#5 in Top 20 Tuscany for An Anniversary · ★★★★★
Hotel Il Pellicano
1965 founding by Pelican-and-Patsy-Daszel, 50 rooms on Argentario cliff, the iconic Tuscan-coast.
1965 founding by Pelican-and-Patsy-Daszel, 50 rooms on Argentario cliff, the iconic Tuscan-coast.
"A cliffside five-star above Porto Ercole, built in the 1960s and an icon of the Tuscan coast: around 50 rooms in terraced gardens, a Michelin-starred table, and ladders into the sea."
Hotel Il Pellicano is the romantic-icon pick on this list: a cliffside five-star above Porto Ercole on the Monte Argentario coast, built in the mid-1960s by the British pilot Michael Graham and his wife, the actress Patsy Daszel, who named it after the California cove where they met. For an anniversary it trades on glamour and place rather than scale. The roughly 50 rooms and cottages step down through terraced gardens to the sea in an understated Tuscan style, and the hotel's signature is not a sandy beach but a sunbathing terrace with ladders straight into the Tyrrhenian. Dinner at the Michelin-starred Il Pellicano restaurant, with the more relaxed Pelligrill by the water for lunch, makes the celebration meal effortless. The honest trade-off: this is a special-occasion price in a fairly remote spot. There is no real beach, you swim off the rocks, and getting here means a drive or transfer from Rome or Florence rather than a quick hop. For a couple marking a milestone who wants a design icon, a starred table, and the sea at the foot of the garden, Il Pellicano is one of the most romantic addresses in Italy.
Ask for a sea-view room or one of the garden cottages on the lower terraces, closest to the water and the swimming terrace. The garden-view rooms cost less, but you give up the Tyrrhenian outlook that makes the place.
Book the Michelin-starred restaurant for your anniversary night and ask for a terrace table at sunset, then take a morning on the rock-and-ladder swimming terrace before the day-guests arrive. A sunset drink on the cliff is the photograph.
Hotel Il Pellicano sits within our broader Top 20 Hotels in Tuscany for an Anniversary list. It scored an aggregate 9.7/10 across the three editorial criteria, competitive against the field but, on an anniversary-specific factors, the angle above is what earned its rank. For the alternatives in the same Tuscany neighbourhood, see Porto Ercole (Argentario coast) and adjacent. For a different city entirely, see the related lists below.
Once your dates are fixed, aim to reserve the room about three months out. Suites with the prime view angle sell through first; for peak months, availability is measured in months rather than weeks. Suites with a private plunge pool or terrace, the very rooms behind this rank, usually vanish first.
Sign up for deal alerts: fifth night free offers, resort credits, and the upgrade windows we would book ourselves.