The best places in Italy according to Bellini Travel Founder Emily Fitzroy

One thing you’ve never told anyone about your travels? 

‘I often commit the cardinal sin of visiting a city in mid-August. There is something perversely intoxicating about spending a night in Florence, which transforms into a supremely efficient restaurant-quality oven in the summer. It gives me double the excuse to have an extra-long siesta. Then you wake and open your bedroom window at the AdAstra (the father of the owner, Betty, makes the best fireworks in Italy) and – wham – the hot dry heat smacks you right in the face. Wandering through the empty streets of the Oltrarno in search of an ice-cold beer, a bowl of olives and a gelato for my daughters, we find most, but not all, of our favourite places closed ‘per Ferragosto‘ My own family holidays are complete and utter chaos. I book flights for the wrong days, head to Italian cities in the searing heat of August, forget to renew passports and basically do the opposite of everything I tell my clients to do.’

Your favourite small and secret hotel?

‘The Grand Hotel La Sirena on the island of Filicudi. First off, I can hardly believe I’m writing about it, however to get there requires a considerable effort which I hope will put some readers off immediately. Filicudi is the penultimate island of the Aeolian archipelago and requires a day of planes, buses, ferries and finally a scooter (to bring your suitcase) to the tiny fishing village of Pecorini a Mare. The Grand Hotel is the beating heart of the village during the summer and where everything happens. Owner Sergio was a bit of a groover in Sixties Rome. I think he still lives in Lucio Fontana’s old studio during the winter and commissions young artists to come to the island each summer to paint a large mural on the exterior of the hotel. There are only a handful of bedrooms, modest to say the least, but in my eyes perfect, with their tiled floors and wooden shutters. This also appeals to my friends, especially the radical-chic bunch from Rome who have been coming here for years for a dose of La Vita Dura (the Hard Life). There is no fresh water on the island and the main diet consists of tomatoes, capers and, as far as I can make, vast quantities of cigarettes which arrive on the morning ferry to a round of applause from the villagers. On the ground floor of La Sirena is the restaurant; it’s where I go in the morning with my girls to feed them a freshly baked ciambelle (mini doughnut) and orange juice (the fruit picked from the trees that morning) and where I return to in the evening to meet friends for a cocktail and watch the children set up their stalls in the piazza below to flog sea shells and foraged aloe and seaweed to unsuspecting visitors. And if I don’t feel like swimming, La Sirena is where I could easily sit and watch the world go by really very slowly.’