Excelsior Palace Hotel

The course the hotel points its guests to is Circolo Golf e Tennis Rapallo, in town. It was designed in 1929 and opened in 1931; the first nine date from the founding and the second nine were added in the late 1960s. The layout covers 45 hectares and is crossed by the Boate stream, and Italy's national tourism board says it is known as a hard test even for experienced players. The hotel singles out its centuries-old trees. The club is open all year and also has five floodlit clay tennis courts.

One practical point: the Excelsior currently publishes no golf package and lists no golf services such as tee-time booking. If you are coming to play, book directly with the club, which takes reservations online.

The hotel looks over the bay of Rapallo on one side and the Portofino coast on the other, 6 kilometres away. The Kursaal Rapallo opened on 1 January 1901 beside the 1865 Villa Elisabetta; soon after, Swiss architect Verrey designed the neighbouring New Casino Hotel, with a direct passage to the gaming room, which grew to 140 rooms. The lobby is still furnished with antique paintings, prints and furniture.

Rooms run from Classic to Exclusive and up to the Presidential Suite on the seventh floor: 130 m², two further Exclusive rooms and a 150 m² terrace with a Jacuzzi, taking in the view from Rapallo harbour to the Portofino lighthouse. Electric cars charge for free in the hotel garage, which is paid.

The Beach Club opens from June to September, 9 am to 7 pm. Its two freshwater infinity pools are about 14 by 10 metres, no deeper than 1.40 m, and one has six whirlpool loungers; the hotel says they are the only two sea-facing infinity pools on the Portofino Coast. There are also three outdoor Jacuzzis, cabanas and a jetty for boat trips to Portofino, San Fruttuoso and the Cinque Terre. Guests arriving by private boat can tie up and use the restaurants and spa.

The spa opens all year, with an indoor heated pool and hydromassage area, two saunas and two Turkish baths, plus a sea-view Technogym gym and a hair salon by appointment.

Lord Byron serves breakfast, lunch and dinner behind tall windows, among antique furniture. In summer, Eden Roc on the Beach Club terrace does lunch by day and candlelit dinners at night. The Sporting Bar sits by the pool, while the Yachting Bar, all warm wood and nautical memorabilia, stays open year round until 1 am.

• Treaties at the hotel: the hotel says it was also the setting for the 1920 Italo-Yugoslav Treaty and the 1922 Russo-German agreement.
• A 1914 film set: the terrace appears in "Battesimo di Nave", which the hotel describes as one of the first films shot outdoors.
• Melissa Rowe's watercolours: the English artist, a regular on the Tigullio between 1897 and 1909, chronicled the hotel in her diaries and paintings.
• Famous names on the doors: the conference centre is the Duke of Windsor, its halls are the Simpson, Duse and Soraya, and there are also the Faruk room and the Hemingway meeting rooms.