Taormina
The third-century BC theatre was cut into the hillside so that the stage opens onto Etna and the Ionian Sea, and no set designer has improved on it in two thousand three hundred years. Spring and autumn are the seasons; the cable car runs down to Isola Bella for the water, and see a performance in the theatre if the summer festival is running — the acoustics still work.
Why go
A Greek theatre with Etna in the stage opening — cut into the hillside in the third century BC. A balcony coast — the town sits two hundred metres above the Ionian on a terrace of rock. Etna — Europe's most active volcano, an hour away, and often visibly working. Sicily's baroque and Greek layers — both within an hour, at Noto and Syracuse.
The character
The Greeks of Naxos founded Tauromenion on this ridge in 358 BC and cut a theatre into the slope facing south-west, so that the stage opens onto Etna and the sea. No later architect improved on it, and the Romans who rebuilt it in brick kept the orientation. That single decision — a theatre framed by a volcano — has drawn visitors for two thousand three hundred years.
Modern Taormina was made by the northern European fashion for Sicily: Goethe wrote about it in 1787, the Prussian aristocrat Wilhelm von Gloeden photographed local boys as classical figures here in the 1890s and made the town notorious, and by the 1920s D. H. Lawrence was writing at Fontana Vecchia. The population is under eleven thousand, and Corso Umberto, the single pedestrian street from gate to gate, carries the whole town's traffic. It is beautiful, expensive and unapologetically a resort — but the theatre at eight in the morning, with Etna smoking behind the columns, justifies everything.
Places of character
Teatro Antico — go at opening; the light comes from behind Etna and the seats are cold and empty. Corso Umberto — the spine from Porta Messina to Porta Catania, best walked before nine or after ten at night. Villa Comunale — gardens laid out by a Scotswoman exiled from Victorian England, with follies over the sea. Castelmola — the village above, forty minutes on foot up a stepped path, with a view down onto Taormina itself. Isola Bella — the islet below, reached by cable car and a pebble causeway when the tide allows. Etna — a day out: cable car, jeep and a walk on the craters if the volcano permits.
The way to do it
Stay overnight — the cruise coaches come up from Messina and Catania for the day and the town changes character at both ends of it. Take the cable car down to the sea rather than driving. Give Etna a full day with a guide. And book the theatre for a summer performance if the programme allows; it still works acoustically.
One perfect day
The Teatro Antico at opening, alone, with Etna in the frame and the sea two hundred metres below. Coffee on Corso Umberto before the shops open. Cable car down to Isola Bella for a swim in clear water off the pebbles. Back up for lunch of pasta alla Norma in a courtyard. Afternoon walk up the stepped path to Castelmola for almond wine and the view back down. Descend as the light goes gold on the theatre columns. Aperitivo in the Villa Comunale gardens, dinner late on a terrace, and Etna visible in the dark if it is in the mood.
Grand hotels
Grand Hotel Timeo — 1873, beside the theatre, where Wilde, Lawrence and half of literary Europe stayed. San Domenico Palace — a fifteenth-century Dominican monastery on the cliff, restored and reopened in 2021.
When to go
Best expression: May and early October — warm sea, Etna clear, the town not yet at capacity. Consider: the summer theatre festival, for a performance in the Greek theatre after dark. Avoid if possible: August, when the cruise season and the Italian holidays coincide.
The frame
Ideal stay 3 nights · Minimum 2 nights · Best arrival train to Taormina-Giardini, then the cable car or a taxi up · Airport CTA, 60 km · Walkability excellent but very steep · Best without a car yes