The beauty of a space out of time

“A place is never only ‘that place’. We are a little bit that place. Somehow, without knowing it, we brought it inside us…and one day, by chance, we got there” – Antonio Tabucchi

 

The coastlines on the mainland are like borders along the journey by boat to the Aeolian islands, like they tried to remind us that from that point onwards we need to change our rhythm. As the change of rhythm is key to deeply understand the authenticity and the true essence of this bunch of islands hanging in the Tyrrhenian Sea out of the coasts of Milazzo, a bubble of space outside of time where being is still prevailing on doing.

In the same way, you do not get to Signum by car. The car stops on the main road in the town center of Malfa and hidden silent pathways, walls covered by capers, wisterias and jasmines and prickly pears peeping out of dry walls are leading to the entrance of the Hotel Signum.

There are places that more than others are able to awaken special emotions and ways of being, places that are echoing with our most intimate chords and stretch the time for our pleasure of listening to ourselves, of admiring what is surrounding us, of embracing beauty.

Here luxury follows its own rules. It’s made of wide spaces losing themselves in the blue of the sea, Stromboli and Panarea on the horizon. It’s made of silence and nature’s melodies. It’s made of the Mediterranean scent. It’s made of people running towards you with a smile when they see you coming. It’s made of guests coming back home.

Fragrant gardens, stairs revealing fascinating hidden corners, lemon trees’ ceilings guide us to discover this cluster of ancient Aeolian houses where simplicity becomes elegance, where essentiality becomes beauty, where care becomes passion.

It hosts every year guests from all over the world, it has met people who there left a trace of themselves, it keeps updating to move with the times and it’s dressing up for special events but never loses its own identity, its bond with the island of Salina, its flavor of home.

A cup of coffee on the terrace, reading a book surrounded by nature, the smells and tastes of a refined cuisine, the notes from the piano in the library, the breeze moving the curtains in the room, the sound of water falling in the spa pools, the blue horizons that keep changing shades without ever being repetitive, the warmth and care of the smiles of who belongs to that place and the sparkle in the eyes of who that place has come to discover … all go on orchestrated by those invisible threads able to turn the beauty of a place in the magic of an experience.

 

 

Photo credits: Stefano Butturini