Baglio Siciliamo Country House Adult Only

The Baglio Siciliamo is in via Petalo, at Lido di Noto, the marina of the baroque town: a few hundred metres separate the courtyard from the beach, and the same road carries on towards the Vendicari nature reserve. The old town of Noto, with its flight of steps and its honey-coloured façades, is about ten minutes away by car.

The property is an old late eighteenth-century palmento, one of the few built this close to the sea, restored while keeping the wooden beams and the walls of stone and brick. The rooms all open onto the internal courtyard or the Mediterranean garden, some with a private patio, and they have air conditioning, a minibar, a safe, a kettle and a bathroom with a large shower.

Pool, courtyard and massage area

The centre of the day is the pool, reserved for guests of the house alone and served by a poolside bar. Around it, the garden offers several shaded corners in which to stop, and the courtyard hosts breakfast in the morning and dinner at sunset, with a kitchen that works with vegetables from the garden, hand-made pasta and the catch of the day. The baglio also provides a massage area for those who want to add a treatment to the day.

It must be said clearly, because it is the kind of detail that elsewhere is discovered only on arrival: there is no spa proper here. No sauna, no Turkish bath, no shared hydromassage tub. The wellness on offer is the slow kind that comes from the pool, the shade and the silence of the countryside.

Access is reserved for adults, from eighteen years upwards. It is the right address for a couple who want the sea of south-eastern Sicily and the quiet evenings of an old courtyard, with the coast and the baroque towns a short trip away.