The first glimpse through the trees that line the coast road high above the Baia di Portonovo is breathtaking. A densely wooded hill drops to a sweeping cove where a brilliantly white shoreline curves around an azure bay. It might just as well be the Caribbean as the eastern coast of Italy. Did Napoleon find this view stunning too, or simply strategically important? I wonder, because it is here that in 1811 he built a fort to defend this stretch of the Adriatic coast and to prevent the British from coming ashore to draw fresh water from the lagoon which lies just back from the beach. Crafty chap, Napoleon. But I doubt he'd have imagined that this garrison of six hundred men would one day be a stylish hotel and a fine base for a few nights, or longer, on the part of the Marche coast known as the Riviera del Conero, just a half hour drive from Ancona.
Built in a contrasting mix of terracotta brick and dazzling white stone, plundered from a nearby convent apparently, the single story fort sits solid and squat just a step from the sea, on a small headland dividing two bays. A sense of history pervades the place. The perimeter structure which houses the bedrooms surrounds a sunny courtyard in which breakfast can be taken in fair weather. It's not hard to imagine it once filled with drilling soldiers. The hotel's lofty restaurant was once the officers' quarters. What must once have been a lookout platform is now a blustery al fresco terrace. The same reason that attracted Napoleon – the uninterrupted view – now attracts newlyweds to hold their receptions here.
We splashed out on a suite – cool stone floors, enormous bed, leather sofa, lovely bathroom. Two narrow slits of windows, still with their original lead frames, pierced the two-foot thick walls and squinted over the Adriatic, which lapped at the walls below. At night, the open windows sucked in the sound and smell of the sea.
Portonovo is little more than a sleepy scattering of restaurants and bars strung together by a network of dusty tracks through the trees. Occasionally they emerge into coves of dazzlingly white rock and surf. But the sleepiness is shrugged off on summer weekends and during the Italian holidays, as the beach and the restaurants become packed and the only road in and out is jammed. (A bonus though is the porchetta van that sets out its stall at the top of the cliff!) Come Monday, it's all quiet again.
Service at the hotel was attentive but discreet. Breakfast was plentiful and good. We didn't eat dinner here (though the food is reputedly good), but headed for the fish restaurants strung out along the beach, a stroll away, and weren't disappointed. Wandering back to the hotel one evening in the warm blackness, the woods that line the path to the Fortino sparkled with tiny points of light. At first we thought the hotel had strung fairy lights through the trees.
Then we saw that they moved, and realised that they were fireflies.
Fortino Napoleonico, 60129 Portonovo (AN)
Tel 071 801 450 51
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