If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR272.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Amid the mediaeval alleys, Renaissance squares and hill-top fortresses of the Monte Argentario peninsula, La Roqqa is Porto Ercole’s new kid on the rock. The glamorous headland is connected to the Italian coastline by two man-made strips of land. Naturally, the hotel is home to some heroes of Italian design, including an iconic Up chair by Gaetano Pesce. Caravaggio’s final resting place Porto Ercole comes alive each summer with holidaying Italians and interlopers in search of a special kind of dolce vita.
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A sunset apéritif at Scirocco Lounge Bar with a signature cocktail each and snacks
Double rooms from £256.28 (€299), including tax at 10 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of €4.00 per person per night on check-out.
More details
Rates usually include breakfast and daily beach-club access, plus a beach umbrella with two sunloungers whilst there. Some rooms have a three-night minimum stay.
Also
All of the public areas at La Roqqa are accessible and there are some rooms that are suitable for guests with mobility issues.
Hotel closed
The hotel opens for the extended summer season from late March until early November.
At the hotel
Free WiFi throughout, gym with personal trainers available on request, beach club, with a shuttle to transport guests back and forth. In rooms: filtered-water tap and refillable bottle, Lavazza coffee machine, TV and Ortigia bath products.
Our favourite rooms
If you like outdoor space, you’ll love the penthouse, which has a surplus of four terraces. Otherwise, pick your favourite wall colour (terracotta, sage, dusky blue) and select your floor accordingly.
Poolside
There’s no pool, but the Isolotto beach club is minutes away.
Spa
Massages can be arranged at the beach or elsewhere (within reason, and common decency) within La Roqqa.
Packing tips
Dolce & Gabbana, Fendi and then Donna (Versace).
Also
If you can’t locate your television, look a little more closely at the mirror (did you really think they’d let an unsightly black box spoil the aesthetics?).
All ages are welcome and there are connecting and multi-room options for families. Babysitting can be arranged with 24 hours’ notice for €50 an hour.
Sustainability efforts
La Roqqa has used mostly Italian brands and suppliers, including bath products from Ortigia in Sicily, and seasonal, local produce. The beach-club shuttles are electric, there’s no plastic (each room has refillable aluminium bottles instead) and air-conditioning automatically cuts out when you open a window. The hotel has also partnered with a local NGO to help disabled people work.
Out on the terrace, enjoying the wild rosemary and juniper on the breeze.
Dress Code
Ready to star in a Slim Aarons photograph.
Hotel restaurant
Scirocco has local fishermen on call, but its signature dish is the seasonal spaghetti agli otto pomodoro, which has eight types of tomato. Otherwise, dine on the daily catch, cooked to original recipes from Argentario or with typical Tuscan traditions. At the beach club, more super-fresh seafood and chilled local wine await. Breakfast is served out on the terrace, to start the day with cornetti, cold cuts and vitamin D.
Hotel bar
The Scirocco bar serves Tuscan tapas and liquid Italian summers (gin, basil, lemon and watermelon) with a view. There’s one type of champagne if you insist, otherwise every single wine on the list is from Tuscany – and there are Italian whiskies, gins and even tequilas on the menu, too.
Last orders
The restaurant serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, and light lunches can be ordered on the terrace. The bar calls time (or tempo) at midnight.
La Roqqa is in the heart of the coastal Tuscan town of Porto Ercole, a popular spot for glamorous Italians to summer.
Planes
From Fiumicino Airport in Rome, the drive north to La Roqqa will take around an hour and a half. It’s also possible to land in Pisa (just over two hours away) or in Florence (a two-and-a-half-hour drive). Hotel transfers can be arranged on request.
Trains
The nearest station is Orbetello, a 15-minute drive away. From here, you can travel between Rome, Pisa and Siena, or even further south to Naples.
Automobiles
There’s a shuttle to the beach club (should the four-minute walk be too taxing), but if you want to explore more of the Monte Argentario peninsula, a car will come in handy. There’s free valet parking at the hotel.
Other
The hotel can assist with chopper touchdowns if you’re feeling dramatic.
Worth getting out of bed for
Graced with pine forests, citrus groves, Mediterranean scrubland, terraced vineyards, wildflower-adorned hills and a whopping 70 fortresses and towers, Monte Argentario gives guests more than just beach, but that’s a great place to start – if the four-minute walk sounds a little sweaty, hop in the two-minute shuttle and head to the Isolottobeach club, with the only sandy shores in town. Guests of La Roqqa can reserve two sunloungers and a parasol every day for free. For something a little more energy-expending, the Maremma National Park is nearby, as is a flamingo-frequented saltwater lagoon. The staff will be able to arrange bicycles to borrow, boat trips, winery tours and horse-riding, and they can help out with hiking trails, too. Siena is an hour’s drive away.
Local restaurants
Porto Ercole’s fishing traditions are alive and well, and you can enjoy that day’s haul at Hosteria Alicinia, an authentic seafood restaurant; and you can order much more than red prawns at Il Gambero Rosso along the port. For fine-dining and more all-Italian glamour, head out of town to Il Pellicano.
Local bars
For sundowners that stretch towards dawn, Sottovento’s spritz o’clock lasts until 2.30am every day of the week.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this seaside hotel in Tuscany and unpacked their silk headscarves and Vilebrequin shorts, a full account of their beach break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside La Roqqa in Porto Ercole…
No one does glamour like the Italians. More specifically, no one does summer as glamorously as the Italians. With out of offices set until early September, they flee the city for dreamy destinations (Amalfi, Maremma, Capri, Portofino, Puglia…) and even the owners of super-yachts try to out-fabulous them. One such supremely chic holiday playground is Porto Ercole, a traditional fishing village on the Monte Argentatio peninsula, roughly halfway between Florence and Rome. It has a Slim Aarons shot cementing its status, starring stylish Italians disporting themselves on a Riva, naturally. Also helping to put it on the map in the Sixties was the iconic hotel Il Pellicano, down the coast in the Maremma region – although technically speaking, it was the Etruscans who first settled here. In the centre of town, however, is La Roqqa, an appropriately terracotta building (inside and out, though the room colour changes with the floor), overlooking the hill-top fortresses, swooping seagulls and bobbing boats on the Med. Take in the views from the restaurant terrace or your balcony, or enjoy them from the beach club, where guests can secure two sunloungers plus a parasol every day for free. At sundown, you can stroll the Renaissance piazzas and mediaeval alleys, taking care not to let a dribble of gelato ruin the aesthete-pleasing surroundings. ‘Gone fishing’ signs at the ready.
