Serving up Luxury in Sicily

Arrival on the Southwest Coast

Your Sicilian journey begins with arrival in Palermo, where our driver will meet us for the transfer south to Verdura Resort, the Rocco Forte estate set on its own long stretch of coastline just outside Sciacca. There's time to enjoy a late lunch, settle in and take in the grounds — olive and citrus groves running down to the sea, a long infinity pool, and the clay courts where we'll spend our mornings. We'll meet on court at 4:30pm for our first session together, an easy way to shake off the flight. Afterward, drinks on the terrace at Amare, then dinner there as night falls.

Accommodations: Verdura Resort, a Rocco Forte Hotel Meals: Dinner (D)

Courts, Coast & the White Cliffs

We'll start the morning with a 2 hour tennis clinic, or with a yoga session if you'd rather ease into the morning. Lunch is at leisure at the resort — local seafood or fresh pasta, depending on your mood. After lunch, we’ll cruise along the Agrigento coast to the Scala dei Turchi, the great stepped cliff of soft white marl that folds down into the sea. Seen from a boat, it's at its best: blinding white against the blue, and admired at a leisurely pace. Back at Verdura, we'll gather at the Sunset Bar before dinner at Liolà, the resort's Sicilian trattoria on the cliff top, where the pizza comes out of a wood-fired oven and the caponata is made with what's growing on the estate.

Accommodations: Verdura Resort, a Rocco Forte Hotel Meals: Breakfast (B), Dinner (D)

Pizza, Spa & the Ceramics of Sciacca

Choose between a morning tennis clinic or a bike ride out along the estate roads and the coast beyond. Lunch is at leisure, and the afternoon brings two distinctly Sicilian pleasures: first, a pizza-making class with a local chef, then an outing to Sciacca to browse its artisan ceramic workshops. Do both, or trade either one for the Irene Forte Spa: four thalassotherapy pools drawing on mineral-rich seawater, and treatments built around Sicilian botanicals grown on the resort's own organic farm. Dinner tonight is at Zagara, named for the orange blossom that scents the grounds.

Accommodations: Verdura Resort, a Rocco Forte Hotel Meals: Breakfast (B), Dinner (D)

The Valley of the Temples

After a morning on court — or the pilates mat, if you'd prefer — we'll drive east to Agrigento for lunch at Casa Diodoros, a farmhouse set inside the archaeological park itself, among the olive and almond groves. The kitchen cooks what the valley grows, and from the table it's a short walk along the Via Sacra to the temples. We'll spend the afternoon there with a guide: a row of Doric temples on a ridge above the sea, built when this was among the great cities of the Greek world, with the Temple of Concordia still standing nearly whole. Back at Verdura, we’ll embark on a late afternoon cocktail-making class. Dinner tonight is yours to choose from among the resort's acclaimed kitchens.

Accommodations: Verdura Resort, a Rocco Forte Hotel Meals: Breakfast (B), Lunch (L)

Across the Island: Etna & Taormina

After breakfast, we’ll cross Sicily to the northern slope of Mount Etna. We’ll visit Planeta's Sciaranuova estate, where the vines grow among old lava flows. We’ll sample the wines and Planeta’s own olive oils, then enjoy lunch with wine pairings. From there, it's an hour down the mountain to Taormina, where you’ll settle into whichever hotel you've chosen: Villa Timeo is Belmond’s newly reimagined private residence beside Grand Hotel Timeo, a few steps from the main building and with the run of the hotel's gardens, pool and spa. The Grand Hotel San Pietro is a five-star boutique hotel looking out over the Ionian Sea, with a spa, citrus garden, and panoramic terrace. The two sit about ten minutes apart, and we'll come together as a group each day. Dinner is at Osteria RossoDiVino, a small kitchen in a courtyard behind Palazzo Duchi di Santo Stefano, known for whole fish and a wine list well beyond its size.

Accommodations: Villa Timeo at Grand Hotel Timeo, A Belmond Hotel, or Grand Hotel San Pietro, Taormina Meals: Breakfast (B), Lunch (L), Dinner (D)

Taormina at Your Own Pace

Morning tennis clinics are followed by an optional lunch at Anciovi, at the Four Seasons's San Domenico Palace, with tables perched over the bay. The afternoon is yours to explore the charms of Taormina — the shops along Corso Umberto, the public gardens on the terrace above the sea, or an espresso on the terrace at Wunderbar, where Tennessee Williams and Elizabeth Taylor once held court. Or simply do nothing at all, which is its own kind of luxury. Dinner is at I Giardini di Babilonia, a walled garden of citrus trees and wisteria hidden in the middle of town, where the family cooks what came in from the sea and the hills that day.

Accommodations: Villa Timeo at Grand Hotel Timeo, A Belmond Hotel, or Grand Hotel San Pietro, Taormina Meals: Breakfast (B), Dinner (D)

The Ancient Theatre

Morning tennis clinics are followed by lunch and the afternoon at leisure — more shopping, more garden, more spa, as you like. In the evening, we'll tour the Teatro Antico, cut into the hillside by the Greeks and rebuilt by the Romans for their own purposes. From the upper rows, Mount Etna sits framed in the broken stage wall, which is why the theatre has been photographed and painted for two hundred years. We'll all gather at the Grand Hotel Timeo afterward for drinks at Bar Timeo  — the same terrace view that kept Oscar Wilde and D. H. Lawrence here — and dinner together at Ristorante Timeo.

Accommodations: Villa Timeo at Grand Hotel Timeo, A Belmond Hotel, or Grand Hotel San Pietro, Taormina Meals: Breakfast (B), Dinner (D)

Cefalù & On to Palermo

After breakfast we leave Taormina and drive the north coast to Cefalù, a fishing town wedged between a headland of rock and the sea, with a Norman cathedral at its centre. We'll explore with our private guide, then stop for lunch at Triscele, where the kitchen works culinary magic with fresh local produce and Sicilian seafood. In the afternoon, we’ll continue to Palermo and Villa Igiea, the Art Nouveau villa Ernesto Basile designed for the Florio family, with terraced gardens dropping toward the Gulf of Palermo. We'll then gather for drinks in the vaulted Igiea Terrazza Bar before dinner at Florio, whose windows run floor to ceiling and open onto the sea.

Accommodations: Villa Igiea, a Rocco Forte Hotel Meals: Breakfast (B), Lunch (L), Dinner (D)

Palermo: Palaces, Cloisters & Cannoli

A full day in Palermo. We'll begin at Piazza Bellini, where three of the finest churches in Sicily stand within a few steps of one another, and go into Santa Caterina d'Alessandria — a Dominican convent kept under enclosure for some seven hundred years, now open as a museum with rooftop walkways over the old city. In the cloister is I Segreti del Chiostro, where the nuns' ancient pastry recipes have been put back into production. Coffee afterward at Ideal Caffè Stagnitta, a family roastery just off the piazza that the Financial Times named among the best independent coffee shops in the world.

Then to Palazzo Valguarnera-Gangi, still a private home, where Visconti filmed the ball in The Leopard — visits are by arrangement only. Lunch is at your leisure at nearby Osteria dei Vespri in a corner of the same palazzo, with its cellar in the old stables, or Buatta is a few minutes' walk. The afternoon brings a tour of the Teatro Massimo, then gelato and time for more ceramics shopping before we gather for our farewell dinner at Alicetta, out on the terraces between Villa Igiea's gardens and the sea.

Accommodations: Villa Igiea, a Rocco Forte Hotel Meals: Breakfast (B), Lunch (L), Dinner (D)

Departure

After breakfast, transfer to Palermo airport for your flights home — with a backhand that's steadier than it was ten days ago, and Sicily already calling you back.

Meals: Breakfast (B)