Palazzo Pascal

Palazzo Pascal

In Scala's Minuta quarter, five hundred metres from the village centre, an eleventh-century villa now holds Palazzo Pascal, a hotel of seven rooms across three floors. Breakfast, an Italian spread of croissants, pastries and hot drinks, is served on the terrace or brought to the room, and the hotel keeps a panoramic pool and sea-view terraces outside. Some suites run past 500 square feet with private terraces and full sea views, others are simpler single rooms, but every bathroom carries free toiletries and a hairdryer, and coffee and herbal tea wait in each room. For a hotel this small, the amenity list reads oddly large: a diving club, a massage room, a solarium, a doctor on call, a library, a conference hall, and a playroom for children, alongside a shared lounge with a fireplace and gardens outside. Ravello's centre is three kilometres off, Amalfi's eight, with Amalfi Beach and the Parco Regionale dei Monti Lattari both close by. This suits couples who want a garden and a pool rather than a room stacked above a beach club, and who don't mind that with only seven rooms, service stays personal rather than programmed. It will frustrate large groups, since there is nowhere to put them, and anyone set on having the sea at the front door. Staff answer in English, Italian, French, German and Spanish, and here a car rental or transfer gets arranged directly rather than passed down a chain. Seven rooms carrying a diving club and a conference hall is not a combination this coast repeats often. Seven rooms in an eleventh-century villa in Scala's Minuta quarter, with a panoramic pool, sea-view terraces and, unusually for something this size, a diving club and a conference hall. It suits couples wanting quiet over crowds, not groups or anyone who needs the beach at the door.