Donna Carmela Resort & Lodges

Donna Carmela Resort & Lodges

The eastern coast of Sicily is where the island lays everything out at once: Taormina, Catania, the Ionian Sea, and above all Etna, the largest active volcano in Europe, whose presence shapes the landscape, the soil, the wine, and the particular quality of light that painters have been chasing here for centuries. Donna Carmela is on the volcano's lower slopes near Riposto, surrounded by 10,000 square metres of subtropical and Mediterranean garden planted and managed by the Faro family, whose nursery business supplies the resort with an extraordinary density of species, more than 5,000 varieties of plants, that gives the grounds a lushness quite unlike anything else in Sicily. The 26 rooms and suites in the late 19th-century farmhouse are individually decorated with Sicilian antiques and warm, considered interiors, and the eight design lodges spread through the gardens are the reason to upgrade: bio-architecture structures with lava stone jacuzzis, private pools, plunge pools, and terraces looking out over the subtropical canopy toward the Ionian Sea or the volcano above. The Flora Lodge, built among the treetops, is in a category of its own. La Cucina di Donna Carmela draws from the estate's own vegetable garden and orchard, chef Piergiorgio Alecci working the Sicilian larder with technique and a genuine understanding of the land. The glass-walled wine cellar stocks over 300 labels, with a focus on Etna wines and the estate's own Pietra Dolce production. The Rizobar handles the art of the aperitivo with the same seriousness. Taormina is thirty minutes by car, Catania thirty-five, and the slopes of Etna an hour. This is a hotel for people who want eastern Sicily properly, the volcano, the baroque, the wine, the food, and a garden that makes returning each evening feel like arriving somewhere for the first time. The short version: Twenty-six rooms and eight design lodges in a late 19th-century farmhouse on the slopes of Etna, surrounded by 5,000 varieties of subtropical plants, with a kitchen drawing from the estate's garden, a serious Etna wine cellar, and Taormina thirty minutes away.