Via Principessa Margherita is the road that cuts across the island towards the old centre, the same one the Casale Vascello opens onto. It sits high above the harbour, but you can walk it. La Vigna is a four-star hotel that has built everything around a single idea: wine was made here, and it still is.
The rooms are inside an old crenellated tower and each one carries the name of a local wine. The property includes about 3,000 square metres of vineyard and produces a wine called "Loreto" with its own grapes. The spa does vinotherapy. If that strikes you as a marketing gimmick, look at the vineyard: it is there, and it is big. From 110 EUR a night.
The tower and the rooms
The building is carved out of a crenellated tower. That means thick walls, irregular rooms and indoor temperatures that help in summer: at Procida, where the middle-of-the-day heat is the real limit in August, that is not a decorative detail.
Each room is named after a local wine. As always in small hotels with a character of their own, the category is not enough to tell you what you are getting: ask for the room by name, and ask whether it looks onto the vineyard or the garden. We have no verified number of rooms for this property, so I am not giving you one.
Nor do we have verified check-in and check-out times. Ask on the phone: on the island the last hydrofoil determines the last day, and knowing whether you can leave your bags until the afternoon changes the plan.
The wine, the vineyard and the vinotherapy
Three thousand square metres of vineyard on an island of a little over four square kilometres is a significant area. What it produces is the wine "Loreto", made with grapes from the property. There is a wine bar, and breakfast is a buffet with local artisan produce.
The spa offers vinotherapy treatments. I am not going to pronounce on how effective they are, and that is not a judgement: it is that I have nothing verified to tell you. What I can tell you is that having a spa is rare on the island — the only other properties with this kind of service are La Suite, in a price bracket twice as high, and a very few others.
On Procida wine it is worth adding a note. The island has a real but tiny wine-growing tradition, very different from Ischia’s: if the subject interests you, the page on Starza wine tells you what is actually drunk here. The rest of the island’s cooking — the limone pane, the bread lemon, the coniglio alla procidana, rabbit Procida-style — is in what to eat at Procida.
The position: quiet, and still walking distance from the harbour
This is the real argument. Via Principessa Margherita sits above Marina Grande, high enough not to hear the harbour and close enough to walk back down to it. On an island where the options are "in the middle of the ferry traffic" or "at the bottom of a stairway with no road", this is a convenient third way.
From here you can walk to the old centre and to the Casale Vascello, the seventeenth-century fortified court on the same road — remember that it is a lived-in court, not a monument: you look at it discreetly. Climbing, you get to Terra Murata and the Abbey of San Michele; going down, to the harbour and its old bars. The bus routes leave from the terminus at Marina Grande and the real timetables are in getting around Procida.
The beaches, on the other hand, are not round the corner. The Silurenza and the Lingua lie on either side of the harbour, handy but small; for a proper day at the sea you go to the Chiaiolella or the Ciraccio, by bus.
Animals and families
Small animals are admitted free of charge. It is not the only pet-friendly property on the island — the Hotel Crescenzo and the Tirreno Residence at the Chiaiolella also accept animals — but the stated fact that it is free is useful information, because the supplement for a dog is one of the items that quietly inflates the bill.
For families the verdict is mixed. The garden and the greenery count in its favour, the position up the hill and the distance from the big beaches count against. With small children who want sea and sand all day, the Chiaiolella remains the more sensible choice: the page on Procida with children lines up the pros and cons of each area.
Is it worth it?
At a starting 110 EUR, for a four-star with a vineyard, a wine bar and a spa, the ratio is good by the island’s standards. The same figure buys you La Casa sul Mare, which has the view over Corricella but has neither garden nor spa; the Insula costs 70 EUR more and in exchange gives you the pool.
Choose La Vigna if you are after quiet, greenery and a hotel with an identity of its own, while staying within walking distance of the harbour. Choose something else if your aim is the view over the fishermen’s village or the sea on your doorstep. The full comparison between the areas is on the page about where to stay at Procida.