Donnafugata Golf Resort & Spa, Ragusa, Italy - Hotel Review
A Noble Estate Transformed into a Prestigious Resort
by Becky Sue Epstein
Donnafugata Golf Resort & Spa in Ragusa, Italy
Spread out on many acres of countryside near the historic Sicilian town of Vittoria, the Donnafugata Golf Resort & Spa is designed like a small village. The lobby, lounges and golf club are clustered around the former country home of a marchese from Palermo. Spa and meeting rooms are set apart in their own buildings, while the 202 guest rooms and suites are placed in one- and two-story stucco buildings done in ochre, orange, gold and yellow, and lined up along three sides of a giant field, like an Italian town built around a swath of grassland instead of a piazza.
The entire resort feels comfortably livable; you don’t realize how much space the lobby takes up, for instance, until you count how many cushion-strewn sofas there are in the long, open lounge area. In the main buildings, four additional lounges are designed for TV watching, accessing the Internet, card playing and even small meetings.
There are separate restaurants for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and in true Italian style there is always a bar open for espresso (and drinks). Bellboys pilot golf carts if you don’t feel like making the trek from your room to dinner, and there is also room service 7 a.m. - 1 a.m.
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A suite with golf course view |
Outdoor pool |
Rooms and bathrooms are thoroughly modern and spacious, with light wood floors, contemporary furnishings and fixtures, and each room has a terrace or balcony for relaxing outdoors. Also standard are flat screen TVs with multiple-language cable; electric kettles with coffee and tea; fridge, mini-bar, safe and nicely designed double closets.
In the summer, the hotel runs a shuttle to two nearby private beaches.
Open less than a year, the Donnafugata Resort hosted the first ever Sicilian Open European PGA Tour in March 2011. The golf academy and operation is run by Spanish Sotogrande. A Gary Player-designed Parkland Course is Sicilian in style with carob and olive trees, and indigenous dry stone walls. Franco Piras’ Links Course is more Scottish: windswept, near the sea.
An NH Hotel, Donnafugata’s buildings and golf courses were under construction for five years before opening last summer – the hotel in July and the golf course officially in October 2011. The hotel is located in Sicily’s Ragusa province, about a 1-1/2 hours’ drive from the Catania airport.
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