Luxury Hotels Atlas / Places / Italy / Syracuse / Principe di Fitalia Wellness & Spa
Principe di Fitalia Wellness & Spa
Syracuse, Italy · Independent · Near Luxury
It used to be a plant for processing citrus and carrots, and the lemon trees are still standing: Femminello di Siracusa, the protected local variety, which goes into the breakfast marmalade and the toiletries in the rooms. The conversion buried 2,000 square metres of spa underneath, among the largest in Sicily, with an ice grotto, a Kneipp circuit, a floatation tank and a twenty-metre heated pool. Thirty-seven rooms sit above it, on an isthmus 800 metres from the Plemmirio marine reserve.
- 37 rooms
- Neighborhood: Isola Fanusa
- Rooms from 323 sq ft (30 m²)
About Principe di Fitalia Wellness & Spa
- The spa runs the old Roman sequence and finishes cold: hot room, then hammam, then an ice grotto to close the pores, with saunas scented in citrus and mint or Himalayan salt.
- The road the hotel stands on is named for the tonnara di Terrauzza, a tuna fishery worked since the fifteenth century. The Crown sold it to the Order of the Minims in 1689 and it stands in ruins near the shore.
- Ortigia, the island core of Syracuse and a UNESCO World Heritage site, is about fifteen minutes away by road.
- Entry-level rooms start at 323 sq ft (30 m²).
History
The hotel was made out of a working agricultural building: a plant on the Terrauzza coast south of Syracuse where citrus and carrots were processed, set in a park of orange and lemon trees. The conversion kept the groves, including the Femminello Siracusano lemon that carries IGP protection, and put a large wellness centre underground. The spa runs to about 2,000 square metres, which makes it one of the biggest in Sicily and in southern Italy: two saunas seating sixteen each, hammam and Turkish bath, an ice grotto, Kneipp and Watsu circuits, a twenty-five square metre whirlpool, a Vichy shower, a sensory deprivation tank, treatment cabins including an ayurvedic room, and a heated indoor pool twenty metres by eight. A 150 square metre Technogym fitness room sits alongside it.
Above are thirty-seven rooms and suites in a contemporary Mediterranean idiom, many of them large, several with a private jacuzzi on a terrace or patio and one suite with its own garden sauna. The kitchen works the local produce hard, not least the Femminello lemon, which turns up as breakfast marmalade, and the essential oils from the hotel's own orange grove go into the room toiletries.
The setting
The hotel stands on the narrow isthmus of the Maddalena peninsula, the headland the Greeks called Plemmyrion, eight hundred metres from the Plemmirio marine protected area and a quarter of an hour from Ortigia. This is old, worked country. Watchtowers went up across the peninsula in the fifteenth century against corsairs, and the tuna fishery at Terrauzza, which gives the hotel's road its name, dates from the same period. In 1689 the Crown sold the fishing rights to the Order of the Minims of San Francesco di Paola in Syracuse, and the tonnara was still listed among the archdiocese's assets in 1871. It kept working, on and off, until around the Second World War and is a ruin today. Eighteenth-century masserie and the last of the old field patterns survive in the contrada. The beaches of Arenella and the Pillirina coast are close by.
Restaurants and bars
- ippocampo restaurant — Restaurant · Authentic Sicilian cuisine interpreting the colours, scents
Experiences
- Mediterranean Wellness Ritual — Wellness ritual offered in the Plemmirio Spa, which covers 2,000 square metres.
- Ice grotto passage — Passage in the Plemmirio Spa based on an ancient Roman sequence through caldarium, tepidarium and frigidarium.
- Territory experience — Excursions around Syracuse to the Plemmirio marine protected area, Ortigia and nearby beaches; car hire possible via the hotel.
Amenities
- High-quality mattresses and pillows
- Luxury bed linen
- Soundproofing
- Adjustable and customisable heating and cooling
- Orthopedic pillows, Egyptian cotton sheets and aromatherapy on request
- Comfortable bathrobes and slippers
- Hairdryer
- High-quality organic toiletries with essential oils from the orange grove
- Kettle with tea and herbal teas
- Nespresso coffee machine
- Telephone
- Safe
- Fast Wi-Fi
- Satellite and SKY TV
- Equipped minibar
- Walk-in closet
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