La Villa Carmelina

La Villa Carmelina is at via Gemini 1, at the entrance to the built-up area of Agerola, the village in the Lattari mountains that looks down on the Amalfi Coast from above, in the province of Naples. The altitude is around 650 metres, and that is the fact that explains the house: here you are not on the sea but above it, on a natural terrace that looks at the two peaks of Agerola and, in the cleft between the two crests, the sea of the coast. Agerola is a scattered municipality, divided into the hamlets of Bomerano, Campora, Pianillo, Ponte, San Lazzaro and Santa Maria, and the property does not declare which of these the address falls in: it writes only that it is at the entrance to the village and a few steps from the public transport stop, convenient for anyone arriving by bus from Amalfi or from Castellammare. The Path of the Gods starts at Bomerano, a few minutes away.

How it is built

It is a small-scale guesthouse, not a hotel: the house was recently renovated and has three double rooms, each for two people and each with a private bathroom. The first is a double with a balcony furnished with a small table and chairs, the second is a Deluxe, the third has an outdoor patio. The rooms' fittings include free wifi, air conditioning, heating, a television, a minibar and a hairdryer. The parking is free and on site, facing the view of the two peaks and the sea, which on the Amalfi Coast is no minor detail. An Italian breakfast can be added when booking for a small surcharge, and the house arranges a transport service for guests on request.

Wellness area and pools

Here there is nothing to tell, and it is right to say so at once: the official website names neither a wellness area nor a pool, and nothing in the description of the house, which has three rooms and no fitted shared space, suggests that they exist. This entry therefore records no spa and no pools. The outdoor spaces are the entrance courtyard with its planters, and the balcony and patio of the rooms.

The rules of access

The booking portal classifies the house as adults only and writes, in those words, that children are not allowed. The official website does not contradict the figure but does not put it in figures: it says only that each room takes two people and is suited to couples of any age, without giving the age from which a guest is considered an adult. This entry therefore records the outright ban on access for minors together with the fact that neither source publishes a threshold: anyone travelling with a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old finds no number written anywhere and does well to ask for written confirmation before booking. On pets the property says nothing, neither to allow them nor to exclude them, so it is worth asking reception.

Who it suits

It suits a couple who want to visit the Amalfi Coast without paying Positano or Amalfi prices, and who accept sleeping up in the hills and going down to the sea by bus or by car. It suits walkers very well: Agerola is the high terminus of the Path of the Gods, and having the transport stop a few steps away avoids the parking problem in the coastal villages. It suits less anyone expecting hotel services: there is no spa, pool, restaurant or all-day reception here, breakfast is a paid extra and the shared spaces come down to the courtyard. It also suits less anyone who wants the sea on foot, because from the village down to the beach there is almost seven hundred metres of descent.