Four dream Mediterranean escapes

Le Mas à la mode

Le Mas Candille, just outside Mougins in the Nice-Cannes hinterland, has traded for decades on its lovely setting and a destination restaurant majoring in refined-but-classic bistro fare. Perfectly comfortable, but not breaking any style ground. In 2022 it was acquired by the Courtin-Clarins family and JP Cartier, a French tech entrepreneur-turned-hotelier, who undertook a complete renovation; a couple of weeks ago the Mas debuted its new face.

Cartier hired Franco-Mexican residential interior designer Hugo Toro to imagine a new design scheme that blends a bit of California gaiety into the Côte d’Azur cool. The palette is grown-up combinations of natural greens and earth tones in both restaurants, the bar, and the 46 rooms and suites, with lots of clubby dark wood and an overall effect recalling Hollywood’s Sunset Tower hotel (a good thing). Sounds like the Mas will hit its wellness note too: Clarins cousins Prisca and Virginie Courtin are personally overseeing the construction and development of the dedicated Clarins spa, called The Glow House.

A hidden Puglian gem

Hotel Piccolo Mondo opened in the 1960s, and has been run by three generations of the same family ever since. It’s perched on a bluff near Castro Marina, on the Adriatic coast south of Lecce, and its 32 rooms fill several terraces at different levels, connected by stone paths and staircases.

Inside, they’re devoid of extraneous fancy: you get a few pretty tiles, white sheets, an antique table or two, and panoramic views of the sea. The saltwater pool at the cliff’s edge has a bar and daytime outdoor restaurant. There is a tennis court and bowling green, and an outdoor cinema from June to September. Winding steps – 193 of them – lead down to a private bathing cove. This is old school as best school, proving charm trumps a huge spend.

High style in Sicily (with Etna on the horizon)...

Once upon not so long ago, Sicily was still Italy’s vacational outlier – an island that, bar the well-known resort of Taormina, was the preserve of the more adventurous breed of traveller. How quaint that seems: today it’s one of the country’s most sought-after destinations. Best-in-class villa specialist The Thinking Traveller started out here, and one of the first properties it worked with was Tenuta di San Giuliano, a gorgeous noble palace and heritage garden between Catania and Syracuse.

New to its portfolio this month is another house on the same property, with a style entirely its own. Villa Arboli’ is a single-storey, 200-year-old casa rustica given a chic and colourful design intervention that’s anything but rustic, from the lemon-yellow kitchen and turquoise-tiled fireplace to the burnt-orange walls. Four ensuite bedrooms abut a living-dining area that gives onto a terrace shaded by a date palm. The T-shaped pool overlooks orange groves; Etna sits on the distant horizon, ringed in its signature haze.

To Taormina’s new place to be

Taormina, meanwhile, is still contending with its post-White Lotus notoriety, but look to the right bits and you’ll find its charms intact. A good place to start: Villa Sant’Andrea, the Belmond beauty on the beach whose 67 rooms and suites and public spaces marry old-school and 21st-century cool (see the very chic bar the hotel inaugurated in April).

The hotel has just launched Lido Villeggiatura, its beach club. Beyond the sunloungers and umbrellas, there are a half-dozen cabanas (bookable all day, or for lunch or spa treatments), along with a full bar and bar menu on offer across the Lido’s shady sitting areas or at your lounger. All summer there will be programming, from morning yoga on the deck to DJs, live music and board-game nights on Sundays.

@mariashollenbarger