Saturday 25th May
Taormina is a hilltop town between Catania and Messina, famous for being the location of a Netflix show about a glamorous hotel called White Lotus. It is high up on a mountain side with spectacular views of beach resorts beneath it and the Straits of Messina to the north.
Knowing that Taormina a very popular town, we took an early 8.30 bus from the Archimede bus station, a large expanse of drab concrete close to the train station in Catania. The bus stopped at the seaside town of Naxos before starting its climb to Taormina. The road is steep and windy, and I was very pleased not to be driving the bus up that switchback. At one stage it met another bus coming down the hill, which had to reverse back quite distance to let ours through.
By the time we arrived at the bus terminal it was raining hard, so we sheltered until the worst was over. Our cheap Siracusa umbrellas kept us slightly drier while we walked up to the main street in the town.
Have you ever been to Padstowe or St Ives in the summer? Taormina is very similar to those popular Cornish towns, narrow picturesque streets lined with upmarket shops and restaurants. There is a central high street, with side streets running at 90 degrees from it, both up hill and down hill. It is a very pretty town and it attracts thousands of visitors, so the streets are a stream of tourists buying capuccinos, gelato and fridge magnets.
It has both a small Roman theatre and a much bigger Greek theatre. The Roman one is free to see, but you have to pay to see the Greek one. But having seen the one in Siracusa, we didn’t want to pay to see another ruin.
We sheltered from the rain in a cafe and steamed like wet Labradors. After an Americano and a brioche the rain and stopped and we explored the small town. Looking over to Etna in the south i could see the cloud starting to rise with a promise of better weather.
The town does have a lovely small civic park called the Villa Communale, a mixture of botanic garden and Peter Jackson film set. It was created by Florence Trevelyan, a Scottish lady who had an affair with the future King Edward VII and had to leave the country. It contains some fantastic folies, structures that look like they could have been built for a fantasy movie. They look great amongst the cacti, palm trees and exotic plants.
The main drag is very busy, but there is plenty to see in the side streets, as long as you keep out of the way of big taxis taking the wealthy to and from their hotels. We saw one beautifully painted house which extended the decoration to the scooter parked outside.
Taormini is a very pretty tourist trap, and a few hours was enough for me. Judging by the number of hotels and restaurants it is a very popular place to stay for a holiday. I have already bought a fridge magnet, and don’t want and overpriced lemoncello or white linen shirts. So we caught the 15.45 bus back to Catania.
On the way down we passed a Roman cemetery, the tombs looking like a row of pizza ovens.
In the evening we went to Ciaru i Mari restaurant for the third time, the staff are very friendly and attentive and the food is excellent. It is in a lively street behind the Bellini theatre, which attract two sets of diners. Between 7 and 10 the tourists come out to drink Spritz and eat fishy dinners. After that the locals come out and stay much later. I asked Andrea how the Sicilians mange to stay up late and then work the next day. His honest answer was “they don’t work”.
