Excelsior Palace Hotel
Rapallo, Italy · 5-star Hotel Price swings 683%
Excelsior Palace Hotel in photographs
When to go
The cheapest month we have found is January, at around USD 297 a night - -37% against what this hotel usually asks.
Where to book
- Book on Booking.com - Free cancellation options, guest reviews and a familiar checkout.
- Book direct with the hotel - Usually the best price, and the only route where a loyalty discount applies.
- Hotel website - Photos, facilities and location.
Our notes
Excelsior Palace Hotel
The Excelsior Palace Hotel is a five-star-L hotel on the Portofino Coast in Rapallo, on the Ligurian Riviera. According to the hotel's own website it is the only five-star luxury hotel on the Portofino Coast, about 2 km from Santa Margherita Ligure, facing east over the bay of Rapallo and west toward the headland of Portofino. It has been a symbol of the "Dolce Vita" since the early 1900s, and it joins other independents in the Preferred Hotels & Resorts group.
The Beach Club is the main attraction: it has the only two infinity pools facing the sea on the Costa di Portofino, one of them with hydromassage beds, set on terraces and stone arches at the water's edge. Inside, the elegant hall is furnished with authentic antique paintings, prints and furniture, rooms and terraces look over the Gulf of Tigullio, and a gym overlooks the sea. A co-working space with a sea view and event spaces occupying an entire floor are also on offer, along with a spa and free charging for electric cars parked in the garage.
The hotel is a large historic palace rather than a small boutique address, so we judge it on its position and setting, which are exceptional in this stretch of coast. Photographs: the hotel's own website, excelsiorpalace.it.
The area
Rapallo has a habit of turning up at the edges of twentieth-century history despite being a small resort town. Two unrelated treaties happen to share its name: in 1920, Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes settled their post-war border dispute here, and in 1922, Germany and Soviet Russia met on the sidelines of the Genoa Economic Conference to sign their own separate accord, ending both countries' post-war diplomatic isolation in one stroke. Neither event left much physical trace on the town itself, which spent the same decades quietly becoming one of the Italian Riviera's preferred winter resorts for wealthy northerners, mild enough in January for the seafront promenade to stay in regular use, and home, since 1930, to one of Italy's oldest golf courses.
Rapallo's other role is as the sensible, less expensive base for seeing Portofino, twenty minutes along the coast and part of the same protected Portofino Regional Natural Park that covers Rapallo's own headland - a walking and boat-trip landscape of pine-covered cliffs dropping straight into the sea. The town's own seafront, with its small castle built out on the water on a rocky spit, and the cable car up to the Sanctuary of Montallegro above it, are worth a morning before or after the trip to its more famous neighbour.
What it costs through the year
| Cheapest we have seen | USD 288 ≈ €257 |
|---|---|
| What it usually costs | USD 468 ≈ €418 |
| Dearest we have seen | USD 3,488 ≈ €3,118 |
| Times we looked | 11 |
| Gap between the two | 683% |
| Last checked | 2026-10-29 |