Now that Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez are husband and wife after months of hoopla, conjecture over wedding budgets, and protests over Venice as a venue, it is time for everyone to rest, especially the couple of the hour. The honeymoon is respite and romance combined, and for this power couple it comes with a hefty dose of lavishness. How couldn’t it? The tech tycoon is the world’s third-richest man, worth $226 billion, who owns the $500 million megayacht Koru for recreational purposes.
For the honeymoon, which may not trump his $40 million, three-day celebration in Venice but will be lavish nonetheless, his 416-foot superyacht that surprisingly didn’t make an appearance in the Venetian lagoon will finally have a role to play as the Bezoses travel to Taormina on the Italian island. The Amazon founder and his new bride will employ the world’s largest sailing yacht to take them to Sicily. The 61-year-old billionaire and his 55-year-old author fell in love with the town last year when they sailed along Sicily’s coast and the Aeolian Islands, according to The Mirror. After anchoring in Taormina, the newlyweds will spend quality time at Four Seasons San Domenico Palace.
If the name sounds familiar, it is because the hotel is a celebrity in its own right, stealing the show in the hit series The White Lotus as the setting for the second season. They left behind one fancy hotel, the Aman Venice, and will enjoy another surreal setting in a reimagined 14th-century Sicilian convent. Not only will they savor breathtaking views of the Ionian Sea from the cliff, but also Michelin-starred dining.
Out of 111 rooms and suites, Bezos and his wife will possibly occupy the Royal Suite, the largest and priciest key at San Domenico Palace. Spread across 1,507 sq. ft., the swanky suite boasts a sea-view terrace with a private hot tub, a grand living room, a dining room that seats eight, a king bedroom, and a marble bathroom plus a powder room. With a price tag of $20,000 a night, it would not be wrong to say it is the most expensive accommodation in the hotel and one of the costliest suites in Sicily.
But that hardly matters to a businessman like Bezos, who spent $40 million on a three-day wedding extravaganza. He burned through $556K every single hour, in other words, basically a Bentley per coffee break. For the past 130 years San Domenico Palace’s guest book has welcomed Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton (who hid out here after Cleopatra), Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, literary greats Oscar Wilde and D. H. Lawrence, and royalty like Princess Margaret and Princess Irene of Greece and Denmark. Now it will host the king of the tech world and his helicopter-flying queen.
The Koru and Abeona yachts are cruising around Tramerka at the time of writing.
