A haven of style and peace: Dammuso KUKA on Pantelleria

I admit I have been a little bit lazy on the channel lately, but now that I am experiencing such a fantastic stay in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, I feel the urgent need to share it with my readers on evalitaonthego. As we enjoy travelling to Italy and especially Italian islands, we opted this time for the island of Pantelleria, which most people have never heard of. In fact it is closer to Tunisia than to Italy, but easily reachable by a short flight from Palermo. And what a revelation!

Typical houses on Pantelleria are called Dammusi and have their origins in ancient times. The first examples were houses made of local lava stone, built in dry construction, square and small. With the arrival of the Romans, the roof, which had been pulled down to the ground, turned into a dome. This transformation was the precursor for the construction of cisterns to collect water. The dome shape, which gave the roof more strength, allowed large quantities of rainwater to be collected in the cisterns, which was used during the long dry summers on Pantelleria. For the purpose of waterproofing, the roof surface was insulated with white lime, also for thermal insulation. As today many of these historic Dammusi are transformed into appealing holiday homes, we choose to stay in one of these, instead of going for a hotel option.

And our choice could not have been better: Dammuso KUKA – a haven of style and peace with an incredible view over the Mediterranean Sea and designed with taste and authenticity fully blew us away. Ana Cecilia and Matteo, the owner couple, live in Myanmar and we unfortunately did not meet them in person, but were connected to them via Whatsapp and gave us fantastic recommendations while one of their team members picked us up at the Airport and showed us around the incredible Dammuso. In their stylish interior design, the owners show a great sense for colours, textures and furniture, which would fit perfectly every “better homes magazine”.

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The kitchen in one of the buildings is spacious, full of light and does not miss anything. It is equipped for every need – from Nespresso coffee machine, to toaster and juice squeezer to an oven and open fire grill – but as we are too lazy to cook on holiday, we used it more as a working station to write some e-mails as Wifi connection was best in here.

Stepping out of the kitchen there are various outdoor seating options including the cozy terrace for a nice breakfast or the area around the pool which gives you a view to the Sea you will never forget. To avoid getting too much sun, we hang quite often in the seating shell with comfortable cushions – the ideal place to dive into a huge novel while no single sound of a car or any human beings disturbs one’s thoughts.

Dammuso KUKA is actually laid out for 4 guests, but we decided to rent it just for the two of us and did not use the second bed room. The main bed room is spacious, well appointed with a little open fire place and a cozy bed equipped with Frette linen, which reflects as well the owners understanding of high quality and taste. This is actually as well underlined by the amenities in the bathroom by Austrian producer “Be soap my friend”, providing natural, vegan skincare of finest sustainable and biological ingredients.

A great extra during our stay was the Landrover Jeep, that hosts may rent as well from the owners and with which we cruised every corner of Pantelleria island. The four wheel drive allows you to easily take all the steep and bumpy little alleys when driving through the nature, down to bathing spots on the sea or to the main city of the island to do some shopping.

12 days of stay in one spot seems to be long for some people, but we could have definitely stayed longer in fantastic Dammuso KUKA, enjoying evenings under a starlit sky with a glass of traditional Zibibbo wine in our hands.

More information and booking of Dammuso KUKA