The New Botanica Spa at San Domenico Palace, Taormina, A Four Seasons Hotel

The extroardinary Four Seasons experience in Sicily has just gotten even better as San Domenico Palace, Taormina, A Four Seasons Hotel unveils its new spa.

San Domenico Palace, known as icon of international hospitality with an inextricable link to the history and tradition of Taormina, has an exciting new addition: Botanica Spa with five treatment rooms and an indoor pool.

During the five centuries in which San Domenico was a convent, it was a place where prayer, contemplation and botany marked the passing of time. When the convent was expanded and transformed into a hotel in 1896, it quickly transformed into a stylish address, a favourite hotel for artists and royalty from all over the world. The Hotel’s new Botanica Spa draws from San Domenico Palace’s roots as both a place of meditation and serenity and of one of Italy’s great grand hotels with lush and fragrant Sicilian gardens.

Created by Studio Pisani Morace Architetti Associati, Botanica can be reached by crossing the Hotel gardens and taking a staircase parallel to the swimming pool. The space features some original columns perhaps dating back to the original cloister structure.

The choice of materials has also been inspired by the history and soul of San Domenico Palace. The use of stone and wood with textures and finishes recall the world of nature, alternated by the inclusion of fine Irish green marbles, whose chromatic palette reproduces the colours of the historic gardens where Botanica is immersed today, in a context that is the perfect partnership between history, nature and well-being.

Botanica’s menu features beauty and wellbeing rituals that are a secret mix of molecular aesthetics and herbal science; an aromatic journey that involves each guest in an experience of perfect harmony and aesthetics ideal for refreshing body and soul.

Inside the spa there is an indoor swimming pool, a female sauna and steam bath, a male sauna and steam bath, and five treatment rooms, including one dedicated to couples.

As in the past the monks cared for the gardens here for medicinal and officinal purposes, today the gardens stress their important role in the hospitality of San Domenico Palace, Taormina, A Four Seasons Hotel; the plants and their flowers become restorative elements, inspiring the names of the Spa treatment rooms: Zagara (from the citrus garden), Jasmine (from the Ancient Cloister), Hibiscus (from the Belvedere Garden – lilac version), Jacaranda (from the Belvedere Garden and from the Ingrid Garden) and Kenzia (from the Ancient Cloister).

Furthermore, to create a personalized experience, Botanica welcomes the face-body rituals by two well-known brands: Barbara Sturm and Gerard's.

Botanica's signature treatment is San Domenico Palace - a unique Sicilian experience, the most relaxing and enveloping holistic massage for a total feeling of rebirth. Among the body rituals, Botanica offers Stromboli, Etna, Taormina, and Naxos in a new journey through the beauty of the essence of Sicily.

San Domenico Palace, Taormina, A Four Seasons hotel, today welcomes guests in its 111 rooms and suites, to guarantee each guest a unique stay, among private plunge pools overlooking the sea, terraces overlooking the Ancient Theater, citrus and orange blossom gardens.

Botanica Spa is open to Hotel guests and external guests by reservation only.