Trip to Anacapri with a stop at the elegant Capri Palace

Anacapri is not Capri. In Anacapri, the queue is not at the bars in the Piazzetta, but at the entrance to the chairlift that takes you to the top of Monte Solaro to admire the Gulf of Naples in all its liquid wonder during the ascent. On the highest part of the island, there is another type of traveller, more interested in nature and its beauty than in worldliness. The luxury hotel in Anacapri, the real and historic one, is the Capri Palace, the first of the Jumeirah group in Italy, but also the first to bet on the potential of tourism in the highest part of the island, where until less than a century ago one could only get there on foot or by donkey. It was the Cacace family who believed in it, having opened a very elegant boutique in Anacapri - Mariorita, after the names of the founders - and in 1953 had opened a small hotel next door that was destined to make Anacapri the place for travellers equally refined but forerunners of an interest in wild nature.

This was indeed the case, thanks in part to Tonino, Mario and Rita's son, whose aesthetic and cultural sensitivity has enriched the hotel with works of art of great value. The first, "Rive e Mari" by Arnaldo Pomodoro, welcomes guests as they arrive: a 40-metre-long wall representing a seabed and unfolding around the swimming pool, which in turn is paved with a mosaic by Velasco Vitali. At the entrance there is a gigantic iron helmet by Mimmo Paladino and inside the collection develops with paintings, sculptures and video installations to form a small precious museum that everyone can admire even if only ordering a drink at the bar.

The art collection, the innate elegance of the Cacace family, the other ingenious intuition of housing a state-of-the-art medical spa and creating a fish and seafood restaurant overlooking the sea (il Riccio) have placed Anacapri and its five-star hotel among the world's top destinations.

To maintain this position, however, today more experience and stimulation are needed, which general manager Ermanno Zanini and his young and creative team are gradually introducing. The new rules of today's high hospitality are being observed. Starting with gastronomy. The two Michelin stars are there: L'Olivo. The winking fusion Zuma also. The irresistible Neapolitan seafood classics (lobster and seafood a gogo) are eaten at Riccio, and next door, in the new and equally scenic Amare, Franco Pepe makes his phenomenal pizza. A celebrity, Patricia Urquiola, the queen of hotel architecture, was chosen to renovate the hotel. She started with five suites, beautiful, spacious, with the colours of the island (sea and lemon) and the swimming pool that now, surrounded by palm trees and yellow parasols on an English-style lawn, looks like an oasis. It is a first step, an example of what the hotel will soon become with a project that - says Urquiola - "is her love letter to Capri".

Nothing is missing to feel good. You get up at dawn to walk up the mountain to see the Faraglioni or on the Sentiero della Filosofia, and in the evening, on your terrace, you wait for the sunset and the green ray the instant the sky catches the sun! This, with a breakfast full of delicious things (pastiera and fresh sfogliatelle are never lacking) and a drink in the evening, is the real magic of staying in Anacapri's historic hotel. If in the long corridors you feel as if you have met the photographer Maurizio Galimberti or some other artist, it was probably the right impression, because with several collages he is one of the authors of the collection and of some of the books that are scattered in the lobby and in the suites. There is also a book on Slim Aarons that reconstructs an era of the jet set, of which Capri was undoubtedly a favourite. The chairlift goes, always (even in winter). There are many people queuing, and it is frightening to think of the crowds that will gather at the top of the mountain, at 850 metres. Don't worry, as all the tourists go up, take a photo with the view and take the chairlift back down. Those who like to walk in nature can go a few hundred metres further up to find no one and think that all the beauty of green, sea and light that surrounds them is a privilege reserved only for them.