A Sicilian Odyssey

A luxurious tour of Sicily is even more enticing at the wheel of the new Bentley GT Speed Convertible…

High in the darkening Sicilian sky above us clouds pile up like boulders, their black bellies outlined in a brilliant white from the sun hidden above. We’ve never seen anything quite like it. No wonder this country is so religious — with a celestial display like this it’s easy to understand people believing in a petulant deity who smites sinners yet cares enough to cut through the darkness with his light.
Then comes the crackling thunder. Rolling north from the Mediterranean over the hills towards our zooming Bentley Continental GT Speed Convertible, the boom never arrives. I’m unsure if we outrun it or if the combustion from the engine overshadows its clap, what with the twin-turbo powerplant’s dozen cylinders firing their own boisterous orchestra. Even with the sound system turned off to enjoy the petroleum howls of the British coupe, the leitmotif of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” echoes in my head. The drama is high.
This is God’s Country. Or in Sicily’s sake, gods (plural), as over the past three millennia a pantheon of deities has claimed this land as theirs. Zeus, Thor, Osiris, Jupiter, Taranis, Yahweh and many more have at one point or another claimed dominion over this rocky outcrop on the Mediterranean. So it is with great piety that we whip the GT Speed’s 650 horses over these empty roads, deeper into the darkening valley towards the welcoming shelter of our hotel. Past vineyards we zoom at speeds well into the triple digits, top down on our ice-blue chariot, hair clawed by damp air thick with anxiety that the sky is about to burst over us like an overfilled balloon. Sure we could pull over and raise the roof, but what would be the fun in that?
Here we fear nothing. Something about the new US$300,000 convertible’s calm assurance removes any trace of unease. No inclement weather could wash away our joy. Just as we pull past the heavy gate of the Il San Corrado di Noto resort, safely under the valet’s umbrella, the thunder finally cracks open, and with it the sky, unleashing a flood of water. But it’s too late for Thor or Zeus to smite us as we take shelter by the warm hearth of the region’s first five-star hotel, to enjoy a meal by Ciccio Sultano, San Corrado’s 2021 consultant chef and owner of the two-Michelin starred Duomo Restaurant nearby.

Previously a vast olive grove, wine cellar, and citrus grove, the 34-room resort spread out over 14 hectares was inspired by the famed Aman resorts — specifically by their expert use of space, superb architecture, service and privacy. The vast pools, one bigger than a soccer pitch, and secluded nature of the well-appointed rooms are evidence that the homage is an unquestioned success.
A couple days later we bid arrivederci and slip back inside the GT Speed. Closing the Bentley’s heavy doors with a significant click, we fire up its W-12 engine and point the Winged B on our hood north towards Cefalù. A small village on the Tyrrhenian Sea dating back at least to the 5th century B.C. known for its UNESCO World Heritage cathedral, Cefalù boasts another five-star resort of an entirely different nature: the family-owned Hotel Le Calette, opened in 1969 on a cliff overlooking the turquoise waters of Caldura Bay.
Unlike our last day of motoring, this afternoon could not be more idyllic. Today the gods are happy. Piercing north from the southern half of the island is a driver’s paradise: while Sicilian asphalt is wellworn, the roads are utterly barren of cars, mopeds and bicycles as it’s a Sunday and everyone’s at home relaxing with family or at church. The magic in the GT Speed is its duality: one part muscle car, one part exquisite luxury sled. Not a milquetoast compromise however, eking out a bit of both but not quite enough of either to satisfy — when you want luxury the Conti dials down the testosterone, ties on a silk ascot and morphs into the most opulent cloud of luxury this side of the Flying Spur. When you want muscle, however, it unleashes into a 100% torque-twisting supercar.
Soon we are crawling along the narrow littoral roads of Cefalù, with its massive promontory guarding the bay, and glide to a stop outside Hotel Le Calette, with its bright pink bougainvillea tumbling from balconies down to a quiet pool overlooking the azure bay. The pearl of Hotel Le Calette is its beach club set in the cove, ground zero for studying the centuries-old Italian art of Il Dolce far niente — “the sweetness of doing nothing at all.”

Eliminate any and all ambitions. There’s nothing to do on the wide wooden terrace but drink Campari and tonics beading with moisture, read a dogeared novel and thank the gods for their abundance. There’s no breeze per se, only the occasional shifting of air; in direct sun your flesh sears in minutes, but under the shade of a wide umbrella the climate is perfection. Serene. The only sounds the lapping of small waves against rocks underneath. When you feel like it take a dip in the Mediterranean, the clear water creating wondrous hues of blue over the mosaic of golden rock that lines the bay.
At night you’ll find a lonely piano player tickling keys by the pool to no one in particular. Perhaps because it’s September, perhaps because travel is still not back to normal, but the Hotel Le Calette feels like it’s catering directly to your whims. We belly up to the bar, tell Tony the barman to make us something Sicilian. Then amble back over to the pool where only one other couple sits quietly enjoying the music, the towering promontory lit up, the sky inky black above. Every 30 seconds or so the beam from a lighthouse swings across the star-filled sky like a batter fouling deep into the stands.
It’s not easy saying goodbye to Hotel Le Calette as we prepare for the third and final leg of our Sicilian adventure. But the bustling tourist mecca of Taormina, long favoured by the jet set, awaits. Today we take it a bit easier. This seaside drive is as close as it gets to that scene in La Dolce Vita, the Bentley snatching the role of winsome British droptop from the Triumph TR3 — except that our 21st-century droptop unspools more horsepower than aircraft of the Triumph’s era. As we steer the GT Speed to Sicily’s third leg we engage the massage program, the front thrones kneading our soft muscles like calves before the slaughter. Through the 2,200-watt Naim for Bentley sound system the voice of Sade pours out of the 18 speakers like warm chocolate, the deeper bass notes occasionally vibrating our glutes via the kinesthetic shakers buried in our leather seats. The Sicilian sun shines in clear skies; everything is right in the world. As one of the most visited areas in all of Sicily, the medievalwalled village of Taormina has much to offer, with our twin destinations being the most attractive: a combination of Belmond resorts, one up high in the mountains and one down by the water.
After the long drive negotiating the vertical switchbacks of these cliffs, the sight of the former’s opulent terraced gardens — like something out of a Keira Knightley costume drama — feels well-earned. When the gates open up before us it’s almost like St. Peter is manning the portal. The town’s first hotel, the Grand Hotel Timeo, a Belmond hotel’ s lavish grounds embody a level of profound and palpable glamour that one fears has long left this planet. Experienced together with its sister property the Villa Sant’Andrea by the water, it packs a truly peerless one-two punch. One can sleep here in the lush elevated gardens of Taormina and shuttle down to the coast for a day at the beach, or do the inverse: stay by the water for convenient beach access and shuttle up to Grand Hotel Timeo to enjoy its more sophisticated and cosmopolitan luxuries.
Some point to Timeo’s Michelin-star restaurant Otto Geleng as a highlight, where Chef Roberto Toro’s exquisite creations are plated amongst a milieu that emulates a chateau dinner party. Or the rooms that could double for royal suites, with marble bathrooms, glimmering chandeliers, closets larger than some Manhattan apartments, and expansive terraces looking out to the sea, pool and gardens below. And those gardens… perhaps most evocative of the hotel’s unparalleled luxury. Verdant, filled with tree species culled from around the globe, and bursting with more flowers than a Colombian jungle.
But nothing resonates more than the Timeo’s famed Literary Terrace — a flagstoned perch overlooking the gardens and friendly terracotta rooftops of Taormina spilling out and down towards the Ionian Sea far below. Order a martini from the beautiful fin de siècle bar just inside, while the glass-walled room echoes with the joyous clatter of ice tumbling into champagne chillers, the sound of bowling balls nailing a strike in slow motion. It is nearing sunset, that euphoric hour which anywhere on the planet signals the beginning of the hero’s journey.
We sit in meditation, cocktail in hand, watching the sun set around the smoldering peak of Mount Etna in the far distance. Quietly taking in the same view D.H. Lawrence did while writing Lady Chatterley’s Lover on this very terrace, as have many other renowned authors, earning the bar its name. One thinks about this island and its profound saga of western culture, how many people and civilizations have come here and disappeared into record. All this history, all this time, all this beauty. You think about how this adventure all began — with angry thunder, deities fighting overhead, lightning and terror. Yet on this twilight not a cloud hangs in the reddening sky. Sicily’s inhabitants go about their business unconcerned, having long ago abandoned caring about the politics of the gods. ■

By NICOLAS STECHER

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