My escape to Marina di Ragusa

I recently visited Marina di Ragusa in Sicily. At about fifteen minutes a drive from Pozzallo harbour, this beautiful seaside resort in the province of Ragusa, which has about 2,500 inhabitants is a vibrant hub with its own marina with numerous accommodation facilities and amusement places. The ancient name of this area was Mazzarelli, which derives from Arabic meaning “small landing”.

Photo by juzaphoto.com

Marina is a small town that can be seen easily on foot, and from which, by car, you can reach wonderful locations such as the Nature Reserve of the Irminio River, the beautiful Ragusa Ibla, the baroque historic centre of the current city of Ragusa, the spectacular Scicli, Modica, Donnnalucata and Punta Secca, a town that has become famous through the television series of Commissario Montalbano, based on the books with the same title by the writer Andrea Camilleri. The beach house of the famous Commissioner is in fact located in the TV show, in a little villa in the small square of the village.

Every year thousands of tourists and visitors spend their holidays in this Sicilian locality, which is mainly treasured for its very fine golden sandy beaches and relaxing atmosphere. I like to visit at least once a year just to unwind, embrace the Sicilian surroundings and of course enjoy some of the Sicilian food and wines!

Hotel

This time we stayed at Hotel Andrea Doria which I highly recommend if you would like a hotel situated just along the seafront including a private pool offering excellent breakfasts, lunches and dinners daily by its team of in-house chefs with very friendly and helpful staff. It also has a great restaurant called Atletico Farina which is one of the most popular hangout places in the area, which large TV screens and therefore was ideal for watching some of the Euro 2016 football matches while enjoying their Mediterranean casual dining menu.

Tips: Where else to dine @ Marina di Ragusa

On this particular holiday we enjoyed a divine meal the Lido Azzurro Ristorante da Serafino 1953, a restaurant situated right on the beachfront. Serafino La Rosa opened the venue in 1953 and today his sons Antonio, the barman, and Giuseppe, a sommelier and a connoisseur of food and wines, have taken on the family business. The menu reflects the region. For lunch we enjoyed a salad of fresh tuna fish with Pachino cherry tomatoes. As second course we tried a fish soup made with the same recipe since the restaurant opened and a fried skate with Giarratana onions flavoured with Frappato wine. Superb!

One of the best pizzas we tasted this time in Marina di Ragusa were at Terrazzo Azzurro. You have to check them out if you are in the area and if you love pizza like I do! Also a place I recommend for a tricolore salad in between shopping sprees is Caffe Roma in the main piazza Duca degli Abruzzi.

A place I highly recommend for fish dishes is Il Delfino, very close to the hotel we were staying at and it is situated along the water’s edge overlooking the sandy beach. Here we had mouth-watering seafood platters. Amazing!

This time, we also enjoyed a few Campari mint Spritz cocktails at BEERbante, a small bar found along the seafront promenade, where they served us lovely platters with Sicilian meat and cheese appetisers included with the cocktails for just 6 euros per person. Thought I should share this with you!

The Look

While I was here, I organised photoshoots with lovely outfits which are all up on my blog now. There was the one called Sunsets in Sicily and also the other blog called Hello Summer! It’s Bikini time!

This outfit which I have not shown my followers yet is this dress by Roberto Cavalli which I paired with these black Michael Kors bag and wedges.

We came across this olive green Land Rover belonging to the “ Squadra Agonistica di Marina di Ragusa” and we kindly asked if we could take a few fashion photos alongside it for my fashion and travel blog. The Italians happily obliged, after which we went to enjoy a lovely pizza and Italian wine overlooking the beach.