Six rooms · first floor, on the loggia
Le Camere del Cortile
From €260 a night, breakfast in the courtyard
They open onto the loggia, so their light is the light off the courtyard stone: indirect, and cool until about four.
Cool until four
Ortigia · Siracusa ·
Palazzo Marzano
Fourteen rooms around a courtyard of twenty-two columns, from €260 a night with breakfast. The arches are from 1712, and the shutters still do most of the work.
· Arrival
A house built around its own shade
- rooms, and no two the same shape
- 14
- columns around the courtyard
- 22
- cars on this street, ever
- 0
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.
· The rooms
Six on the loggia, six above the roofline, two on the corner
No two of the fourteen rooms are the same shape, because the plan is the 1712 house's and the walls run a metre thick. Every rate includes breakfast in the courtyard, served until eleven.
Six rooms · second floor
Le Camere del Mare
From €340 a night, breakfast in the courtyard
Above the roofline. Open the shutters at six and the Ionian is there, flat and white, between two chimneys.
Room 9, at half past eleven
Two · the corner of the first floor
Le Suite
From €520 a night, breakfast in the courtyard
Two aspects, a vaulted ceiling at five metres, and a stone basin under a window that has the sea in it.
A vault at five metres
Ask the desk which one is free
The rooms have air conditioning. Between the stone and the shutters, you will switch it on perhaps four nights in August.
· The table
Twenty-four covers, under the vault
The old stables are the dining room now: one barrel vault, four metres up, and shutters on every window that stay closed until the light goes, which in July is the point.
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.
Sicily eats at nine. Nino cooks once, for a full room, from what the market had that morning.
Breakfast is granita (almond, or coffee if you must) with a brioche still warm, taken in the courtyard. It is brought to the table.
A day here, 07:15 to 21:00
Tomorrow, · The island
In minutes, from our door
The door · Via Marzano 7
Ortigia is about a kilometre end to end, joined to the rest of Siracusa by bridges. Everything here is on foot from our door, timed at a Sicilian pace. You will not need a taxi.
Four minutes
The cathedral square
A baroque front built onto a Greek temple; the old columns still stand inside the wall. Go at nine, before the square fills.
Six minutes, until one
The morning market
Two streets of swordfish on ice and tomatoes in flats of twelve. Nino is there when it opens.
Eight minutes, at the sea wall
The freshwater spring
Papyrus growing at the edge of salt water, as it has for two thousand years.
Ten minutes, past the fort
The swimming steps
Iron ladders bolted into the rock and deep water straight off them. Before eight, the sea is yours.
Before · The desk answers today
The courtyard is coolest in the hour before dinner
The desk · reply card
Ask about a room
Fourteen rooms is a small number. It means we can answer you properly, and it means the good weeks go early.
- Finding us
- Via Marzano 7, Ortigia, Siracusa. You cannot drive to the door. Leave the car at the bridge and walk the last seven 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.