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With lavish Baroque villas, unique gardens, dramatic landscapes, historical artwork and a seductive vibe, Sicily appears to be the very best location for season two of darkish comedy collection “The White Lotus.”
The award-winning display charts the tangled, erotic and occasionally bad adventures of super-rich travelers staying on the stunning clifftop San Domenico Palace, a five-star lodge operated via Four Seasons within the the town of Taormina.
A former 14th-century monastery with distinctive perspectives of the Etna volcano and sea coast, the resort is as a lot a celeb of the display as its solid of Hollywood and Italian A-listers. And, says its real-life supervisor, Lorenzo Maraviglia, it’s a fit for its fictional counterpart.
“The resort’s real vibe is very much similar to what you see and feel in the series,” he tells CNN Travel. “It’s vibrant, it’s about Sicily – both romantic and sexy –and about our incredible guests who this year included Madonna and Sharon Stone.”
Made for HBO (which, like CNN, is a part of Warner Bros. Discovery), the collection is filmed round Taormina, Noto, Cefalù and Palermo, however the San Domenico Palace is on the middle of the intrigue and steamy liaisons that expand over the process the seven-episode season.
And whilst visitors on the lookout for their very own White Lotus get away would possibly now not get fairly the similar racy reviews, Maraviglia insists his resort will a minimum of ship the similar stage of provider loved via the display’s characters.
“The success of the series is based on the reality of what occurs in a luxury hotel; the interactions between staff and clients, and among clients, are very real,” he says.
But the “extreme situations like the two local escorts coming and going to entertain guests are part of the drama and theatrics that add a layer of spiciness,” he provides, insisting that issues normally occur at a extra sedate tempo – so far as he’s conscious.
“We may notice if there are weird movements if a situation becomes obvious, but Taormina and our resort are places where such things usually don’t happen. It’s for families and couples on their honeymoon. Even if someone may have a weekend adventure, it is not perceivable by us.”
Visitors to the San Domenico Palace will in finding it precisely as portrayed in “The White Lotus.” Those connecting doorways between suites truly exist. There are lush gardens for sundown beverages, lovely cloisters, a breathtaking pool and a terrace overlooking the bay the place visitors have breakfast and a Michelin-starred eating place the place the display’s characters steadily argue.
Not that Sicily is any stranger to frisson. The island has an historical Greek heritage of sexual freedoms – a previous mirrored within the collection, with pagan statues and spiritual frescoes silently witnessing the rich visitors’ extravagant actions.
Taormina is observed in all its glamor: the enforcing historical Greek theater, the panoramic piazzetta, the pastel-colored dwellings, chic alleys with cafés and shiny boutiques, the elegant eating places like Baronessa the place one bickering couple’s dinner scene is filmed.
The absolute best suites within the resort, the place lots of the display’s intercourse scenes happen, have plunge swimming pools and artwork of saints made via the clergymen who as soon as lived there.
“The decor, the rooms, it’s all original, what you see is real, even the staff uniforms,” says Maraviglia.
While Maraviglia would possibly not have needed to box one of the most extra outlandish visitor requests that crop up in “White Lotus,” he says he’s needed to handle extravagant requests because the San Domenico opened final yr as a part of the Four Seasons chain.
“Some guests wanted to visit the Aeolian isles with a private helicopter and rent a yacht to Syracuse which is only an hour’s drive away,” he says.
Physically, there are best two genuine deviations from truth – the seashore scenes and pictures depicting the visitors arriving via boat. The lodge, perched 400-meters atop Taormina’s top rocky plateau, has no sea get entry to. The non-public deck of a close-by fish eating place, La Cambusa at Giardini Naxos, used to be used to movie sea-arrival scenes.
And because the resort has no non-public coastline, the within reach Unahotels Capotaormina lodge is the place visitors can experience solar loungers and umbrellas at a seashore membership carved right into a reddish cliff flanked via rock arches and sea stacks, overlooking the small island of Isolabella.
The islet, which additionally options in “White Lotus,” is attached to the shore via a slender strip of sand and is considered one of Sicily’s most lovely and in style snorkeling spots due to its emerald-green, nonetheless waters. It’s a part of an archeological park and has a villa surrounded via unique crops that hosts a botanical museum.
Most bathing and underwater scenes have been shot on the public seashore of the picturesque fishermen village of Cefalú, between Taormina and Palermo.
Taormina’s bay witnessed real-life intrigue again in 1955, when a Polish heiress used to be allegedly drowned via her husband below mysterious instances mentioned to be connected to an inheritance.
Spats between {couples} in “The White Lotus” also are true to lifestyles. In 1967 a livid Elizabeth Taylor it sounds as if smashed a mandolin over Richard Burton’s head at the terrace in their suite.
There’s a large number of Sicilian lore in “The White Lotus,” along references to the island’s mafia connections.
A ceramic sculpture of a bearded Moor’s head is incessantly proven within the display as an emblem of betrayal, a nod to an area legend courting again to medieval occasions. It’s mentioned considered one of Sicily’s Arabic occupiers had his head chopped off and used as a plant pot via a lady he had an affair with.
“This story embodies the Sicilian essence of love, passion and vengeance which are all represented in the ‘The White Lotus,’” says Sonia Bonamassa, San Domenico’s public family members coordinator. “She beheads the Moor because she loves him but he has betrayed her.”
These testa di moro ceramic heads are nowadays utilized by Sicilians as vases, lamp holders, citrus bowls and flower pots or simply to brighten rooms.
The mori are emblematic of Sicily’s Arabic heritage. Other native mementoes come with colourful pigne pine nut-shaped ceramics which can be believed via Sicilians to convey just right success.
“Director Mike White was extremely receptive of these local things, we’d joke about them and he included many of our suggestions in the season, like Italian songs, adapting his approach to reality,” says Maraviglia.
One tip that didn’t make the minimize, most certainly as it used to be too excessive even for such an erotically charged display, used to be an area watering hollow that the actors nicknamed “the penis bar.”
Bar Turrisi, within the picturesque medieval village of Castelmola close to Taormina, is stuffed with gadgets formed like phalluses. “Bottles, watches, cups, everything,” says Maraviglia. Even staircases and ground tiles have penises.
Waitress Giorgia Ponturo says the (genuine) resort group of workers and staff continuously visited after a tricky day of capturing and hopes the collection will draw vacationers to quieter, lesser-known puts round Taormina like Castelmola.
“This bar dates back to 1947, it used to be a brothel and gay hotspot,” says Ponturo. “Then the owner decided to adopt the phallus motif, which was an ancient Greek symbol of sexual potency and fertility, to reaffirm the virility of Sicilian men. It also brings good luck.”
Some scenes have been filmed at a renaissance palace known as Villa Tasca, which is in truth situated within the the town of Monreale, close to Palermo. Set inside a lush park it has luxurious frescoes and statues, king-sized rooms and an unique pool-pond with contemporary spring water. Rented for weddings and personal occasions, it’s mentioned German composer Richard Wagner stayed right here whilst developing considered one of his masterpieces.
Another extravagant mansion featured in “The White Lotus” because the scene of an orgy is Villa Elena, which sits amongst olive groves close to Noto. It’s adorned with outdated tapestries and marble items and has an enormous pool jutting out of a temple.
“The White Lotus” can pay homage to “The Godfather” mafia motion pictures, that includes the site of a vintage scene – Castello degli Schiavi in Fiumefreddo, a sublime fortress with a cloister. It’s a personal assets open to guided excursions and occasions bookings.
The absolute best of Sicilian meals is showcased within the collection, too. Guests gulp down ricotta-filled cannoli, cassata truffles, gelato and arancini rice-balls. Characters continuously quaff native rosé and Martini. Two {couples} spend a wine-tasting day on the Planeta canteen on Mount Etna’s flanks, the place the volcano’s fertile black soil produces most sensible bottles reminiscent of Eruzione (“eruption.”)
Since the 1800s Taormina has been a VIP world hotspot famend for its wild events and sexual freedom that harked again to the pagan Greek days when homosexuality used to be the norm. Anglo-Irish playwright Oscar Wilde used to be one widespread customer.
It is alleged Taormina would possibly were the birthplace of D.H. Lawrence’s novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.” The creator and his spouse have been visitors at San Domenico Palace within the early Twenties and the ebook used to be it sounds as if impressed via an affair between Mrs. Lawrence and an area donkey rider.
Locals hope the worldwide promotion of Taormina in “White Lotus” will additional draw vacationers to Sicily and spice up its attraction as a Hollywood degree.
Giacomo Chillé of Discover Messina go back and forth company plans to arrange guided excursions to the collection’ places. “There’s enormous potential in cine-turismo (tourism linked to movies), we already take Americans to ‘The Godfather’s’ spots with tailored trips,” he mentioned.
Not everybody is excited. Enzo Anastasi, proprietor of resort La Canna, at the offbeat Filicudi isle within the Aeolian archipelago, is fascinated by “dumbing down Sicily to a rich man’s Disneyland.”
He mentioned: “These American series promote and portray the usual super-rich people and their glamorous spots, which are not the real, authentic soul of Sicily where traditions and simple lifestyles survive.”
Taormina native Giuseppe Quattrocchi, proprietor of Le Bistrot du Monde eating place, thinks the collection might be a godsend for Taormina’s tourism however says he didn’t respect how Sicily used to be from time to time portrayed.
“When three guests go searching for their ancestors in a remote village and get kicked out by their alleged relatives, that’s the opposite from our inbred hospitality,” he says. “Also, the escorts and the reference to local criminal organizations depict a negative image.”
