The Property
Inside: the voluminous main living area with its high white-beamed ceilings is seamlessly split into kitchen and living spaces. Each has two specular doors to the outside, ensuring light and airflow. The kitchen area is excellently equipped and features a large square table and chairs, both by well known designers. The kitchen leads out to a sheltered courtyard. The sitting area has comfortable sofas, a warming fireplace and stunning views across open countryside to the sea. It leads onto the terrace. The living area is paved throughout in warm, antique pietra pece, typical of the Ragusa area. To the right and left of the living area are three large double bedrooms, a single bedroom and two bathrooms with gloriously large, stone-lined showers.
Outside: i Lentischi is reached via a long, winding private road, and so tranquillity and privacy are guaranteed. On one side of the house is a walled courtyard offering protection when the wind gets up, whereas on the other the large open, shaded terrace has fabulous views down to the Vendicari natural reserve. The outside furniture is as carefully chosen as that inside, and we would be happy for days on end relaxing and moving around in this beautifully soothing paradise. On summer afternoons, when the lowering sun burns, one side of the house provides shade and splendid sea views.
The Area
I Lentischi is set in rolling hills between the fascinating Baroque town of Noto and the beautiful natural reserve of Vendicari. Noto is the most easterly of a chain of baroque towns now protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is also perhaps the most perfect of the baroque towns, which were all rebuilt in flamboyant style following a major earthquake in 1693. The Vendicari nature reserve boasts some of the finest sandy beaches in Sicily, which are pleasingly under populated even in the height of summer. Vendicari is also home to thousands of migrating flamingos, and sea turtles nest on its beaches.
If hiking in the hills is your thing, then there is some spectacular scenery in the rushing streams and waterfalls of Cassibile and at the Paleolithic burial sites in the dramatic valley of Pantalica.
Siracusa is just half an hour's drive away, and a day there is highly recommended to anybody spending a week or two at I Lentischi. A little further afield, the other baroque towns of Modica, Ragusa and Scicli are easily reachable in a day.