Falisia a Luxury Collection Resort & Spa — Trieste, Italy

Despite its fabulous haul of beaches, culinary hot-spots and cultural pit-stops, Italy’s eastern coastline still tends to be a little over-shadowed by the wattage power of the Amalfi Coast. All the more reason to wallow in the good fortune that The Luxury Collection has just opened its eighth property in the country, a short spin on the yacht from Trieste. The 65-room Falisia sits snugly within the compounds of the €250m Portopiccolo Sistiana marina and residential complex, the latter terraced into the mountainous edge of the Gulf of Trieste like an ancient amphitheatre. The spacious rooms – all of which overlook the Adriatic, the piazza or the marina – are by Rome-based Lazzarini Pickering Architects and they bear more than a passing nod to Gio Ponti’s designs for ocean liners with their brass and bronze trims, fabric panels of Robin’s-egg blues, mustard yellows and burgundy, the soft angular lines of alcove armchairs, and stylised canopy beds, the latter inspired, we hear, by the Hapsburgs. This close to the border of Slovenia and Croatia, the scenery, climate and cuisine are rightly deserving of hyperbole, the triptych best experienced while lounging on the Falisia’s private beach with nothing on the agenda other than what to have for dinner.