Le Camere del Cortile
from €260a night
They open onto the loggia, so their light is the light off the courtyard stone — indirect, and cool until about four.
Six rooms · first floor
Ortigia · Siracusa
Palazzo Marzano
Fourteen rooms around a courtyard, on an island you can cross on foot in twenty minutes. The arches are from 1712. The shutters still do most of the work.
· Arrival
A house built around its own shade
You will not arrive by car — nothing larger than a scooter comes down Via Marzano. You come on foot, through a door that gives no warning, and then the courtyard opens: two floors of arches, a lemon tree that was here before any of us, and the noise of Ortigia cut off behind you like a tap turned off.
The palazzo went up in 1712 and spent the last century as apartments. We took four years over it. The stone was cleaned, not replaced; the shutters were repaired by the man who repairs everyone else's. What is new is the plumbing, and we would rather you did not notice it.
- 14
- rooms, and no two the same shape
- 22
- columns around the courtyard
- 0
- cars on this street, ever
· The rooms
Fourteen rooms, in three heights
The house decided the plan, not us: no two rooms are the same shape, and three of them are a strange shape indeed. Every rate includes breakfast in the courtyard, which is granita and a brioche, and runs until eleven.
Le Camere del Mare
from €340a night
Above the roofline. Open the shutters at six and the Ionian is there, flat and white, between two chimneys.
Six rooms · second floor
Le Suite
from €520a night
The corner of the noble floor: two aspects, a vaulted ceiling at four metres, and a bath set under the window.
Two · the piano nobile
· The table
Twenty-four covers, under the vault
The old stables are the dining room now — one barrel vault, four metres up, and no windows to speak of, which in July is the point. Nino writes the menu after the market and serves it at nine, the hour Sicily actually eats.
Tonight, or near enough
- Red prawns, raw, oil and saltoff the boat, 06:20
- Pasta with sardines and wild fennelthe hillside
- Tuna, cooked once, oregano and onionthe market, 07:40
- Ricotta, honey, candied orangethe farm below Etna
Four courses, €62. The wine is Sicilian and mostly from the volcano.
Breakfast is granita — almond, or coffee if you must — with a brioche still warm, taken in the courtyard until eleven. It is not a buffet. Nothing here is a buffet.
to
A day here
07:15
The water is twenty-two degrees at seven, and empty.
08:30
Granita and a brioche, under the arches, until eleven.
11:15
The street outside is four metres wide and full of noise.
15:00
The shutters go half over. This is not laziness, it is climate.
19:00
The heat lets go, and the sea turns up in the smallest window.
21:00
Twenty-four covers under the vault, and the market decided all of it.
Tomorrow, · The island
Everything is a walk, because everything is close
Ortigia is an island a mile long, joined to Sicily by two bridges. You will not need a taxi and you cannot use a car. These are the four we would send you to first.
Four minutes on foot
The cathedral square
A baroque front built onto a Greek temple — the old columns are still standing inside the wall, and you can put your hand on them. Go at nine, before the square fills.
Six minutes, and it ends at one
The morning market
Two streets of shouting, swordfish on ice and tomatoes in flats of twelve. Nino goes at seven; if you go at eleven you will still eat well, just later.
Eight minutes, at the sea wall
The freshwater spring
Papyrus growing at the edge of the salt water, which ought not to be possible and has been happening for two thousand years.
Ten minutes, past the fort
The swimming steps
Iron ladders bolted into the rock, and deep water straight off them. Go before eight and you will have the sea to yourself.
From Ortigia
Notes kept at the desk
Guests ask the same three questions, and they are good questions. We have written the answers down, because they are also the reasons the house is run the way it is.
· The journal
The shutters still do most of the work
The palazzo was cooled by its own architecture for three hundred years. We did not add air conditioning to fix that.
· The journal
Why dinner is served at nine and not before
It is the hour Sicily actually eats. Serving at seven would be for us, not for you.
· The journal
An island you can cross on foot in twenty minutes
Ortigia is small enough to have no shortcuts. That is the whole reason to stay on it rather than near it.
Whenever you are ready · Stay
The courtyard is coolest in the hour before dinner
Fourteen rooms is a small number. It means we can answer you properly, and it means the good weeks go early.
The desk
Ask about a room
There is no booking engine and there will not be one. Write down the dates and we will answer the same day, in a sentence, from the desk.
- Finding us
- Via Marzano 7, Ortigia, Siracusa. You cannot drive to the door — leave the car at the bridge and walk the last six minutes. Tell us the train and someone will meet it.
- Practical
- Check-in from two, checkout at eleven. Fourteen rooms, three floors and no lift. Dogs, gladly. Weddings, never.
- Rates
- From €260 a night with breakfast in the courtyard. Two nights minimum, all year. Dinner is booked with the room or not at all.