(Act Daily News) — With lavish Baroque villas, unique gardens, dramatic landscapes, historical artwork and a seductive vibe, Sicily appears to be the proper location for season two of darkish comedy collection “The White Lotus.”
The award-winning present charts the tangled, erotic and typically harmful adventures of super-rich vacationers staying on the lovely clifftop San Domenico Palace, a five-star resort operated by Four Seasons within the city of Taormina.
A former 14th-century monastery with distinctive views of the Etna volcano and shoreline, the resort is as a lot a star of the present as its solid of Hollywood and Italian A-listers. And, says its real-life supervisor, Lorenzo Maraviglia, it is a match for its fictional counterpart.
“The resort’s real vibe is very much similar to what you see and feel in the series,” he tells Act Daily News Travel. “It’s vibrant, it’s about Sicily — both romantic and sexy –and about our incredible guests who this year included Madonna and Sharon Stone.”
Made for HBO (which, like Act Daily News, is a part of Warner Bros. Discovery), the collection is filmed round Taormina, Noto, Cefalù and Palermo, however the San Domenico Palace is on the coronary heart of the intrigue and steamy liaisons that develop over the course of the seven-episode season.
And whereas friends on the lookout for their very own White Lotus escape may not get fairly the identical racy experiences, Maraviglia insists his resort will at the very least ship the identical degree of service loved by the present’s characters.
“The success of the series is based on the reality of what occurs in a luxury hotel; the interactions between staff and clients, and among clients, are very real,” he says.
But the “extreme situations like the two local escorts coming and going to entertain guests are part of the drama and theatrics that add a layer of spiciness,” he provides, insisting that issues typically occur at a extra sedate tempo — so far as he is conscious.
“We may notice if there are weird movements if a situation becomes obvious, but Taormina and our resort are places where such things usually don’t happen. It’s for families and couples on their honeymoon. Even if someone may have a weekend adventure, it is not perceivable by us.”
Visitors to the San Domenico Palace will discover it precisely as portrayed in “The White Lotus.” Those connecting doorways between suites actually exist. There are lush gardens for sundown drinks, fairly cloisters, a panoramic pool and a terrace overlooking the bay the place friends have breakfast and a Michelin-starred restaurant the place the present’s characters usually argue.
Not that Sicily is any stranger to frisson. The island has an historical Greek heritage of sexual freedoms — a previous mirrored within the collection, with pagan statues and non secular frescoes silently witnessing the rich friends’ extravagant actions.
Saints and prostitutes
“The White Lotus” season 2 is filmed within the San Domenico Palace resort in Sicily.
Fabio Lovino/HBO
Taormina is seen in all its glamor: the imposing historical Greek theater, the panoramic piazzetta, the pastel-colored dwellings, elegant alleys with cafés and shiny boutiques, the stylish eating places like Baronessa the place one bickering couple’s dinner scene is filmed.
The greatest suites within the resort, the place a lot of the present’s intercourse scenes happen, have plunge swimming pools and work of saints made by the monks who as soon as lived there.
“The decor, the rooms, it’s all original, what you see is real, even the staff uniforms,” says Maraviglia.
While Maraviglia could not have needed to discipline a number of the extra outlandish visitor requests that crop up in “White Lotus,” he says he is needed to take care of extravagant requests because the San Domenico opened final 12 months as a part of the Four Seasons chain.
“Some guests wanted to visit the Aeolian isles with a private helicopter and rent a yacht to Syracuse which is only an hour’s drive away,” he says.
Physically, there are solely two actual deviations from actuality — the seashore scenes and pictures depicting the friends arriving by boat. The resort, perched 400-meters atop Taormina’s excessive rocky plateau, has no sea entry. The non-public deck of a close-by fish restaurant, La Cambusa at Giardini Naxos, was used to movie sea-arrival scenes.
And because the resort has no non-public shoreline, the close by Unahotels Capotaormina resort is the place friends can take pleasure in solar loungers and umbrellas at a seashore membership carved right into a reddish cliff flanked by rock arches and sea stacks, overlooking the small island of Isolabella.
The islet, which additionally options in “White Lotus,” is linked to the shore by a slender strip of sand and is one in every of Sicily’s most lovely and widespread snorkeling spots because of its emerald-green, nonetheless waters. It’s a part of an archeological park and has a villa surrounded by unique vegetation that hosts a botanical museum.
Most bathing and underwater scenes have been shot on the public seashore of the picturesque fishermen village of Cefalú, between Taormina and Palermo.
Taormina’s bay witnessed real-life intrigue again in 1955, when a Polish heiress was allegedly drowned by her husband beneath mysterious circumstances stated to be linked to an inheritance.
Spats between {couples} in “The White Lotus” are additionally true to life. In 1967 a livid Elizabeth Taylor apparently smashed a mandolin over Richard Burton’s head on the terrace of their suite.
Plant pots and phalluses
The resort constructing is a 14th century former monastery.
San Domenico Palace, Four Seasons
There’s a whole lot of Sicilian lore in “The White Lotus,” alongside references to the island’s mafia connections.
A ceramic sculpture of a bearded Moor’s head is steadily proven within the present as an emblem of betrayal, a nod to an area legend courting again to medieval occasions. It’s stated one in every of Sicily’s Arabic occupiers had his head chopped off and used as a plant pot by a lady he had an affair with.
“This story embodies the Sicilian essence of love, passion and vengeance which are all represented in the ‘The White Lotus,'” says Sonia Bonamassa, San Domenico’s public relations coordinator. “She beheads the Moor because she loves him but he has betrayed her.”
These testa di moro ceramic heads are as we speak utilized by Sicilians as vases, lamp holders, citrus bowls and flower pots or simply to embellish rooms.
The mori are emblematic of Sicily’s Arabic heritage. Other native mementoes embody colourful pigne pine nut-shaped ceramics which can be believed by Sicilians to convey good luck.
“Director Mike White was extremely receptive of these local things, we’d joke about them and he included many of our suggestions in the season, like Italian songs, adapting his approach to reality,” says Maraviglia.
One tip that didn’t make the reduce, in all probability as a result of it was too excessive even for such an erotically charged present, was an area watering gap that the actors nicknamed “the penis bar.”
Bar Turrisi, within the picturesque medieval village of Castelmola close to Taormina, is crammed with objects formed like phalluses. “Bottles, watches, cups, everything,” says Maraviglia. Even staircases and ground tiles have penises.
Waitress Giorgia Ponturo says the (actual) resort employees and crew commonly visited after a tricky day of capturing and hopes the collection will draw vacationers to quieter, lesser-known locations round Taormina like Castelmola.
“This bar dates back to 1947, it used to be a brothel and gay hotspot,” says Ponturo. “Then the owner decided to adopt the phallus motif, which was an ancient Greek symbol of sexual potency and fertility, to reaffirm the virility of Sicilian men. It also brings good luck.”
Wild events and lavish mansions
The resort’s supervisor says real-life friends can anticipate the identical degree of luxurious seen within the present.
San Domenico Palace, Four Seasons
Some scenes have been filmed at a renaissance palace known as Villa Tasca, which is definitely positioned within the city of Monreale, close to Palermo. Set inside a lush park it has luxurious frescoes and statues, king-sized rooms and an unique pool-pond with recent spring water. Rented for weddings and personal occasions, it’s stated German composer Richard Wagner stayed right here whereas creating one in every of his masterpieces.
Another extravagant mansion featured in “The White Lotus” because the scene of an orgy is Villa Elena, which sits amongst olive groves close to Noto. It’s embellished with outdated tapestries and marble items and has an enormous pool jutting out of a temple.
“The White Lotus” pays homage to “The Godfather” mafia motion pictures, that includes the situation of a traditional scene — Castello degli Schiavi in Fiumefreddo, a chic fortress with a cloister. It’s a non-public property open to guided excursions and occasions bookings.
The better of Sicilian meals is showcased within the collection, too. Guests gulp down ricotta-filled cannoli, cassata muffins, gelato and arancini rice-balls. Characters commonly quaff native rosé and Martini. Two {couples} spend a wine-tasting day on the Planeta canteen on Mount Etna’s flanks, the place the volcano’s fertile black soil produces high bottles corresponding to Eruzione (“eruption.”)
Since the 1800s Taormina has been a VIP worldwide hotspot famend for its wild events and sexual freedom that harked again to the pagan Greek days when homosexuality was the norm. Anglo-Irish playwright Oscar Wilde was one frequent customer.
It is alleged Taormina might need been the birthplace of D.H. Lawrence’s novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.” The writer and his spouse have been friends at San Domenico Palace within the early Nineteen Twenties and the e book was apparently impressed by an affair between Mrs. Lawrence and an area donkey rider.
Global highlight
Unlike within the present, friends cannot actually arrive on the resort by boat.
Fabio Lovino/HBO
Locals hope the worldwide promotion of Taormina in “White Lotus” will additional draw vacationers to Sicily and enhance its enchantment as a Hollywood stage.
Giacomo Chillé of Discover Messina journey company plans to arrange guided excursions to the collection’ areas. “There’s enormous potential in cine-turismo (tourism linked to movies), we already take Americans to ‘The Godfather’s’ spots with tailored trips,” he stated.
Not everyone seems to be completely satisfied. Enzo Anastasi, proprietor of resort La Canna, on the offbeat Filicudi isle within the Aeolian archipelago, is worried about “dumbing down Sicily to a rich man’s Disneyland.”
He stated: “These American series promote and portray the usual super-rich people and their glamorous spots, which are not the real, authentic soul of Sicily where traditions and simple lifestyles survive.”
Taormina native Giuseppe Quattrocchi, proprietor of Le Bistrot du Monde restaurant, thinks the collection can be a godsend for Taormina’s tourism however says he did not recognize how Sicily was at occasions portrayed.
“When three guests go searching for their ancestors in a remote village and get kicked out by their alleged relatives, that’s the opposite from our inbred hospitality,” he says. “Also, the escorts and the reference to local criminal organizations depict a negative image.”