MOUNT ETNA, SICILY
The Rocca delle Tre Contrade floats like a pink cloud above a sea of lemon groves, the setting almost laughably idyllic, with snow-capped Etna smouldering broodingly in the background and the Ionian Sea stretching like a mirror in front. The Tre Contrade is one of the Mediterranean’s great villas, a majestic, elegant mansion whose interior is as tasteful as its exterior is imposing. It also makes for a fairly remarkable ski lodge.
The Tre Contrade was a ruin when, in 2005, a Norwegian-italian couple, Jon Moslet and Marco Scire, jumped over the rusted fence that surrounded it and carried out a bit of impromptu house-hunting. It must have taken a degree of vision to see the potential in the dilapidated mansion, though. The roof had fallen in and an oak was growing up through where the exquisite dining room now stands.
The transformation has been extraordinary, with the villa now offering 12 impeccably appointed bedrooms, a splendid dining room and a pair of kitchens (one of which is used by a series of celebrity chefs to give cooking lessons to the villa’s guests). In the sitting room, there are two huge fireplaces, perfect for when the temperature begins to drop in the evenings. It’s hard for a house this size to feel cosy, and yet the couple has managed to create a series of nooks and corners, perfect for curling up after a hard day’s skiing with a glass of one of the exquisite local wines from the cellar. The food is astonishing, made with fresh, local, organic ingredients. There’s a beautiful infinity pool down amid the lemon trees, the scent of blossom drifting over you as you swim, and a clay tennis court beneath the wildflower-carpeted walkway that was once the approach to the property – an elongated drawbridge to this magical castle.
Now to the skiing. The nursery slopes are a pleasing mixture of blue and green runs, with the occasional more challenging red. For more experienced skiers, a guide can take you to the top of the uppermost lift to then continue the ascent of the volcano on skins attached to your skis. You’ll journey through lava fields – from a previous eruption now hardened into dark emanations from the surrounding snow, with the peak of the volcano belching and billowing ahead – before reaching the exclusion zone around the caldera, more than 3,000m above sea level. The view is stupendous, a thing of mind-altering sublimity, of devastating beauty. The descent is equally magical – skiing between the lava flows, through gullies of deep powder, along ridges, across pine forests and over steep, untouched slopes of the most glorious snow. And at the end of the day, you can swim in the sea. It’s bracing, but life-affirming, and there must be few places in the world where you can ski down to within striking distance of sea warm enough to swim in.
ROCCA DELLE TRE CONTRADE SLEEPS 24 AND IS AVAILABLE
TO RENT EXCLUSIVELY THROUGH THE THINKING TRAVELLER (THETHINKINGTRAVELLER.COM) FROM AROUND £27,000 A WEEK