One of the greatest Italian actors, Massimo Troisi, best known for Il Postino, once said that the beautiful Sicilian town of Taormina, where the second season of the multiple-award winning class-war satire The White Lotus is set, had only one flaw: “There are few poor people here.”
It would be hard to find a better spot to set the story about overprivileged, super-rich holidaymakers staying in the Sicilian outpost of the luxury White Lotus resort chain. As with these guests’ sugar-coated existence, Taormina – which sits on a hill facing the Ionian sea, boasting a breathtaking view of Mount Etna – can feel like an artificial bubble compared with neighbouring settlements on the island, which is one of the poorest regions in Europe.
