Inspector Montalbano's House in Punta Secca: What You Can Visit

Inspector Montalbano lives, on screen, in a house on the seafront at Marinella. The house is real and the village is Punta Secca, a hamlet of Santa Croce Camerina on the southern coast of Sicily. The address is Corso Aldo Moro 44, and the house is now a bed and breakfast, La Casa di Montalbano.

Can you go inside?

Not as a casual visitor. A fan site’s location list says the inside is open to guests who stay at least two nights; Italian coverage of the conversion describes it as a B&B whose rooms can be booked, with breakfast on the terrace the series made famous. The rule may have changed, so check with the B&B before you plan around it. The outside is free to see. The house faces the beach, and the fan site suggests the beach or the Torre Scalambri bar as places to see it from.

Two practical points from guest write-ups: the B&B closes for a few weeks each year, including a stretch in spring when the series filmed, and staff are not on site outside breakfast and cleaning times. Neither matters if you only want to look from the sand.

What else is in the village

Punta Secca is small, a few streets facing the sea, and everything is within a few minutes’ walk.

• The lighthouse stands on Lungomare Amerigo Vespucci, a few blocks from the house.
• Enzo a Mare, at Lungomare Amerigo Vespucci 2, is the trattoria used as Montalbano’s favourite restaurant. It appears in “A Diary from 1943” and “The Catalanotti Method”, and the fan site points to the restaurant’s own website for opening times.
• The beach is where most visitors stand to photograph the house.

Is it worth the trip on its own?

Punta Secca is a short stop. An hour is enough for the house, the lighthouse and a walk on the sand, and lunch at Enzo a Mare takes longer than that. It makes a day out when you pair it with Scicli and Ragusa Ibla, which is what the day tours do. Sicily Grand Tour’s tour gives about an hour in the village and offers lunch at Da Enzo a Mare; Empeeria says to ask for a table at booking because it can sell out. Which tour reaches which town shows what else each day includes.

Getting there

By car it is about 2 hours from Catania on Lemontour’s route and about 30 minutes from Scicli on Empeeria’s route. By public transport we found no timetable, so plan to arrive by car, taxi or tour. Start-town options compares the starting points.