Lido Villeggiatura, Villa Sant'Andrea

Lido Villeggiatura is the beach club of Villa Sant'Andrea, the Belmond hotel on the Bay of Mazzaro below Taormina, and it opened to non-residents in June 2024 as the group's first standalone beach club. The setting is the bay itself, with Isola Bella and its nature reserve around the headland and the cable car down from Taormina landing a short walk away. The look is deliberately mid-century, taking its cue from the 1950s villa: blue-and-white striped loungers, Sicilian terracotta, and Etna lava stone tiling in the bar. Six cabanas sit behind the loungers, each with a tented veranda, sofa, minibar and its own butler. Day visitors pay from 300 euros for beach access with two loungers, an umbrella, towels and wifi; a cabana for up to four starts at 1,000 euros and includes champagne. Food comes from the hotel kitchens, with seafood lunches at Ristorante Sant'Andrea and a grill turning out pizza and whole fish. Programming runs well beyond sunbathing: sunrise yoga, spa treatments taken in the cabana, snorkelling trips on the house gozzo to Isola Bella, DJ sets and open-air film nights. It is priced for people who are not counting, and it makes no pretence otherwise.