Hotel La Gondola

La Gondola is the best hotel on the best beach on the best Italian Island. Actually, for me, a fish out of water, it’s the best Island in the world, because of Ischia’s unique magic: the natural active volcanic thermal water. Having been to La Gondola this June with my husband (see previous review), I couldn’t wait to return in September. I booked for us both but he couldn’t leave (work), so I came alone. As I write this, the hotel is still open, til the end of October, and it looks like the weather, while cooler, is still lovely, for all the warm water spa experience, sauna, even the sea will still be warm. And everything others have said. The food, superb. The loveliest staff, either members of the family who created it in the mid 20th century and still own it, or they’ve been working there so long, they are like family. As someone wrote, for example, Antonio is the nicest waiter in the world. The two lovely women who clean our rooms and the hotel, always smiling and laughing, Carla and Natalia. The first day I asked, in my terrible Italian, where I could get hair conditioner (I bought shampoo by mistake at the airport), and an hour later, came in from swimming to find FOUR big bottles other guests had left behind, in my room! A happy family makes a happy hotel. It then attracts happy guests. Everyone feels it: couples, old and young, together decades or newly in love. Families. Old friends. New friends. Single people. Women like me who are married but can get away alone, feel safe, swim from dawn to dusk. And if you want to enjoy it alone, or with whoever you’re with, you can. But most of us form friendships with other guests that continue, and make plans to meet again next year. I’ve been trying to write this review in the two weeks I’ve been home, and I can’t write it simply or succinctly. I just love it so much. I fret that my phone photos don’t accurately show the beauty of the landscape (views from everywhere, we all have big balconies on the sea, everything is about the beauty), the bohemian handmade charm of the architecture & pools, the exquisite deliciousness of the food, the total relaxation and happy feeling of the place. It’s hard to write about, or photograph, love. And that’s what I see and feel when I am there. Peace, and love. Thank you, Marco, who patiently listens to me in English, but thank you to the whole family, Franco, Stefano, Arturo, Maria, everyone I haven’t named, but am grateful for your genuine kindness and friendliness. You set an example of how all people should treat one another. I miss La Gondola every day. But -it’s hard to explain - it stays with you. All year round. And then you return, and it’s like you’ve never left.