#President Trump has been working hard in Europe offending some European officials (the Maltese president), angering others (Theresa May and Mi6) and befriending others. But on Friday he will take a break from his botched international diplomatic efforts in a luxury hotel by the #Ionian Sea, complete with a compelling view of Taormina.

Despite the town’s paradisiacal setting, it will become a temporary police state for the #Group of 7-summit meeting that President Trump is attending with other international leaders. Indeed, Taormina’s picturesque panoramas and its bucolic Italian charms – it has a reputation as a sun- and wind-swept sparkling pleasure bubble for reality TV stars and rich Russians – is both exclusive but also a little cheesy.

This is a town where exclusivity is a surprisingly easy bedfellow with luxury, fashion and discretion. And it's a place that Trump will feel most at home in.

According to the New York Times on Friday, one of the locals residents Dino Papale, a 69-year-old Sicilian lawyer and fan of Mr Trump (he sports a red cap that reads #Make American Great Again) claimed that he met Trump a few years ago and had even been welcomed along to the President's inauguration. He is the president of the Sicilian fan club for President Trump and seems to be a kindred spirit to the president-cum-business man.

A secretive visit a few years ago

After the President's election back in the last part of 2016, Papale featured heavily in the local newspaper called, #La Sicilia, and told how Donald Trump had been to the town previously as a guest of Papale in June 2013, and stayed for three days at the Atlantis Bay Hotel, one of the higher-priced vacation hotels in the area.

Back then, in a profile Paple did in his heavily-decorated courtyard (it features a rich and seemingly overbearing assortment of, Roman Greek and Bronze Age sculptures) Papale contested that the businessman hadn’t been there, and told the paper that they were making a story out of nothing.

But at other times Papale was certainly less decisive, claiming “It could be that it happened, because everything can be true, right?

I don’t remember”; He also said that “If a friend says, ‘I’m coming to Taormina but no one can know,’ what do you do?” in a spirited and playful fashion. He also was quoted as saying that the town is a very discreet place where “Americans and Russians often meet.”

Indeed, now Papale's loyalty to President Trump has not faltered and even though there is no secret about Trump's presence in the town this weekend, Papale will feature heavily in the local news as he tries to get a meeting with Trump, something that seems to be an unlikely prospect.

Locals are fans

According to the New York Times, those local townspeople who appreciate a more refined life – wine, good food, great holidays - are waiting with much eagerness to host their presidential visitor.

Vittorio Sabato, another local, said that he was himself like Trump; indeed he is known by locals as the as “the Silvio Berlusconi of Taormina” owing to his short stature, slick black hair and the style of shirts he wears. He has a BMW, Maserati and Porsche cars, and is known as the local king of building materials.

He talked to the Times about his running for mayor sometime in the future as well as his desire to get some advice from Trump, which also seems unlikely.

And yet, whilst President Trump, his family and advisers have all told of their enthusiasm for Italy, the President's actual experience in the bucolic and enchanting country someway seems a little limited.

He repeatedly said about the country that it had “Great people, love Italy,” in a recent get-together with the Italian prime minister in Washington DC at the White House, according to a source who spoke to the Times. We will have to wait and see if he declares his love for the country again this weekend.