Piazza Duomo

We ventured forth to Taormina via a series of initially toll roads followed by progressively more windy and vertical smaller roads. After wisely larking the car and a park and ride carpark with surprisingly excellent toilets, we caught the free shuttle bus up to Taormina town centre. It soon became apparent that only the very rich few were granted the ability to be chauffeur or taxi driven s as I’m at its beautiful yet extremely narrow roads.

Taormina was touristy, yes, but not excessively so, and its reasonably large sized meant that it comfortably absorbed the vast swathes of mainly American visitors.

Our first stop was the remarkable Greek theatre perched atop a large hill side with a breathtaking view across the sea, over Taormina itself, and towards Mount Etna.

We walked around it and sat on various seats marvelling at the view. It was frankly amazing. After yet another lunch of Arancini’s with an stunning view at a cafe near the the theatre, we made our way down through large tunnels of the theatre and wandered through the narrow alleyways to the Villa Communale which was a beautiful garden and park created by Florence Trevelyan, and intrepid British eccentric, between 1890 and 1897. It not only provided a cooler environs for overheated people but also a quieter and yet superb view of Taormina and the sea beneath it.

As recommended by Simona, we drove up to the castle perched at the top of a hilltop town called Castelmola. During this time, we revived a text from our Sicily traveler pals, Janice and Craig, that they too had arrived at T after an eventful drive and were relaxing at their hotel.

We told them that the Greek theatre was a must and exchanged contact details just in case we didn’t see each other again during the trip.

Charlotte drive up the incredibly term end windy hairpinned road to Castelmola thankful that we hired an automatic car.

Castelmola was a pleasant and quiet town with a fabulous castle perched extremely high up giving us some breathtaking and jelly leg inducing views across staining, out to sea and down towards Etna and Catania. We ended the day with a fabulous gelato from a local gelateri just as a funeral of one of Castelmola notables began, with a brass band and all of the townsfolk turning out for the occasion.

On return to the welcoming of a little glitzy arms of the Donna Carmela hotel, we were given a new even more splendid suite than the last one.

Dinner was found on recommendation, a local
Pizzeria cut splendid view of Etna as the clouds lifted during our final dinner in Sicily.

We vowed that we would return to this magical country over red wine and pizza, a perfect end to a perfect holiday.Read more