The couple, who are expecting a baby this summer, are part of a group of trendsetting young Brits who have discovered a hot spot they reckon is “the next Tuscany”: an “uncorrupted” area around the baroque cities of Noto and Syracuse, in southeast Sicily.
The advent of direct flights to the city of Catania, an hour’s drive from Noto, has helped this stretch of the island, rich in ruins for renovation, become a property magnet for British buyers, who have snapped up houses for as little as £30,000 in recent years.
David Harber, a sundial maker from Oxfordshire, spent £40,000 on 13 acres of olive, lemon and almond groves and a farm building outside Noto which he plans to convert into a holiday home for