There are places you remember for their stunning luxury, or their fabulous locations: I remember the Villa Aurea for it wonderfully charming owner, Enrico Caruso, who welcomed me, on one of those stiflingly hot Sicilian days when it feels like the very air is on fire, alive and kicking under your feet, with open arms and impeccable English.

 

He reminded me, in his enthusiasm, of one of those people who ‘want to practice their English’ and then it turns out that their English is better than yours.

 

I stayed in the suite, an obvious upgrade from the regular rooms (a friend staying adjacent said he was ‘extremely jealous’ but forgave me). The suite can easily take four people: there is a large bed, a double sofa bed which was uncomfortable but afforded a view on to the huge terrace (and therefore natural light which I cannot be without) and a very large lounge and dining room, complete with flat screen television. Amazingly enough, it has a writer’s aura within it, with its wonderful wooden desk and a wall full of magazines and books behind it.

 

The suite is not posh by any means and it is even a little bedraggled in some areas. Some of it is decked with stuff the owners obviously brought over from their own house. This includes a trophy.

 

Yet inside the lounge, right next to the sofa bed, there is a fireplace, which must be glorious in winter. I’ve always wanted to sleep right next to a real fire. The pool outside is lovely and huge. There is a lawn and a sunbathing terrace and right on my terrace, a full-blown barbeque.

 

The bathroom is basic, with those tiny soaps which the previous generation always used to preserve to bring back home but which hardly suffice these days. Nonetheless it is stupendously clean, everything works comfortably and as it should.

 

For the price – around €50 a night – the Villa Aurea, with its silence, its beautiful surroundings and its brilliant proximity to Pozzallo, is an absolutely brilliant place to stay at when over for a couple of days in Sicily. I highly recommend it.