The WanderHeart Suite List: No. 01: Le Sirenuse, Positano
Welcome to my new mini blog series, The Suite List. As I dive deeper into centering WanderHeart around luxury travel, I want to bring you the best of the best from around the world. Hotels, restaurants, lounges, experiences and everything in between. If it is luxurious and worth knowing about, my goal is to find it and bring it directly to you.
And I cannot think of a better place to begin than my favorite hotel in the world: Le Sirenuse.
This is not an exaggeration. Located in Positano, Italy, Le Sirenuse is so beyond magical that I am not sure I have the words to do it justice. Of all the accolades this hotel has earned over the years, it now has one more: the honor of being No. 01 on The WanderHeart Suite List.
The best way I can describe Le Sirenuse is that it is more than a destination. It is a place that somehow finds a home in all five of your senses.
Sight
As I type this, I can close my eyes and see the view from the balcony right off the lobby. That image is engraved into my retinas. The colors, the sparkling water, the hills surrounding Positano. I could cry thinking about it now, and I certainly do cry the first time I see it again after some time away.
It is the magic of Positano, and there is no place that captures that magic better than Le Sirenuse.
Of course, Positano provides a pretty spectacular backdrop, but the hotel itself is its own form of perfection. Once a private summer residence of the Sersale family, it was transformed into a hotel by four siblings in 1951.
The mosaic tiles, antiques, artwork, flowers and signature pops of red against crisp white walls make every corner beautiful. There is always something to look at, yet somehow none of it ever feels like too much.
Smell
Le Sirenuse has its own distinct scent. Literally.
It is called Eau d'Italie, and you can bring it home with you. I have the fragrance, shampoo, conditioner, candle, hand soap...you get the idea.
I used to worry that smelling it too often at home would somehow make it less special. It hasn't. Every single time, I am transported back to my room overlooking the Amalfi Coast, the pool, the spa or simply standing in the lobby.
It brings me peace because that is what Le Sirenuse does best. Stress seems to fall away here, helped along by a tremendous staff that has mastered the art of making everything feel effortless.
Taste
Then there is the food, and food is absolutely not an afterthought here.
Start with the incredible breakfast spread in the morning. Have lunch by the pool. Move to hors d'oeuvres and cocktails at Aldo's Cocktail Bar & Seafood Grill, followed by a spellbinding dinner at La Sponda, and finish the evening with drinks at Franco's.
You could very easily spend an entire day eating and drinking your way from one beautiful space to another and never once feel like you missed out by not leaving the hotel.
That, to me, is luxury.
Touch
Touch may be the sense we think about least when we travel, but at Le Sirenuse, you notice it.
You notice the sheets when you climb into bed and the towels when you step out of the shower. You notice the fabrics and textures throughout the hotel. You even notice your room key because it is an actual key, not a plastic card you tap against a door.
It has weight in your hand. It feels substantial, old-school and completely appropriate for where you are.
These may sound like tiny details, but that is exactly the point. Luxury lives in the details, and at Le Sirenuse, even the things you touch remind you that you are somewhere special.
Sound
And finally, there is sound. When I think about Le Sirenuse, I think about both the quiet and the not-so-quiet.
There are moments when the hotel is so perfectly peaceful that you can sit on your balcony, stare at the water and feel like the rest of the world has disappeared.
But then there is the music, the conversations, the cocktails being poured and the glasses clinking. There is an energy that comes over the hotel, especially as day turns into evening, that makes you want to be right in the middle of it.
Somehow, the two never compete. Le Sirenuse knows exactly when you need the calm and when you need a little magic happening around you. And it never fails to give you both.
Why It Makes The Suite List
Maybe that is why Le Sirenuse has stayed with me in a way very few hotels ever have.
You don't simply remember staying there. You remember what you saw. What you smelled. What you tasted. What you touched. What you heard.
Long after you leave Positano, pieces of Le Sirenuse come home with you.
And that, to me, is exactly what makes a hotel worthy of being No. 01 on The WanderHeart Suite List.