Monaci delle Terre Nere

Golf carts run around the clock at Monaci delle Terre Nere, and on 25 hectares of Etna's lower slopes they do the work a lift does anywhere else. The hillside was shaped long before them. In the 17th century the slopes went to the Discalced Augustinians, whose lava-stone terraces still hold the vineyards and the citrus orchards. In 2007 Guido Alessandro Coffa found an abandoned villa among them, restored it himself and learned to farm, and the six-room agriturismo it began as has grown to 25 rooms. Old wine presses and painted ceilings share the house with Flos lamps and B&B Italia furniture. One Junior Suite is glass on two sides under a timber roof, with the treetops and then the sea beyond it.

Recommended for couples who travel for the wine and the cooking, and for families whose children are past the buggy stage: the grounds are hilly, there is no kids club, and the biggest villas sleep 15. A golf cart takes guests round the vineyard and the farm to a tasting, a tour guests write about warmly. Dinner at Locanda Nerello, in the main villa, is cooked from both. Luce, for lunch, sits in the gardens of the sea-view pool, whose infinity edge drops away over the olive trees. Taormina is half an hour off on the hotel's free daily shuttle, and there is a helicopter for anyone who would rather see the volcano from above. Aqua Vitae, the spirit room, pours until midnight, and the carts are still running to take everyone home across the terraces.