Hotel Minerva

From the moment we arrived we fell in love with this hotel. Magnificent views of the bay of Napoli not only from the hotel terrace but also the room and dining. Giuseppe in the dining room arranged us a special table for dinner even though the dining room was booked out for a banquet that night. That’s service above and beyond. Every morning he greeted us warmly. He’s always happy and jolly and singing. Makes everyone happy. Bravo Giuseppe, Molto Benne!! Food is great. Antonio at the bar was very friendly. All staff were very friendly and professional. There may be other hotels equal or better, but next time we come to Sorrento, we are 100% staying at Hotel Minerva.

Others have mentioned the wonderful view over the lower town of Sorrento, the bay of Naples and Vesuvius. Most rooms will have this view since the hotel is tall, wide but not deep. The walk up from the town surprised me in that fat and unfit as I am I could still manage it without blowing a gasket, the gradient is just about bearable. If you can't fancy the walk be prepared for outrageous taxi fares - €30 for the 8 minute drive from the port to the hotel was paid by our room neighbour, €20 for the three minute drive from the town centre. There is a bus service goes past, would take a bit of work to figure out where the stops are in town and timetable but possible I suppose. Regarding food, we seem to have stayed in a different hotel to some other reviewers! Whether the main chef was already gone after the high season was over or not I don't know. Whoever was in the kitchen during our stay was just combining ingredients in the vague hope something edible emerged. This method had somewhat mixed results. Fish, beef, liver all overcooked. Breakfast hot options were restricted to scrambled or fried eggs, the scrambled texture was as if they had been microwaved, certainly done to death. Accompanied by a couple of slices of bacon - if someone told me they had been in a low oven since the previous night I would believe them, rock hard, deep brown almost black. More cakes and sweet tarts than other breakfast choices, dry mini pastries, underwhelming. So location is excellent, Sorrento itself is worth a bit of a wander round. Naples is easily accessible by train or boat. (NB the Capella Sansevero needs advanced booking to gain admittance, we missed out). Capri and Amalfi also available by boat. Pompeii is very manageable by train independently or of course there are many organised tours. Perhaps I have been a little unfair singling out this hotel for its mediocre food, it would appear to be a widespread issue. There was quite a discussion on the subject on our Pompeii tour coach and no-one had a good word to say about their hotel food. Coming home and mentioning it to friends received comments along the line of "yes, we thought that". I can only imagine that as we were in a bucket list area, there is very little return business and the hotels have just grown complacent, providing the bare minimum. A shame in a country with a proud tradition of fine food.