Thank goodness we found this place! Our vacation vision was a nice, private villa in a small town where we could walk to food stores and restaurants, and access a few “tourist attractions” without too much wasted time or trouble. That is exactly what we got here, even though we originally thought we wanted to be in Positano or Praiano. We visited those beautiful places, but for our taste you couldn’t beat this villa in the small, relatively quiet village of Massa Lubrense.

The villa was physically exactly “as advertised”. But even better, it was very easy to get comfortable and feel “at home" there, in all the many rooms and outdoor spaces. The bedrooms were comfortable, the bathrooms modern and clean, the living and dining areas plentiful, kitchen nice and functional and all the outside spaces, on many levels, gorgeous.

Carlo gave us the name of a local driving service, Persico, and the English speaking owner, Nino, picked us up as planned at the Naples airport. He gave us a beautiful drive and lots of local information during the one hour trip to the villa. Mrs. Filomena and her husband met us at the bottom of the driveway, carried our luggage to the villa on the hill, gave us a tour of the property and made us feel very welcome, despite the language barrier. They also came and cleaned the pool and maintained the patios each morning during our stay, but kept a very low profile, only there if you needed them-which we never did since everything was well maintained and worked properly. The owner. Carlo, responded quickly to our one question, and followed up to make sure everything was OK-which it was.

The villa was so beautiful and the view so spectacular there was really no need to go anywhere else, but we did. Shopping in the small shops and eating in the few restaurants in Massa Lubrense were exactly the “local flavor” we had hoped for, and the food was great. Evening sunsets at the villa were heavenly so we did not investigate any night life, so we can’t speak to that. We also toured the Amalfi coast one day, and Pompeii another, both on private tours arranged by Nino at Persico-worth every penny. We took the bus to Sorrento and then the ferry to Capri one day, and the bus to Sorrento again to shop and eat another day. All great experiences.

If we ever go back to this area, and we hope we can, we wouldn’t even think to consider another villa to stay in-Villa Torre del Giglio is THE place for us.