Procida is not an island of big hotels. There are nine rooms here, ten there, plenty of houses let out room by room. La Suite is the exception: five stars, twenty-one rooms, a real SPA. If you are after a pool and a massage without taking the hydrofoil to Ischia, this is essentially the only address.
It stands on via Flavio Gioia, the road that climbs from Marina Grande towards the interior of the island. That means you are walking distance from the harbour but not on the harbour: no wheeled case on the tarmac for twenty minutes, and no noise of ferries under the window. The Pozzo Vecchio beach, the one from "Il Postino", is about ten minutes on foot.
The rooms
Twenty-one rooms and suites, and the property states that they are all different from one another. It is a boutique design choice, not a turn of phrase: it means the photograph you see online may not be the room they give you. If a view, a terrace or a bath really matter to you, write when you book and get the type confirmed by name, not by category.
We have no verified check-in and check-out times for this property, so I am not inventing one for you. Ask when you book: on the island the time of the return ferry counts for much more than it does in a city, and knowing until when you can leave your bags changes the last day.
The SPA and the pool
Here is the reason a proportion of the guests choose this hotel. The SPA with its fitness area is 400 square metres, and the pool — christened the "Black Pool" — is lined with black lava stone. Water over dark stone gives back a colour that blue pools do not have, and it is the detail that ends up in all the photographs of the property.
It is worth saying something unpopular: at Procida you do not need a pool. The sea is everywhere and minutes away. What it is good for is anyone coming off season, when the sea is cold and half the island has closed, or anyone travelling with somebody who does not love the sea. In those two cases the SPA justifies the price; in August, rather less.
The property states a seasonal opening. We have not verified the exact months and we are not writing them at random: if you are thinking about a weekend between November and March, this is the first phone call to make, before you even buy the ferry ticket. The page on when to go explains how empty the island gets in winter.
The gardens and the table
Five thousand square metres of Mediterranean gardens, with an organic kitchen garden and the lemons. On an island a little over four square kilometres across that is a serious area, and it explains why from inside you do not feel you are two hundred metres from the main road.
The Procida lemon — the big one, with the thick white pith, which here they call limone pane, the bread lemon — grows within the grounds. It is the island’s identity product and seeing it on the tree, not only on the plate, helps you understand why so much is made of it.
The in-house catering is on two levels: the Bougainvillea restaurant and the Le Café pool bar. Handy, especially on the first evening when you do not feel like going down. But do not shut yourself in: Re Ferdinando and the places at Corricella are the reason people come to eat at Procida, and the restaurant guide tells you where.
What it actually costs
The indicative minimum published is about 203–210 EUR a night. Be careful how you read that figure: the source does not state which season it refers to. It is not a low-season rate and it is not an August rate: it is the minimum price that appears, and in high season a five-star with twenty-one rooms on a small island goes up, as you would expect.
That said, the comparison within the island is useful. Insula starts at 180 EUR, La Casa sul Mare and La Vigna at 110 EUR, the Tirreno Residence at 50 EUR. La Suite is distinctly the top bracket of Procida, and it is so for services the others do not have. If the SPA and the pool do not interest you, you are paying twice over for the same bed.
Who it suits, and who it does not
It suits two people who want a comfortable holiday with a quiet base, anyone coming off season, anyone who needs a pool and space. It also suits anyone arriving with real luggage: there is road access here, which is anything but a given on this island.
It suits less well anyone who wants to wake up inside the postcard. No hotel at Marina Grande has the classic view over Corricella: that is looked at from Terra Murata or from the terraces of La Casa sul Mare. And it is a poor fit for anyone travelling on little: at Procida you can sleep well on a quarter of this figure, as the page on where to stay at Procida describes.
One last practical note. Getting about from here is easy: the bus terminus and the quay are at the bottom of the slope, and the C1 and L2 routes go respectively towards Terra Murata and towards the Chiaiolella. The real timetables and the summer traffic rules are in getting around Procida.