[imagesource: Instagram / @fourseasons]

The dark comedy series The White Lotus is admired not only for its satirical musings and excellent cast members but also for its luscious locations.

The ‘White Lotus’ hotel in the second season was pretty much its own character, with its lavish Baroque villas, exotic gardens, dramatic landscapes, ancient art and a seductive vibe, notes CNN.

In reality, the hotel is called the San Domenico Palace, a five-star resort with unique views of the Etna volcano and coastline operated by Four Seasons in the town of Taormina in Sicily, Italy:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Sicily Insider (@sicilyinsider)

The hotel was once a 14th-century monastery and has honoured the paintings of saints made by the monks who once lived there – you’ll have seen some of the work in the series.

According to its real-life manager, Lorenzo Maraviglia, the hotel is almost exactly as it was depicted in the HBO show:

“The resort’s real vibe is very much similar to what you see and feel in the series,” he tells CNN 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.”

He added that all the interactions between staff and guests are true to reality and the hotel does indeed do its best to deliver the same level of service enjoyed by the show’s characters:

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 adds, insisting that things generally happen at a more sedate pace — as far as he’s aware.

The series might have sparked a successful hotel marketing strategy:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by The Dreammakers Agency (@thedreammakers_agency)

Mike White did an excellent job of turning this historical hotel and surrounding area into a Hollywood hit, borrowing local legends and lore, motifs, and exploits to make The White Lotus as rich as it comes:

The island has an ancient Greek heritage of sexual freedoms — a past reflected in the series, with pagan statues and religious frescoes silently witnessing the wealthy guests’ extravagant activities.

…A ceramic sculpture of a bearded Moor’s head is frequently shown in the show as a symbol of betrayal, a nod to a local legend dating back to medieval times. It’s said one of Sicily’s Arabic occupiers had his head chopped off and used as a plant pot by a woman he had an affair with.

Maraviglia notes that White “was extremely receptive of these local things”. Although, we have to wonder why he didn’t include the local watering hole that the actors nicknamed “the penis bar”.

You can find all manners of phallus at Bar Turrisi, in the picturesque medieval village of Castelmola near Taormina, which dates back to 1947 and used to be a brothel and gay hotspot:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Bar Turrisi (@barturrisi1947)

Surely this little-known spot would have done well to satirise the kind of masculinity that depends on the “ancient Greek symbol of sexual potency and fertility, to reaffirm the virility of Sicilian men”, as the waitress Giorgia Ponturo describes it.

The links and famous connection continue:

Since the 1800s Taormina has been a VIP international hotspot renowned for its wild parties and sexual freedom that harked back to the pagan Greek days when homosexuality was the norm. Anglo-Irish playwright Oscar Wilde was one frequent visitor.

It is said Taormina might have been the birthplace of D.H. Lawrence’s novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.” The author and his wife were guests at San Domenico Palace in the early 1920s and the book was apparently inspired by an affair between Mrs. Lawrence and a local donkey rider.

The show also gives a nod to other fascinating local shenanigans (and depicts the spats between couples rather accurately, too) like how in 1967 a furious Elizabeth Taylor apparently smashed a mandolin over Richard Burton’s head on the terrace of their hotel suite.

Nice one, Liz.

The main plot elements also seems to borrow from a real-life intrigue that happened in Taormina’s bay back in 1955, when a Polish heiress was allegedly drowned by her husband under mysterious circumstances said to be linked to an inheritance.

Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya, that you?

pic.twitter.com/jlgnbC4QP6

— Michael. (@yosoymichael) December 12, 2022

The only parts of the series that deviated from the truth were the beach scenes and shots depicting the guests arriving by boat. Those shots were filmed around Taormina, Noto, Cefalù, and Palermo.

Nonetheless, the San Domenico Palace is at the heart of the intrigue and steamy liaisons and is bound to become the new cine-turismo (tourism linked to movies) hotspot.

[source:cnn]