CLIFFHANGERS AND PRECIPICES

For a room with a view, it’s hard to beat a hotel on a cliff. Claire Wrathall picks out the best of them ...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE Magazine, Spring 2011

The bad thing about a hotel built next to a sheer drop is that you need a head for heights, or a visit will be torture. The good thing, for those who can manage to open their eyes and let go of the walls, is the truly spectacular views. Herewith, the latest instalment in our series of inspiring places to stay:

Nebesa, Slovenia
Less than a kilometre from the Italian border, high on the steep slopes of Mount Kuk overlooking the beautiful Soca valley, this enchanting little hotel consists of four modern chalets with dry-stone walls, rough-pine cladding and steep zinc-clad roofs. Each has a valley-facing verandah and is positioned at a different angle for privacy. There’s no restaurant, but you can help yourself at any time to cheeses, bread, fruit, prosciutto and good local wine. The owners’ daughter, Ana Ros, runs one of Slovenia’s finest restaurants, Hisa Franko, in nearby Kobarid—the site of the terrible Battle of Caporetto in 1917, the aftermath of which Hemingway describes in “A Farewell to Arms”. Doubles from €250 b&b (less for longer stays)

Parador Hotel Ronda, Spain
Hemingway also alludes to the location of what is now the Parador in Ronda, which stands on the edge of El Tajo gorge above the river Guadelevín. In “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, he describes how nationalist sympathisers were thrown to their deaths from the adjacent Puente Nuevo during the civil war. Put that horror from your mind, though, and this comfortable state-run hotel, partly converted from what was the town hall, is a good base from which to explore this elegant Andalucian town and the neighbouring pueblos blancos (white villages). Doubles from €180, room only

Post Ranch Inn, California, United States
When it comes to sublime sunsets, the vast private deck of the Peak House suite at the Post Ranch Inn is as good a vantage point as any, cantilevered out over the cliff edge, facing the Santa Lucia mountains as they descend into the Pacific. Indeed, there isn’t a duff room at this superbly luxurious spa hotel, 150 miles south of San Francisco at Big Sur, with its low, linear architecture—all glass, stone, slate and local wood—and densely forested setting. Even the inland-facing Tree Houses, perched on 9ft stilts, feel gloriously at one with nature. Doubles from $550 b&b

Reid’s Palace and Estalagem Ponta do Sol, Madeira, Portugal
Rising abruptly out of the Atlantic, and thus short of beaches, Madeira has no shortage of cliff hotels, but two stand out. With its luxuriant tropical gardens and air of old-fashioned glamour, Reid’s Palace, where Winston Churchill came to paint and George Bernard Shaw learnt to tango, remains one of the hotel world’s grandes dames. If you’re looking for something younger, funkier or cheaper, Estalagem Ponta do Sol, set high on a headland a half-hour drive from Funchal, is a stylish minimalist conversion of a 19th-century farmhouse and a sugar-cane warehouse, reached via a lift that ascends through the rock. Reid’s: Doubles from €221 b&b. Ponta do Sol: doubles from €105 b&b

Château de la Chèvre d’Or, Eze, France
It’s worth paying the premium for a deluxe room with a balcony or terrace at this 36-room, quintessentially Provençal hotel; the views of the Cote d’Azur, towards Antibes and Cap Ferrat, are some of the best in France. Converted from a cluster of ancient buildings in the heart of the lofty labyrinthine village of Eze, it has two pools instead of a beach—though one is the preserve of the presidential suite. Doubles from €280, room only

Claire Wrathall writes about travel for the Financial Times and the Guardian. Illustration: Neil Gower; Picture credit: tjdee (via Flickr)