Amidst the serene beauty of Anacapri, amongst literary villas and artistic treasures

Arriving in the morning, before the stream of selfie-taking tourists swamps the single-seater chairlift designed in the early 1950s by engineer Francesco Uliscia, Anacapri offers a host of delights. Starting with those made from lemon, peach and even tomato – fruits that the Ferraro confectioners have been turning into sorbets for exactly a century. As the day begins, manual work gets under way at the Casa del Sandalo, at Ceramiche Tavassi and in Titina Mariniello’s embroidery and lace workshop – workshops that have successfully passed on the craft to the present day. Flanked by walkers with long beards and walking sticks – who bring to mind the utopian naturalist artist Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach during the final period of his stay on Capri and the writer Norman Douglas – we first enter the Baroque church of Santa Sofia, where a gleaming 17th-century wooden statue of St Michael has just been restored; he gazes tenderly even whilst engaged in a fierce battle with the dragon.

Above all, one enjoys the privilege of walking in solitude around and across the mosaic floor that has made the Church of St Michael the Archangel famous throughout the world: the tiles were carried on the heads of local women up the Phoenician staircase that led up here from the port of Marina Grande. Adam and Eve are depicted as they are about to leave paradise, surrounded by Mediterranean and exotic animals: the latter, particularly the lions and crocodiles, have highly fanciful features, as the artists had certainly never seen them in real life. The writer Graham Greene, who spent happy times at the Villa del Rosaio—built by Edwin Cerio in 1921 in the Ceselle district—was also very fond of the nearby Casa Rossa. In this eclectic and eccentric residence, the American colonel John Clay MacKowen gave free rein to his decorative eccentricity, combining Roman mullioned windows, Arabesque-style domes, catapult balls, Bourbon cannons and other archaeological artefacts freely collected from sites across the island, particularly near the Roman villa at Gradola, which is set to reopen to the public next year. Now it is the vulnerable yet highly skilled young people of the La Sciuscella cooperative who run Casa Rossa, organising hospitality activities and craft workshops.

Although it is a boutique hotel, there is always a cultured atmosphere at Villa Ceselle, where Alberto Moravia and Elsa Morante were frequent guests, as were Curzio Malaparte and Mario Soldati. There is no doubt, however, that Villa San Michele – situated a short distance from the nineteenth-century Villa Rosa, which the Municipality of Anacapri has converted into an exhibition centre (currently hosting an exhibition by the painter Raffaele Castello) – is the architectural and botanical highlight of the village: the Swedish doctor and writer Axel Munthe, who in 1929 published the long-running bestseller *The Story of San Michele*, succeeded in building what he dared to call a home for the soul, which ‘needs more space than the body’. Whilst the rooms bear witness to his passion for archaeology, the park – which boasts a sphinx dating back to 1200 BC as well as views of the islands – offers intense olfactory experiences beneath the pergola and gastronomic delights at Billy’s Bar, alongside musical and cultural events.

The Jumeirah Capri Palace, on the other hand, boasts a collection of contemporary art and is home to the White Museum, a permanent collection of contemporary art featuring works by Pomodoro, Paladino and De Chirico, amongst others. Once the weather has cooled down a little, you can climb up to the Hermitage of Santa Maria di Cetrella and try your hand at a few sections of the Sentiero dei Fortini, where ceramic information panels detailing the local flora and fauna mark this steep path through the woods, amongst the military outposts contested by the British and French in the early 1800s. This will take you to Punta Carena, where the lighthouse, built in 1867, will soon turn its rotating beam towards the rocky outcrop where young people dance at sunset after a swim. After dinner in the garden oasis of Vico, the night will be spent at the stylish La Residenza or the Moorish-style Villa Helios, which was also a favourite of St John Paul II.