Beauty, Decadence, and Chocolate: This Is the Most Elegant Way to Tour Sicily Inline

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    Photo: Hamish Bowles
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    Ettore De Maria Bergler’s amazing 1899 murals at the Villa Igiea in Palermo, the Art Nouveau masterpiece of architect Ernesto Basile.

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    Photo: Hamish Bowles
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    The 12th-century Byzantine mosaic of Christ above the altar at the cathedral of Monreale.

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    Photo: Hamish Bowles
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    A detail of a marble column decorated with mosaic in a cloister of Monreale Cathedral gives a clue to the technique.

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    Photo: Cristian Albu
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    Yours truly in the aboveground roots of the Moreton Bay fig (ficus macrophylla) in the Palermo Botanical Gardens.

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    Photo: Hamish Bowles
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    The ceiling treatment in the queen’s Turkish salon under the eaves of the 1799 Palazzina Cinese in Palermo, decorated—with amazing wit and brilliance—by Giuseppe Patania and Vincenzo Riolo.

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    Photo: Hamish Bowles
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    A reception room on the garden level of the architect Giuseppe Venanzio Marvuglia’s Palazzina Cinese, cleverly decorated by Patania and Riolo in 1799 in trompe l’oeil to suggest a roofless ruin with birds flying overhead.

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    Photo: Hamish Bowles
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    The entrance gallery on the piano nobile of the Palazzina Cinese, decorated in full chinoiserie by Patania and Riolo.

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    Photo: Hamish Bowles
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    Sicilian ceramics on the breakfast table in the simply beautiful country estate of fashion designer Luisa Beccaria.

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    Photo: Hamish Bowles
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    I’m loving this lemon-handled terra-cotta pot placed on top of a high mahogany cabinet chez Luisa Beccaria.

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    Photo: Hamish Bowles
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    Luisa found the house’s 19th-century kitchen cabinets intact, with drawers and cupboards marked for specific foodstuffs, and kept them in their original blue paint.

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    Photo: Hamish Bowles
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    Luisa has decorated her house with monastic simplicity—and great elegance.

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    Photo: Hamish Bowles
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    The incredible unsupported Baroque staircase from the 1763 renovations at the Palazzo Biscari in Catania by multiple architects including Giuseppe Palazzotto and Francesco Battaglia.

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    Photo: Hamish Bowles
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    An intimate painted detail in the otherwise overwhelmingly grand ballroom of the Palazzo Biscari in Catania.

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    Photo: Hamish Bowles
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    Luisa Beccaria’s lilac lunch setting at her Sicilian beach house. Heaven sur mer.

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    Photo: Hamish Bowles
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    End of the Sicilia odyssey: Yours truly in the shadow of Mt. Etna in the bucolic grounds of the Monaci delle Terre Nere hotel.