“Caroline Phillips is a tenacious and skilful writer with a flair for high quality interviewing and a knack for making things work.”
It’s an earthly paradise. Mt Etna fumes theatrically behind, red molten lava slipping dramatically down its slopes, and the Ionian sea sparkles in front. Welcome to Monaci delle Terre Nere – the boutique hotel that’s pulling all the awards.
We develop a spring in our step on the island of Symi. No wonder – there are apparently 374 steps from its harbour, Yialos, to our villa. This is according to its owner, George Kalodoukas – an erstwhile sea captain – who sports a moustache that could double for a thatched roof. Regardless of his impressive facial decoration and his impossibly white Panama hat, his maths proves wonky. I count only 278 steps.
A small restaurant with big ambitions – that’s Kokkeriet according to its website. It claims also to be ‘modern and old-fashioned, innovative and traditional, decadent and minimalist, pretentious as well as humble.’ Well, that’s all bases covered then.
There’s something special about Sicily. As Vogue Editor Alexandra Shulman has written, ‘Oranges are more orange in Sicily.’ And as Goethe wrote, ‘The key to Italy is Sicily.’ Whichever way you look at it, this once-rich island, the biggest in the Med, is magical. It’s famed for its Baroque, Byzantine and Corinthian architecture, cliff-top villages, beautiful beaches, stylish hotels and superb cuisine. I experienced first the luxury of tranquillity and life in the slowest of slow lanes in agroturismo Il Vignale (a week in a way-off-the-beaten-track north coast villa), before taking to the road for a further week to round up the best of the rest of places to stay.
If there were a handful of Michelin restaurants in the Sicilian town of Modica and its immediate environs, that would be impressive. But there are actually two handfuls. Several eateries that are Michelin-rated, plus a couple with two stars, and a duo with one star. That’s just plain greedy when there are entire cities starving for just one Michelin restaurant.
There’s something extra fab about Sicily. Everything is just that bit hotter (or cooler), more beautiful, and more intense. As Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman has written, ‘Oranges are more orange in Sicily.’ Whichever way you look at it, this once-prosperous island, the biggest in the Med and the meeting point between East and West, Africa and Europe, is magical. Go for its global class gastronomy that knocks the socks off almost anything you’ve eaten before. Tip up for its beautiful beaches. Go to marvel at its Byzantine, Baroque and Corinthian architecture and cliff-top villages. And to chill in stylish and super romantic hotels and villas.
It’s a Sicilian paradise. He was, he says, instantly besotted and decided to dedicate his life to its restoration. That was in 2007 when Guido Coffa – a former automotive engineer – chanced upon La Monaci, a 19th-century villa in the foothills of Mt Etna, Sicily. It was then a working farm. Five years later, writes Caroline Phillips, it’s a very different story. It’s a chic, stylish boutique hotel with 15 bedrooms/suites in the villa and others dotted on the 40- acre organic estate. Welcome to Monaci delle Terre Nere.
It’s hard to explain how enticing Sicilian street food is. Grilled cow’s bowel appetisers don’t sound too, well, appetising. How about spicy spleen sandwiches or griddled horsemeat? They don’t immediately appeal. So, on a trip to Il Vignale, a rural villa near S. Stefano di Camastra on the north coast of Sicily, I don’t go straight to these hardcore culinary experiences. Maria, the chef, breaks me in slowly.
If you want a laid-back week, search no further. Alternatively if you’re keen to go with a group of friends to party and chill somewhere rural, simple and charming, this is it. Or if you simply hanker after a beach-and-countryside holiday, book this now. Welcome to Il Vignale, a traditional 1860s villa near S. Stefano di Camastra on the north coast of Sicily. It sleeps 15 in seven bedrooms, big enough to get lost in happily for days – and is one of many fantastic villas offered by soloSicily.
I’d like to go on a fitness holiday, but I’m not really into gyms and I find boot camps terrifying. I’d also like some pampering spa treatments. Do you have any ideas?
Especially since the arrival there at the end of 2013 of an excellent eponymous restaurant by André Garrett (please click here for full review). Plus the hotel has become super-appealing with its just opened, newly refurbished East Wing – the first stage of restoration of the principal bedrooms. Even the staff seem different – gone is their stiffness, replaced by making the visitor feel like a treasured house guest.
After years of being so-so, Cliveden – the stateliest of stately home hotels – now deserves a trillion regal curtsies. Prepare ye for a (rare) eulogy – because the hotel’s new leaseholders, the Livingstone brothers, have been making changes with oodles of fairy dust, cash and sophisticated taste, and they have pulled not so much a rabbit out of a hat as a voluptuous grande dame dressed in fashionable finery.
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