Sicily, Italy

Casa Talia

Price per night from$245.88

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR227.27), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Designers’ playground

Setting

Overlooking ancient Modica

Casa Talia, an intimate seven-room B&B hotel in the heart of Unesco-protected Modica, is the brainchild of two Milanese designers – who have used the hotel as a showcase for their classy stylings. Modern features complement a layout inspired by Sicily's rich cultural past, and the result is a laid-back retreat in the midst of the island's sun-baked countryside.

Smith Extra

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A bottle of good Sicilian wine

Facilities

Photos Casa Talia facilities

Need to know

Rooms

All eight rooms, including the two suites, are inspired by Sicily’s past – so expect Greek, Spanish and Arabic flourishes.

Check–Out

Noon – though a later check-out may be available, depending on availability; earliest check-in, 2pm.

Prices

Double rooms from £214.22 (€250), including tax at 10 per cent.

More details

Most rates include breakfast; those staying in Deluxe Suites don't have breakfast included but can purchase it for €20 a person.

Also

Modica’s ancient streets are more like the steepest of staircases, and the main car park is around 200 metres from the hotel.

At the hotel

Free WiFi, air-conditioning, beauty treatments and massages on request. In rooms: king-size beds, flatscreen TVs, private terraces (in all but the two smallest rooms, which share outside space).

Our favourite rooms

We love Il Mediterraneo, which comes with high ceilings, a cerulean wall, and ornate blue and white floral tiles behind the bedhead. We also like the pretty, feminine Sirah room, in which there's a beautiful bed dressed in crisp white sheets and an elegant lace coverlet. Its modern bathroom features a sink set on a gorgeous antique sewing table.

Packing tips

Make the word ‘lightweight’ your mantra when putting your holiday wardrobe together.

Also

The hotel has a minimum two-night stay policy.

Children

Kids are welcome at the hotel, and under-threes stay for free. Extra beds for older children are €50 a night, and babysitting is also available on request.

Food and Drink

Photos Casa Talia food and drink

Top Table

When it’s warm, ask for a breakfast table in the garden, where you can eat under the shade of the olive and pomegranate trees.

Dress Code

Country casual – open-necked shirts and diaphanous skirts.

Hotel restaurant

There is no restaurant at Casa Talia. Breakfast is taken at long wooden tables inside a cool, white cave.

Hotel bar

There’s no bar, but Viviana and Marco make sure their fridge (situated in a hard-to-find shed) is fully stocked with beer, water, iced tea and coca-cola at all times. All drinks are free.

Location

Photos Casa Talia location
Address
Casa Talia
Via Exaudinos 1
Modica (RG)
97015
Italy

Planes

The closest airport is Comiso (www.soaco.it), just a 40-minute drive away; planes arrive here from London, Brussels and Rome. Catania Fontanarossa is also nearby, 114km from the hotel, a 90-minute drive away. British Airways (www.ba.com) flies here all year. AST (www.aziendasicilianatrasporti.it) buses run to Modica, where you'll be within a short walk of Casa Talia (the bus journey is just over two hours).

Trains

The nearest train station is in Modica, a 15-minute walk or five-minute drive from Casa Talia, from where you can reach Syracuse in under two hours. Casa Talia will pick you up from the station for free. It’s possible to get to the Italian mainland without leaving your train; the carriages simply load onto a ferry across the Strait of Messina. See Trenitalia (www.trenitalia.com) for train times and prices, but railways don’t cover the whole island.

Automobiles

Casa Talia can arrange car hire for guests. The hotel is linked to Syracuse and Catania by the E45 and is half an hour from the coast. There is free parking just 200m from the hotel.

Worth getting out of bed for

Reviews

Photos Casa Talia reviews

Anonymous review

What’s more romantic than being a newlywed? Potentially quite a few things as Mr Smith and I are rapidly discovering on our Italian honeymoon. We’re en route to a Sicilian seductress, Casa Talia, and our jaws – still aching from the posing, pouting and pontificating at our nuptials – are locked not in passion, but in strife.

Modica may indeed be a beautiful, ancient city, but it’s a devil where GPS systems are concerned. Looping round and round the city’s tangled tapestry of streets, arguing over directions in the stifling August heat, I start to wish I had a knuckle-duster on my finger, not a wedding ring. Table-planning and dress-hunting never seemed so enjoyable.

After much ‘passionate’ debate, we decide that the best course of action is to abandon the car and lug our suitcases up the seemingly endless flight of steps that separates us from our boutique B&B. It is thanks to a kind, hoary Sicilian (you have to love the Italians and their generosity of spirit) that we eventually make it to Casa Talia, luggage and marriage still intact.

Passing through the heavy wooden door of the hotel has a calming effect: we’re instantly wowed by the lush gardens and blossoming bougainvillea – a stark contrast to the sandstone-coloured city we were just driving through. Casa Talia is our own corner of calm. Its views are pretty special, too: the hotel’s lofty perch means it surveys the many basilicas and stairs that make up this Unesco-protected city. Accommodation is split between a cluster of properties dotted along a cobbled street in the old Jewish quarter, so guests here get to really live like locals.

As we walk down the plant-fringed paths, escorted by the stylish owner, we take in the design details with admiring eyes: original exposed stone walls; hand-painted blue Sicilian tiles from floor to ceiling; traditional thatched roof. The only mod cons come in the shape of flatscreen TVs perched like silver birds on the richly painted walls.

Casa Talia’s owners, Marco and Viviana, undoubtedly know style when they see it. Their hotel is elegant and simple, its traditional Baroque design draws upon the city’s great history, and personal, ornamental touches are dotted around the room. The end result is an affectionately achieved hodgepodge of old and new – it doesn’t surprise us when we learn that Viviana is an architect.

Along with the decor, we praise the perfectly judged temperature – this is a cool-as-a-cetriolo sanctuary (a rather warm Mr Smith is almost purring). After going on a tour of the hotel with Viviana, all that’s left for us to do is settle into our soothingly understated room, which we do – starting with a snooze on the bliss-inducing bed (we’re taking our hotel-inspector duties very seriously).

Several hours later, we’re busy discovering how magical Modica is by night. The city streets would make for an atmospheric film noir: the architecture is mysterious and exotic, with Greek, Spanish and Arab influences everywhere for the spotting. Judging by the pizzas – crusty, sauce-drenched calzone and a seductively simple margherita we sample at a cosy, candlelit café – the food in Modica is pretty enchanting as well. Add a bottle of local red into the mix and we’re soon pleasantly befuddled. (This is all well and good until you factor in the winding narrow cobbled streets and twisting staircases touched upon earlier. Try remember some sense of direction.)

Finally back ‘home’, Mr Smith and I feel as though we’re in our own private Sicilian stronghold. We stake out the lush, perfumed gardens with minibar-plucked tipples in hand and relax under the stars, mesmerised by the golden light twinkling through the city’s night sky. So far, so romantic. Those vows we made regarding wedded bliss seem very sensible right now.

The next morning, the good times continue. Breakfast at Casa Talia is a treat. We sit at a snug little table in the hotel’s secret second garden, a lush wonderland that can only be accessed by leaving the main entrance and going through another tucked-away door, a few buildings away. We linger over berry-boosted granola, gem-coloured preserves, breads in all shapes and sizes, and deliciously pulpy fresh fruit juice. Relaxing music softly plays through the faux-stone speakers: further proof of the owners’ needle-sharp attention to detail.

Marco and Viviana live on site, so they’re on hand to chat companionably to us as we crunch on cereal and slather jam on toast – it’s as though we’re staying with good friends. Compadrés who review our itinerary for the day and add in their own expert recommendations while their little boy flits happily around us. Pals who rustle up beach parasols for us to borrow. Dear chums who point us in the direction of the best locals-only beach.

As we prepare to hit the sand dunes, we can’t help congratulating ourselves on this start to married life. There’s a pleasing symmetry to the fact that the last time we were in Italy, we got engaged (Palazzo Barbarigo, Venice, should you be interested). Now we’re here as a Mr and Mrs in Sicily, in the sunshine, with wonderful food and generous hosts at our disposal. Perhaps being a newlywed isn’t so challenging, after all…
 

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Price per night from $245.88