Villa San Michele

Swedish doctor Axel Munthe's dream villa in Anacapri, with astonishing gardens

Villa San Michele is the most visited museum on Capri, and with good reason. The Swedish doctor and writer Axel Munthe built it on the ruins of one of Tiberius's villas at the top of the Phoenician Steps in Anacapri, filling it with Roman antiquities, medieval columns, and his own eccentric decorative sense. The result is a house-museum of remarkable beauty — part ancient, part medieval, part early 20th century — with pergola terraces that hang above the sea and frame views of the whole northern bay.

The garden is the main event: vine-covered loggia, sphinx-topped terraces, a small chapel, and the famous sphinx viewpoint 300 metres above the sea. The collection inside includes genuine Roman bronzes and sarcophagi alongside reproductions. Allow at least an hour; the setting rewards slow walking.

things to do museum
A story
Axel Munthe, the Swedish physician who built Villa San Michele, wrote about the island in his 1929 memoir 'The Story of San Michele', which became one of the bestselling books of the 20th century. He lived on Capri for decades, refusing to sell the villa despite offers from wealthy collectors, and donated it to the Swedish state before his death in 1949.