Taormina
Mediterranean

A terrace 200 metres above the sea

Taormina sits on a natural terrace of Monte Tauro, some 250 metres above the Ionian Sea, and from there it looks at the water and at Mount Etna at the same time. That double view — sea on one side, volcano on the other — is what made it a fixed stop on the Grand Tour: Goethe passed through in 1787 and wrote that from the theatre you saw a work of art and of nature at once. Founded by the Sicels and then by the Greeks of Naxos in the fourth century BC, it passed to Rome, to Byzantium, to the Arabs, to the Normans; every ruler left a piece of the old town behind.

The Ancient Theatre is why most people climb up here. Carved into the rock in the third century BC and enlarged by the Romans into the second largest theatre in Sicily, it is still in use: in summer it hosts concerts and the film festival, and the stage opens onto a backdrop no set designer could build — the coast falling away towards Giardini Naxos, and Etna smoking behind it.

How the town is laid out

Taormina is essentially one street: Corso Umberto, pedestrian, running about 800 metres from Porta Messina to Porta Catania. Along it are workshops, pastry shops, medieval palaces and the two squares that matter. Piazza IX Aprile is the town's public terrace: a black-and-white chequered floor, the church of San Giuseppe, the clock tower, and the parapet from which you look out over the whole gulf. Further along, Piazza Duomo holds the fortified thirteenth-century cathedral and a baroque fountain with the female centaur that is the town's emblem.

Below the town, down on the coast, is Mazzarò, the bay with the seafront hotels, and beside it Isola Bella: a small island nature reserve joined to the shore by a strip of pebbles that the sea covers and uncovers. You reach it by cable car in a few minutes, or on foot down a steep flight of steps. The Villa Comunale garden, laid out in the late nineteenth century by an Englishwoman, remains the loveliest place to sit for nothing: pines, bougainvillea and the curious brick follies known as the victories.

What makes Taormina different

Two things. The first is that here the landscape is not a backdrop — it is the content. From Taormina you see the whole of Etna, from base to crater, and in winter, with snow on top and the sea in front, the view is one people remember for years. It is why the town commands a price: Taormina's hotels are the most expensive on the island, and travellers who want the same coast for less sleep at Giardini Naxos, three kilometres below, or at Letojanni a little further north.

The second is position. Taormina is not a dead end: it sits halfway between Catania and Messina, an hour from Etna, an hour and a half from Siracusa. Anyone using it as a base can do the volcano one day, the baroque towns the next, and the Aeolian Islands from Milazzo on the third. That is why most arrivals come through Catania Airport, some sixty kilometres away — the most requested route in the whole of eastern Sicily, covered by private transfer in a little under an hour.

Practical notes

The old town is pedestrian and uphill: cars are left in the car parks above, and from there you come down by lift or on foot. Anyone arriving by transfer is dropped at the gates of the Corso, because vehicles go no further. The railway station — Taormina-Giardini — is down on the coast, and the town is reached from it by bus or a short road transfer: it is not a stop you can walk up from with luggage.

The climate is mild all year: 10–15 °C in January, 17–23 °C in April and May, 25–31 °C in July and August, and long autumns that stay above 20 °C well into October. The sea is swimmable from late May to early October. In high season the Corso is full from morning to night; the shoulder months — May, September, October — are when Taormina is at its best, with the same views and half the people. Restaurants keep Italian hours, lunch from 12:30 and dinner from 19:30, with the kitchens closed in between.