just doesn’t seem right in such a spring/summer kind of place. We check out the beach shorts in Vilebrequin (beloved of Hugh Grant). I'm sorely tempted, before deciding that €120 is going it some for a pair of swimming trunks (no matter how tempting fuchsia-pink seahorse print is).

That evening, we dine at Il Buco, which wears its Michelin star proudly on its sleeve, and is the undisputed best restaurant in town, for our money. We’re lucky to land one of the sought-after tables outside, and lap up the amuse-bouches, obedient service and culinary twists with everything. The chef’s signature seems to be a scoop of sorbet. There’s a spoonful of iced balsamic with the cuttlefish starter, and a scoop of delicious prosecco sorbet to cut through the lemon and almond soufflé.

Stuffed to the gills, we talk about exploring the town and visiting some of the basement nightclubs, all-hours drinking dens and low-lit piano bars. We’re certainly tempted, but there’s something that draws us back to La Minervetta. We hunker down with a limoncello nightcap or two and leave the blinds up. It’s hard to beat a room with a view of the starlit Bay of Naples and a granita shack just round the corner.

Whizzing around another hairpin bend, I gasp at the sheer drop from this coastal road to the Med. There’s no denying this is a trip already high on drama. A swarm of Vespas zips past. Below us the gozzi – brightly coloured wooden boats – bob in the sapphire-blue water. It’s everything I dreamed of. Uh oh.

As anyone who works in travel will know, you see a lot of images of sleek minimalist bedrooms and turquoise pools in the course of your day, which, I confess, can blur into one. Yet I distinctly remember the first time I saw a photo of the blue-and-white tiled kitchen at La Minervetta. It was 2005, it had just opened, and my eyes boggled. That shot – and one taken looking over the red parasols on the hotel’s terrace down to Sorrento’s harbour and out across to that big blue gulp of the Bay of Naples – has been nagging me ever since. The problem with these kinds of fantasies? When you’re lucky enough to make them a reality, there’s a danger they’ll fall short of your expectations. So it is with bittersweet anticipation that we approach La Minervetta.

‘Turn now!’ I screech, spotting its sign as we climb the hill out of Sorrento. Mr Smith swerves onto a tiny rooftop carpark on the cliff’s edge. ‘Hang on. Where’s the hotel?’ Spotting a lift protruding like a pretty white tardis, I twig it’s right below us. A small set of stairs tempts us into the hotel’s glossy sky-blue lounge.

Ocean-themed objets d’art, witty artworks and mountains of books and magazines confirm this is somewhere considered and cultured. It calls to mind the only internet date I had where the chap who turned up was actually
as handsome as his profile picture: it’s a huge effort not to jump up and down, clapping my hands, and cry, ‘It’s as lovely as I’d hoped!’ (Looking back, it might have helped if I hadn’t done that on the date.) We’re here anonymously and I need to play it cool. Too late. Mr Smith is already gushing about how gorgeous it all is.

Clutching the heavy key to our room, our delightful Sorrentine host escorts us down a flight of stairs. La Minervetta isn’t a fancy-schmancy five-star hotel where they dazzle you with their big talk of facilities and activities: it’s a family-owned boutique bed and breakfast that makes you feel as though you’re residing in their stylish holiday home. Our eyes are drawn by a cute collection of quirky finds on the way to our room. But the sharpest intake of breath is yet to come…

We’re on a corner, and the door opens to reveal a double-take eyeful of that staggering panorama. The vista comes at us in full floor-to-ceiling-window glory. A model sailboat on the sill is all that interrupts the sea – an unashamed nod to the nautical theme. No wonder they’ve positioned two armchairs right there, facing out. What else is there to do but flop into one and admire Capri and Vesuvius in full splendour? I reach for my phone, quickly snap a shot, and upload it to Facebook faster than you can say ‘I’m not being smug; it would just be selfish not to tell the world how wonderful this room’s view is.’ In the time it takes for me to freshen up for supper, 13 friends have hit the ‘like’ button. OK, maybe I am a little smug.

One off-season perk is that this most beloved of destinations is free of the tourists that converge on the Sorrentine Peninsula and Amalfi Coast in summer. We’re a week too early for the lift down to the harbour to be running or the pool to be open, but it seems a fair trade-off for people-free peace.

We ditch the option of taking the 300 steps down to the quiet port and instead drive to Bellevue Syrene, a waterside hotel off a piazza in Sorrento’s centre. Having parked next to a church, we pass a nun and then a monk, both wishing us buona sera – someone up there must want all our dream-holiday wishes to come true. We toast them with a prosecco as a pianist tinkles out a rendition of ‘Tonight, I Celebrate My Love’ on the baby grand.

You might think having a bed that big in a room with that view would make getting out of it challenging. Or that the five courses we ate quite late last night might prompt a lie-in. But remember: I’ve been dreaming of eating in that kitchen for years. The Breakfast Table I’ll Never Forget is piled high with sticky pastries and every possible biscuit, making it look like a cookery-book cover shot. We park ourselves next to an Australian family living in Switzerland, who are just as enamoured with La Minervetta’s colourful, quirky decor and relaxed atmosphere as we are.

Next comes another long-awaited lifetime goal: visiting Positano. The Amalfi Coast drive is in itself celebrated, twisting along the rock’s edge. We wend our way round the waif-thin roads, narrowly missing big buses that confidently hurtle past. When John Steinbeck visited in the 1950s, it was only populated by a few fishermen and lemon farmers. He predicted in an article for Harper’s Bazaar it was too unlikely a candidate for development to ever get busy. Ahem.

Tell you what Steinbeck also said: ‘It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone.’ He got that right: it’s truly magical. All I’m wishing now? It won’t be long until it’s very real all over again.