Sicily Season

If northern Italian men have a reputation for being passionate, then Sicilian men are crazy in love. For them, it’s fiery, instinctive, starry-eyed lust. At least it was for Guido Coffa when he first visited an abandoned estate house and its sprawling 40 acres on the southeastern slope of Mount Etna. The former engineer was so entranced by the property that he abandoned his jet-setting job and began renovating the crumbling stuccoed house into an eight-bedroom boutique hotel.

There’s no doubt that a lot of love has gone into Monaci delle Terre Nere (the name means ‘monks of the black earth’, a homage to the monks of Saint Anna’s order who inhabited the house in the 1800s and farmed the dark volcanic soil). Along with the old farm tools and bare stone walls, Guido has managed to maintain the monastic calm, which is juxtaposed with smart upholstery, Philippe Starck chairs and Brazilian artwork.

My friend and I arrived at the hotel just as one of the yoga classes held on the lawn of the terraced garden was ending. The memorable backdrop means that these are no ordinary yoga classes: one minute you could be saluting the sun as it shimmers over the Mediterranean and the next stretching back into a downward dog contemplating Mount Etna, which emerges, smouldering, from underneath you. It’s no wonder Guido and his girlfriend Ada are so calm and in tune with their chakras.

Mount Etna’s fertile slopes are the whole reason Monaci and its acres of fruit orchards, vineyards and olive groves are there. The volcano, one of the world’s most active, isn’t the quietest of neighbours. Its eruptions — the most recent was in April — have been well chronicled throughout history: Virgil described its ‘monster tongues that lick the stars’ in The Aeneid and George Lucas filmed an eruption to use in one of his Star Wars films. For Guido, Etna’s explosions are la montagna’s way of reminding locals that nature is boss.

Monaci is run with this very much in mind; everything that grows on the land, from succulent green olives to tangy kiwis, is shared with guests. It’s so organic and eco-friendly that it’s on Gwyneth Paltrow’s radar, recommended as a holiday destination on a Goop newsletter. We got a taste of it that night when we joined Guido and Ada for dinner on the terrace.

The locally sourced menu changes daily, alternating between fish and meat dishes. We landed a fish day and slurped linguine alle vongole with sweet pomodorini from the garden, followed by sea bass baked in a salt crust. The accompanying wines were all local, and Guido, a seasoned sommelier, explained that Mount Etna is being hailed as a ‘piccolo Barolo’ and is now Italy’s third most important wine-producing area. Despite our persistent appreciation of its wine, Mount Etna didn’t grace us with an eruption that night, but we were joined by the resident white owl who twit-twooed us off to bed.

Our room, known aptly by Guido as ‘il nodo’ (‘the nest’) for being so snug, was underneath the main house in what would have been the servant’s quarters. There was a warm, sweet aroma from the light chestnut flooring, made with timber from Etna’s forests, and the heavy oak doors, flanked by two giant urns, which blocked out the unrelenting Sicilian sun.

In search of a sea breeze the next day, we drove 20 minutes to Acitrezza on the island’s east coast. As you enter the old fishing village, a sign welcomes you to the ‘Home of I Malavoglia’, the family of fisherfolk immortalised by Sicilian author Giovanni Verga in his 1881 novel. The ill-fated seafarers aren’t Acitrezza’s only fictional legacy. Its shoreline is characterised by three mountainous rocks rising out of the sea, which are known as the Islands of the Cyclops, and thought to be the stones thrown at Odysseus as he escaped from a furious Polyphemus. Nowadays the rocks are used much more harmoniously and seem to be reserved for sun-worshipping men in Speedos, a sight that we admired from afar with a cooling mulberry granita in hand.

Back at Monaci we did our own sun-worshipping by the hotel’s infinity pool. In front of us, terraces of citrus trees tumbled into the glittering sea and behind us farmer Rosario, who looked like he could have walked straight out of a Visconti film, picked fruit in the orchard. Before we could doze off like lizards in the sun we were treated to some of his spoils — a bowl of giant cherries on ice.

Now that’s amore. ES

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EasyJet flies to Catania from London Gatwick from £31.99 per person one way, including taxes, based on two people on the same booking (0843 104 5000; easyjet.com). Monaci delle Terre Nere (monacidelle terrenere.it)