Splendido, A Belmond Hotel

The Splendido began as a Benedictine monastery centuries before it opened as a hotel in 1901, and its pale ochre terraces have looked down on Portofino's tiny harbour ever since. Through the dolce vita decades it became shorthand for Riviera glamour—Bogart, Taylor and half of Hollywood's golden age climbed the winding drive—and under Belmond the hotel trades carefully on that lineage without becoming a museum of it.

Rooms and suites step down the hillside amid bougainvillaea and umbrella pines, most with balconies or terraces facing the bay where yachts swing at anchor. Interiors keep a breezy Ligurian classicism: hand-painted furniture, striped fabrics, sea light everywhere. The heated saltwater pool, cut into the terraces with the harbour below, is among the most photographed on the Riviera, and the gardens alone justify an afternoon.

La Terrazza serves Ligurian cooking—trofie al pesto has rarely enjoyed a better setting—while the piano bar keeps the evening ritual alive; sister house Splendido Mare and its Chuflay bar sit on the harbourfront below for people-watching at water level. Paths lead to Castello Brown and the lighthouse walk. This is the Italian Riviera at maximum wattage, priced accordingly and worth it.