Ever since I watched The Talented Mr. Ripley at an age that was, frankly, far too young—despite the film’s sophisticated trappings, Jude Law does get brutally clubbed around the head with an enormous wooden oar—I have been a sucker for the glamorous promise of an Italian vacation. It may be a cliché, but the reason I’ll always return to Italy’s boot is that it’s filled with places that feel like they could exist nowhere else in the world, from thigh to heel; from the mind-boggling engineering of the Venetian waterways to the devil-may-care energy of Naples with its whizzing motorcycles and crumbling Baroque churches.
Still, nowhere in Italy has captured my imagination—and feels as uniquely its own place—like Sicily. A crossroads for various Mediterranean civilizations for centuries (and still to this day), its rich and incredibly varied landscapes serve as a backdrop for one of the country’s most strange and seductive cultures. The seafood pasta isn’t half bad, either.
Over the years, I’ve traveled to this sprawling island numerous times to write and update Vogue’s guide to its very best hotels—and in 2021, I was lucky enough to be one of the first guests at the Four Seasons San Domenico Palace. It’s a magical spot: Situated on a rocky outcrop on the edge of the popular tourist hilltop town of Taormina, it seemed to capture everything that has made Sicily such an enchanting destination for travelers from the Grand Tour onwards.
It’s little wonder, then, that Dua Lipa and Callum Turner have reportedly chosen the hotel as their honeymoon location, following their blowout wedding in the Sicilian capital of Palermo this past weekend. Fresh off their very stylish nuptials—Lipa wore a showstopping leather-and-feather Bottega Veneta dress for the welcome party, and a sheer Chloé lace dress for the day-after brunch, though her main ceremony dress is yet to be revealed—the couple were reportedly spotted at the hotel earlier this week, and were also seen walking hand-in-hand through the picturesque, bougainvillea-draped streets of Taormina.
Photo: Peter Vitale
Housed in a former convent that was first constructed in the 14th century—indeed, an entire wing includes rooms housed in the former cloisters, albeit with a few of the nuns’ cells knocked through to form more spacious living quarters—peeling back the layers of the San Domenico Palace’s past is a history lesson in and of itself. Converted into a hotel in the late 19th century as Italian tourism began to truly boom, a wing was later added in the Liberty style (an Italian variation of Art Nouveau) to house guests, including Oscar Wilde and D. H. Lawrence. Throughout World War II, it served as a headquarters for the German army. (After the war, it returned to its function as a hotel, attracting a breathlessly star-studded array of jet-set guests including Greta Garbo, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and Sophia Loren.)