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Amalfi: Il Piccolo Paradiso

Phone: 089-873001

Reviewed by: Rebecca from Italy, review #205

When: Summer 2001

Champagne taste on a beer budget? This is the place for you.

So, you’ve got champagne taste. You want to run with the in-crowd, hang out with owners of yachts and flashy sunglasses, sip cappuccinos with VIPs. In short, the Amalfi coast beckons. Yet, alas, you’ve got a problem. Beer money. Where to stay without breaking the bank in one of the most expensive areas in Italy? I have the answer: The Piccolo Paradiso in Amalfi. Okay, Amalfi is not Positano, but remember your beer money. It is still a charming little town, with a beautiful main piazza in which to sip cappuccinos (and watch every adolescent-minded male on the coast have their picture taken while drinking from the fountain which features water spurting from nymphs’ nipples, including my brother, who is a physician and father of two), centrally located along the coast, and the departing point for boats to the other towns and islands.

This delightful little B&B, run by a charming couple of elderly sisters, (one of whom was forever reminding me to take a sweater with me when we would go out for the evening, just in case it got nippy) was opened just a couple of years ago in an older building between the main road which traces the coast and the waterfront. The five rooms, airy and immaculate, are decorated with white and blue maijolica floors and furnished with iron beds and blue stained wooden furniture; the bathrooms are similarly clean and comfortable. Almost all the rooms open directly out onto a sunny shared terrace over the water, where breakfast is served. The B&B is literally steps from the main piazza and the port, so once you park your car, you may never need it again during your Amalfi Coast sojourn.

We’re not talking about a high-tech place, here. The last I checked, they still had no website, no email address, and the sisters barely spoke passable mainstream Italian, much less English. However, it is worth the effort to pick up the phone with your Italian dictionary at hand to book. If you can summon enough Italian, request to not get the room at the end of the hall, which, though just as charming as the others, is smaller, has no view, and has one of those obnoxious open showers that get everything in the bathroom wet.

The location can be noisy, with the road running along the building on one side (not the side of the building the rooms are on, however) and the port with departing boats and buses on the other, but we had the windows closed and a/c on at night, and never heard a thing. The terrace overlooks the sea, but has the main departing point for boats and buses directly below, so can be noisy as well. The only time we used the terrace (at breakfast time and in the evening, when the weather cooled off), things were enough settled down that it made for nothing more than good people watching.

There is no parking associated with the B&B, but the town’s main parking lot is directly in front of the building or you can ask to arrange a spot at a pay garage with valet service that the ladies recommend. If you can, opt for the second. This garage is owned by an old guy named something like Mario or Guido, who, when telephoned, zooms down at breakneck speed from somewhere up in the hills above town on a little folding bicycle, which he then stows in your trunk while he drives your car back up to the mystery parking garage in the hills. It’s hilarious.

All in all, a great bargain for a charming little spot. The best part is that at sundown you can watch the yachts out on the water from the terrace while sipping your champagne. Or your beer.

Pauline's Note: Rebecca lives in Italy and owns the excellent Brigolante - vacation rental apartments near Assisi. www.brigolante.com

This review is the opinion of a Slow Travel member and not of slowtrav.com.

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