Sleeping with the Finzi-Continis: Case Sgadari - 25 May 2011
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THE GUARDIAN: Northern Sicily's Madonie mountains are a haven for hikers and nature-lovers. Lovely, I'll just view them from this idyllic poolside at my hotel...
It is a cliche of writing about Sicily that you mention The Godfather in the opening lines, but the first thing that greets visitors to Case Sgadari is a horse's head. OK, it isn't on your pillow but on an imposing terracotta fountain in the cobbled courtyard, which nevertheless looks slightly menacing lit up at night.
We were immediately bustled into a bright dining room with murals depicting pretty dancing ladies. It could easily have accommodated a gathering of the Corleone clan, but we were the only guests.
We were presented with a hearty dish of meaty pasta, which we devoured like the tired and hungry travellers we were, only to realise that the rest of the animal was to follow as our secondo piatto. As we struggled to do our polite best by the poor beast, the cook, an elderly man, whose face had been carved into rocky crevasses by years in the Sicilian sun, joined us bearing a bottle and three glasses. Our tourist Italian made attempts at conversation impossible, but we shared a good part of the – as I remember it – delicious Sicilian dessert wine in amicable silence.
This was the second leg of our visit to less well-trodden Sicily, after a few days on the south coast (the less pretty, but arguably more interesting alternative to immaculately groomed Taormina and Cefalù). And now we were somewhere in the Madonie mountains, in the north. Our journey here had been long: it's not far from the coast, but the road had more hairpins than a Sicilian wedding. Add to this darkness, mist and the fact that the communes of Petralia Soprana (our destination) and Petralia Sottana (its larger, and lower twin sister) can sound very similar if your Italian is rubbish.
After supper our drinking companion escorted us wordlessly back across the courtyard to our bedroom in a large converted stable. Here was the sort of rustic chic the designers of the Toast catalogue can only dream of – iron bedstead, rug, heavy chest of drawers. Once the light was out we were plunged into the same darkness, in a universe before Toast eiderdowns, that the region's first medieval settlers would have known.
By daylight, at first just glimpsed through a small window high in the eaves, we found we were as much in the world of the Finzi-Continis as the Corleones: even the horse's head looked aristocratic in the sunshine. There was an idyllic "kitchen" garden (to call it such makes my own patch in Shepherd's Bush practically a litter tray), carefully tended and filled with the scent of rosemary and other lovely smells. A large terrace conjures up images of beautiful people in sharp suits and party dresses.
But best of all was the pool: where most villas boast pocket-handkerchief paddling pools, here was a pool in which to do solitary laps before breakfast, while staring out over miles of burnt-umber fields.
Breakfast had the usual delicious holiday stuff, but most memorably (for me at least) enough varieties of cake to fill a church fete stall – and we were still the only guests.
The Madonie mountains are, so the literature tells you, ideal for hiking, mountain biking, horse riding and nature watching. Sad to report, apart from one slightly arduous walk – which took in an ancient, empty hamlet with an ominous memorial to a mafia victim, and a village so sleepy even the stray cats couldn't be bothered to stir – we succumbed to the lure of having that glorious pool and view to ourselves.
We did, however, drag ourselves away to pay a visit to those twin Petralia sisters who had led us such a merry dance on arrival. Pinned like medieval brooches on the mountain spur, Sottana and Soprana are two of the highest and best-preserved towns on this range. I wish I could tell you that in daylight I could tell them apart, but they are equally enchanting.
Both are a jumble of narrow streets and buckling stone buildings (it's not for nothing that the tiny, plucky Fiat is one of the country's national emblems); it is easy to imagine Lampedusa's Don Fabrizio creeping down one of the shadowy alleyways to visit his mistress, or into one of the beautiful churches to confess. Magnificent baroque cathedrals, hoarding centuries of secrets, sorrows and treasures, stare imperiously out from the mountainsides.
According to legend, the Madonie mountains were where Hades abducted poor unsuspecting Persephone into the underworld, and there is something dark about the heart of Sicily, and a little bit dangerous. But this is what makes it so romantic – it is a world away from the seaside whiff of Ambre Solaire and the noisy glitter of beachfront bars, and, well, other tourists. And Case Sgadari, with its horse's head fountain, vaulted stable rooms and majestic views, is the perfect place from which to explore it.
• Case Sgadari has four suites, together sleeping up to 20. Each has its own patio and kitchen. The property also offers traditional local meals. A week at Case Sgadari in September costs €1,463 in a suite sleeping four or €5,850 for a party of 20 through soloSicily (020-7193 0158, solosicily.com). The nearest sandy beach is at Cefalù, 37 miles away. Ryanair (ryanair.com) flies from Stansted to Palermo from £72 return, or Luton to Trapani from £76 return. More information on solosicily.com/sicily-holidays
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