I don’t have many things in common with Dua Lipa; aside from the fact that we both love reading, I don’t fill stadiums, I don’t have a critically acclaimed podcast, nor, as far as I know, does the whole world get excited when I post a bikini photo of myself. But this summer, Dua and I are going to have another thing in common: vacations.
When the first photos circulating online showed Dua Lipa’s honeymoon with Callum Turner, I had the strange sensation of looking at my own photo gallery on my phone. That’s Sicily; there’s the coast of Rome; that’s La Posta Vecchia, the peach-colored palace by the sea I’ve been obsessed with for years, and this is Porto Ercole, the small Tuscan port town where I had ended up by chance just a few weeks earlier. By pure coincidence, I had piloted the most talked-about honeymoon route of the summer.
True, my version features fewer couture outfits, fewer yachts, and one night on a ferry during which my boyfriend gradually turned green from seasickness, but the structure of the trip was surprisingly similar: Sicily, the Amalfi Coast, the coast of Rome, Porto Ercole and Rome.
This incredible route touches lesser-known cities and exclusive hotels that the chicest Italians keep secret; the kind of road trip that only a traveler with experience and with a keen eye knows. Well, we are two now, Dua.
I planned this trip with my boyfriend in May because I wanted to see more of the central part of Italy, now that I have already visited the north and the south. I was looking for that in-between zone: the places beneath the bucolic hills of Tuscany and above the lemon-scented air of the Amalfi Coast.
As a travel journalist with a soft spot for design-focused hotels, my route largely revolved around the accommodations, something that seems I share with Dua. The main course, in my case, was La Posta Vecchia, part of the Il Pelicano group. This family collection of hotels began in the 1960s when an Italian businessman took the reins of a beautiful property in Porto Ercole, which had previously been a meeting point for socialités, Slim Aarons–style. Dua also seems to be aware of the appeal of Il Pelicano, as during her trip she stayed at both La Posta Vecchia and the first Porto Ercole property.
