Reserving a lodge as a result of The White Lotus made it look good was only the start. The expanded model of set-jetting entails volcanic wine nation, an invitation-only whisky room in Edinburgh and a Slovenian cellar the place the bear salami is aged by the moon.
These are the European locations price constructing a visit round — and the movies to reference earlier than and after the expertise.
Sicily: For wine lovers
In 1971, Francis Ford Coppola couldn’t shoot in Corleone — it regarded too trendy. He moved east, to the hillside villages of Savoca and Forza d’Agro close to Taormina, and unintentionally gave Sicily a cinematic id that has by no means worn off. Bar Vitelli, the place Pacino’s Michael Corleone first noticed Apollonia, nonetheless serves granita below the identical vine-covered terrace. The Church of San Nicolo, the place they married, nonetheless stands on the finish of the identical cliffside road. “White Lotus” Season 2 doubled down on Taormina and launched the Etna wine nation to a technology of viewers who hadn’t discovered it but.
On Etna’s slopes, the Benanti and Tornatore wineries produce nerello mascalese and carricante from vines rooted in volcanic soil, not like anything rising in Europe proper now. Planeta handles the broader training, with wines which have develop into reference factors for the entire island. The place to remain is Monaci delle Terre Nere, a former Seventeenth-century Augustinian monastery that Guido Coffa spent years changing right into a Relais & Chateaux wine property — 62 acres of vineyards, citrus orchards and lava-stone terraces, with a kitchen that lives and dies by what the farm produces that morning. Earlier than leaving the realm, lunch or dinner at Anciovi, the poolside seafood restaurant at San Domenico Palace — the 4 Seasons the place The White Lotus was truly filmed — is necessary.
Venice: For artwork lovers
Steven Spielberg used Venice nicely in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989) — the Grand Canal boat chase and Campo San Barnaba doubling as a library. The town hasn’t modified its method since. In 2026, the Venice Biennale brings the worldwide artwork world again to the one metropolis that has been staging this sort of factor since earlier than the idea existed. The Giardini pavilions and Arsenale are the intense work — formally formidable and infrequently politically uncomfortable. The collateral exhibitions in palazzos and deconsecrated church buildings throughout all six sestieri are the place the very best discoveries occur.
The St. Regis Venice on the Grand Canal close to the Accademia Bridge handles town’s logistical complexity with out making a fuss about it — the butler service is good to simplify each want in a metropolis the place nothing is easy. Dinner at Airelles Venezia on the new ABC Kitchen is an absolute should.
Slovenia: For meals lovers
AS Boutique Lodge, courtesy of AS Boutique Lodge
Ljubljana is small, walkable and layered — a fortress on the hill, a lined market by the river, an architectural confidence that punches nicely above town’s dimension. Jaz by Ana Ros, which opened in 2023 contained in the AS Boutique Lodge on Copova ulica, is the meal price planning round. “JAZ” is Slovenian for “I” — that is Ros unencumbered by the stress of Hisa Franko, her three-Michelin-star vacation spot restaurant within the Soca Valley. No tasting menus. Shared plates. A menu that adjustments every day primarily based on what got here in from the Ljubljana market that morning and what Ros felt like cooking.
The AS Boutique Lodge has 30 rooms designed by Ofis Architects with views to the fortress. The important tour is to the Ribnica Valley, 45 minutes south, the place David Lesar runs BioSing out of an underground cellar. Lesar cures bear, deer and pork into salamis aged in line with lunar phases in clay-lined chambers — no components, no industrial shortcuts, nothing that didn’t exist in 1492 when the Ribnica Valley first began buying and selling. Ros serves the merchandise at Hisa Franko. The tasting in Lesar’s cellar, paired with wines from his 10,000-bottle non-public assortment, is without doubt one of the extra theatrical meals experiences out there wherever in Europe.
Puglia: For Agritourism lovers
“No Time to Die” (2021) used the ravine metropolis of Gravina in Puglia for considered one of its motion sequences. The area has absorbed a decade of being found and are available out intact. The appropriate base in 2026 is Tenuta Negroamaro, a 10-suite property close to Gallipoli on the Ionian coast — seven hectares of pine woods and red-soil gardens, interiors by designer Olga Ashby, non-public plunge swimming pools and a kitchen sourcing from the property. It sits in Salento, the quieter southern finish of the area, the place the tempo is slower.
Amsterdam: For structure lovers
George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones had been all in Amsterdam in 2003 filming “Ocean’s Twelve” with Soderbergh utilizing the 9 Streets canal homes as his backdrop.
Rosewood Amsterdam, which opened within the former Palace of Justice on the Prinsengracht, is the place the business crowd ought to keep. Studio Piet Boon dealt with the design; Kunstmest Consulting curated practically 1,000 works throughout 4 deliberate themes. Re-Masters pairs up to date artists towards the Dutch golden age — assume Viviane Sassen in dialogue with Vermeer’s legacy. Modern Media places digital works on a big foyer display screen in collaboration with Amsterdam’s Nxt Museum. City Artwork covers the road tradition. Frank Stella’s Polish Village reliefs and Maarten Baas’ Grandfather Clocks are among the many signature items, and guided artwork walks run alongside rotating exhibitions in The Gallery.
Belgrade: For off-the-beaten-path lovers
Ralph Fiennes selected Belgrade to shoot “Coriolanus” (2011), his directorial debut — filming within the Serbian parliament constructing, throughout town’s bridges and thru a streetscape that compresses medieval, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and Socialist modernist structure right into a single sightline. Fiennes mentioned town’s spirit drew him first and the areas confirmed it.
The Bristol Belgrade opened in 1912 as probably the most glamorous handle within the Savamala district and spent the higher a part of a century dwelling as much as it — the Rockefellers had a collection named for them, Tito was an everyday, Garry Kasparov performed chess right here. After closing in 2018 and spending two and a half years below the arms of 16 restoration artists working alongside Belgrade’s cultural monuments institute, it reopened in early 2025 as a five-star unbiased property with 143 rooms, a Michelin Key and an Artwork Nouveau Secession facade that appears precisely as Nikola Nestorovic designed it in 1912. The Library is the room to know — fire, books, the fitting environment for a metropolis that rewards the lengthy night.
Scotland: For whisky lovers
Hendrick’s Gin Palace, courtesy of Hendrick’s Gin Palace
Sam Mendes shot the Glencoe sequences of “Skyfall” (2012) within the Scottish Highlands. Now the Highlands have a second popular culture declare — “The Traitors,” each the U.Ok. BBC version and the U.S. Peacock model, movies at Ardross Fort, a Nineteenth-century Scottish Baronial property on greater than 100 acres alongside the River Alness north of Inverness. The fortress’s lengthy corridors and Highland backdrop have made it one of the vital acknowledged areas in actuality tv globally.
The Balvenie distillery in Dufftown is the whisky go to that earns the journey. Ground maltings nonetheless working the normal approach, coopers making barrels on web site, a 30-year vertical tasting performed with out theatrics. It’s the sort of place that converts the curious into the intense. Down in Girvan, the Hendrick’s Gin Palace runs at a completely completely different frequency: Victorian greenhouse, cucumber cocktails, the theatrical self-awareness of a model that has absolutely dedicated to its personal distinctive model.
In Edinburgh, Gleneagles Townhouse within the New City is smaller and in some methods sharper than the Perthshire flagship — members’ membership power, appropriately restrained. One Hundred Princes Road has the fortress views and the proportions that remind you what Edinburgh was constructed to do. Each make the case for staying longer. The reservation price pursuing is the non-public room at Johnnie Walker Princes Road: invitation solely, archive bottles, the sort of dialog about provenance and rarity that doesn’t occur on the usual tour.
