Hotel Marina Riviera

Hotel Marina Riviera is a family-run four-star on Amalfi's waterfront, on the coast road a few minutes' walk east of Piazza Duomo. The family traces it to the nineteenth-century Hotel Riviera, whose kitchen and sea terrace fed travellers on the Grand Tour. It took its present name under the Gargano family, who reopened it in 1971 with 16 rooms, have modernised it since and still run it.

There are 34 rooms and suites, finished in tiles hand-painted in Vietri sul Mare, and most look over the bay. The entry Standard No View, about 16 m² on the top floor, faces the back of the hotel; the Standard, about 16 m², has a window on the sea and a shower. The Deluxe adds a balcony and a bath at about 20 m², the Junior Suite, about 28 m², a terrace, and the suites run up to the Master Suite, about 60 m² on the top floor with a private solarium and two balconies, and the Suite Amalfitana, whose 38 m² solarium has a Jacuzzi. Casa Marina Riviera, the hotel's annex in a restored house on Piazza del Duomo about 240 metres away, adds a room, a suite and an apartment, the first two with their original majolica floors.

It is chosen for seeing the coast without a car. The SITA Sud stop by the harbour is about 4 minutes' walk, the ferry pier at Molo Pennello about 7, and Piazza Duomo and the beach at Marina Grande about 4, so Positano, Ravello and Salerno are all a bus or a boat away. Back at the hotel there is a heated pool with a furnished sun terrace on the top floor, a buffet breakfast on the terrace over the bay, dinner at Terrazza 17 from 7pm and, from June to September, a rooftop bar in the evenings. The lift is listed as running to the third floor only, so the last flights up to the pool are by stairs. Every room has beach towels and flip-flops, and the 24-hour concierge books boat trips, taxis and babysitting.

The trade is the road and the price. The hotel stands on the SS163 itself, so the rooms at the front look across the road to the sea and hear its buses by day; a higher floor helps. On a June night in 2027 the entry room, which has no sea view, cost about €615 with breakfast, and the sea starts at the Standard. Parking is scarce, and the hotel advises arriving by bus, ferry or transfer. Book it to walk out of the door into Amalfi and onto a boat; skip it if you want a quiet cliff and a beach of your own.