Taormina: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
Taormina sits on a terrace two hundred metres above the sea with Etna smoking across the bay, and for two and a half thousand years everyone who ruled Sicily has built on it. Goethe came in 1787 and wrote that no audience in any theatre ever had such a view; after him came the English, the writers and the film stars. Two hours on foot, flat along the Corso, and at midday it is shoulder to shoulder.
A short history of Taormina
In 358 BC Andromachus founded Tauromenion on Monte Tauro, after the neighbouring Greek city of Naxos had been destroyed. In the 3rd century BC the Greek theatre was built here, later enlarged by the Romans, and from its seats you can see Mount Etna and the sea. In 902 it was captured by the Arabs, and after them came the Normans. In 1787 Goethe visited, and from the end of the 19th century it became a destination for writers, painters and aristocrats from northern Europe. In 2017 it hosted the G7 summit.
The ten best sights in Taormina
1Teatro AnticoGreek, rebuilt by Rome, with Etna and the sea behind the stage
2Corso UmbertoThe one main street from gate to gate; walk it before ten
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3Piazza IX Aprile
The terrace in the middle of the Corso, with Etna across the bay
4Porta MessinaThe northern gate, where the Corso starts
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5Porta Catania
The southern gate, beside the cathedral square
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6Taormina Cathedral
A fortress-like church, and a fountain with a two-legged centaur
7Palazzo CorvajaWhere the Sicilian parliament met in 1410
8Villa ComunaleAn Englishwoman’s garden of follies on the cliff edge; free
9NaumachieA long Roman brick wall of niches, once a great cistern
10Roman OdeonA small Roman theatre half hidden behind a church
Scan with your phone camera to open the map there
What is an audio walk?
Tours in Taormina →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Taormina:
Free walking tours in Taormina
The town on the balcony
Taormina sits on a terrace two hundred metres above the sea with Etna smoking across the bay, and for two and a half thousand years everyone who ruled Sicily has built on it. Goethe came in 1787 and wrote that no audience in any theatre ever had such a view; after him came the English, the writers and the film stars. Two hours on foot, flat along the Corso, and at midday it is shoulder to shoulder.
- Teatro Antico · The Greeks cut this theatre into the hill in the third century BC, and the Romans rebuilt it and turned it toward gladiator shows. The stage wall has partly fallen, and that is the point: through the gap the audience sees the coast and Etna. Goethe wrote that no audience in any theatre had ever had such a view, and summer concerts are still held here.
- Palazzo Corvaja · An Arab tower with Norman and Gothic wings added around it — the whole history of Sicily in one building. In 1410 the Sicilian parliament met in its hall to choose a new ruler for the island after the king died without an heir.
- Naumachie · A Roman brick wall a hundred and twenty metres long, lined with niches, holding up the hill along a side street. The name means mock sea battles, and people once believed the Romans flooded a basin here for them; in fact it was the front of a great cistern.
- Piazza IX Aprile · The terrace in the middle of the Corso, paved in a chessboard, with the clock-tower gate on one side and the whole bay and Etna on the other. It is named after the ninth of April 1860, when news reached Taormina of a rising against the Bourbons in Palermo — the beginning of Garibaldi’s campaign.
- Taormina Cathedral · Built with battlements like a fortress, because it was one. In front of it is the fountain of 1635 with the symbol of the town on top: a female centaur with two legs instead of four, holding an orb and a sceptre.
- Villa Comunale · Florence Trevelyan, an Englishwoman who settled in Taormina in the 1880s, made these gardens on the cliff and filled them with brick follies she called beehives, where she watched birds. The town’s story is that Queen Victoria sent her abroad after a flirtation with the Prince of Wales. She also bought Isola Bella below.
Down to the sea and up to the peak
Taormina hangs between two other places: a bay of coves and a tiny island two hundred metres below, reached by cable car, and a village on the peak above, reached by a steep path. This route does both — the sea in the morning, the climb in the cool of the afternoon. Half a day to a day; swimming shoes for the pebbles.
- Cable Car · Three minutes from the edge of town down the cliff to Mazzarò. Before it was built the only way down was the old path of stairs, and the fishermen of the bay climbed it every day with their catch to sell in the town above.
- Isola Bella · A rock covered in plants, joined to the beach by a strip of pebbles that the sea sometimes covers. Florence Trevelyan bought it in 1890 and planted it as a garden; today it is a nature reserve with a small museum, and the water around it is the clearest on the coast.
- Capo Sant’Andrea · The headland beside the island is riddled with sea caves, and the fishermen of Mazzarò take small boats into them; one has light that turns the water blue. Go in the morning, when the sea is flat.
- Madonna della Rocca · A small church built into a hollow in the cliff above the town, its back wall and part of its ceiling the bare rock. The Way of the Cross path climbs to it from the Corso, and from its terrace the town lies below like a map.
- Castelmola · The village on the peak four hundred metres above the sea, around the ruins of a castle. Its speciality is a sweet almond wine served in the bars on the square, and from the top the view takes in both the Ionian coast and the summit of Etna.
- Fontana Vecchia · D. H. Lawrence and his wife Frieda lived in a house on this street from 1920 to 1923, and he wrote some of his best poems here, including the one about a snake that came to drink at his water trough. After him Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams came to Taormina for the same reasons.
The volcano and the Godfather
Behind Taormina is Etna, the highest active volcano in Europe, which erupts somewhere on its slopes almost every year and covers its own vineyards and villages in lava. North along the coast are the hill villages where Francis Ford Coppola filmed The Godfather. A full day and a car; for Etna, warm clothes even in August.
- Naxos Archaeological Park · In 734 BC Greek colonists from Chalcis landed on this point and founded Naxos, the first Greek city in Sicily. Every Greek who later came to the island first sacrificed at its altar of Apollo. Taormina above was founded by its survivors after the tyrant of Syracuse destroyed it in 403 BC.
- Alcantara Gorge · A lava flow from Etna filled this river valley, and as it cooled it cracked into columns of basalt like the ones at the Giant’s Causeway; the river then cut through it. You walk in the river between the columns, and the water stays icy even in August.
- Rifugio Sapienza · The base on the south side of Etna at nineteen hundred metres, where the road ends among fresh black lava. A cable car and then four-wheel-drive buses climb toward the summit craters; the summit itself changes height with every eruption, and is around three thousand three hundred metres.
- Bronte · The pistachios of Bronte grow on bare lava fields where nothing else will, and they carry a protected name. The trees are harvested every other year to let them rest, by hand, and the town calls the crop its green gold.
- Forza d’Agrò · Coppola needed a Corleone, and the real one had become too modern, so he used this hill village. The scenes of Vito Corleone’s return in The Godfather Part II were filmed in its streets and in front of its church.
- Bar Vitelli · In the first Godfather, Michael Corleone, hiding in Sicily, walks into this bar in Savoca and asks the owner for permission to court his daughter Apollonia. The bar is still open, the bead curtain is still in the door, and the lemon granita is served on the terrace where the scene was shot.
Getting to Taormina and getting around
- Catania Airport · About an hour; the bus runs straight up to Taormina
- Taormina-Giardini Station · A pretty station on the sea below the town; a bus climbs from it
- Bus Terminal · On Via Pirandello, for Catania, the airport and Castelmola
- Cable Car · Three minutes down from town to the beaches at Mazzarò
Cheap eats in Taormina
Sicily eats breakfast in a glass: a granita — almond, lemon, pistachio, coffee with cream — with a warm brioche to dip in it, a few euro, standing at the bar. The rest of the day is the arancino, the fried rice ball, which on this side of Sicily is cone-shaped and male, and the cannolo, filled to order so the shell stays crisp. Bronte’s pistachio is in everything.
- Corso Umberto · Granita and brioche at the bar, a few euro
- Bar Vitelli · Lemon granita on the terrace from the film
- Castelmola · Almond wine by the glass on the square
- Bronte · Pistachio cream, pesto and cakes in every shop
- Zafferana Etnea · Etna honey sold from the producers’ shops
- Linguaglossa · Etna red from volcanic soil, tasted at the cellars
- Giardini Naxos · Arancini and fried fish on the seafront
Museums in Taormina
Taormina’s museums are its ruins — a Greek theatre, a Roman odeon, a cistern wall — and its palaces, which mix Arab, Norman and Gothic in a few metres. Down the hill is the site of the first Greek city in Sicily.
- Teatro Antico · Go at opening, before the groups
- Naxos Archaeological Park · The first Greek city in Sicily, and its museum
- Palazzo Corvaja · Arab tower, Norman wings, Gothic windows
- Badia Vecchia · A small archaeology museum in a Gothic tower
- Isola Bella · The island’s house museum and gardens
- Roman Odeon · A small theatre behind a church; free to look
Nature and day trips near Taormina
Etna dominates everything: a volcano three thousand three hundred metres high that rises straight from the sea, snow on top until spring, and slopes of black lava, pistachio groves, vineyards and pine forest. Its rivers have cut gorges through old lava, and its coast is coves and sea caves.
- Rifugio Sapienza · The base for the summit; warm clothes
- Silvestri Craters · A ten-minute walk round old craters
- Alcantara Gorge · Wade between basalt columns; the water is icy
- Isola Bella · A nature reserve on a tiny island
- Capo Sant’Andrea · Sea caves by small boat
- Randazzo · The lava town, and the train round the volcano
Things to do in Taormina with kids
A cable car to the beach, an island you walk to, a real volcano and a river between columns of lava: the coast is good with children. The beaches are pebble, so bring water shoes; for sand, go down to Giardini Naxos.
- Cable Car · Three minutes down the cliff
- Isola Bella · Walk out to the island on the pebbles
- Giardini Naxos · Sandy beach and calm water
- Silvestri Craters · Walk the rim of a volcano crater
- Alcantara Gorge · Waders are rented at the entrance
- Villa Comunale · Shade, a playground and the follies
Holy places in Taormina
Taormina’s churches are small and stone, and the most striking is not in town but in the cliff above it. The religion of the whole region, though, is Etna’s: villages carry their saints in procession toward the lava when it comes.
- Madonna della Rocca · A church whose back wall is the cliff
- Taormina Cathedral · A fortress cathedral and the centaur fountain
- Zafferana Etnea · The village the lava stopped short of in 1992
- Forza d’Agrò · The church square from The Godfather
- Naxos Archaeological Park · Where the altar of Apollo stood
Nightlife in Taormina
Taormina at night is the Corso lit up and full, and drinks on the terraces over the dark bay with the lights of the coast below. Summer brings concerts and a film festival to the ancient theatre. The younger crowd goes down to the beach clubs of Giardini Naxos.
- Teatro Antico · Summer concerts and the film festival
- Piazza IX Aprile · The evening terrace over the bay
- Corso Umberto · The passeggiata, until late
- Castelmola · Almond wine above the lights of the coast
- Giardini Naxos · Beach clubs and late bars
Frequently asked questions about Taormina
What is there to see in Taormina?
The top sights in Taormina are Teatro Antico, Corso Umberto and Piazza IX Aprile. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Taormina?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Taormina without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Taormina?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Taormina, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: The town on the balcony.
How do you get to Taormina and get around?
The main ways are Catania Airport, Taormina-Giardini Station and Bus Terminal. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Taormina, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Taormina that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Taormina for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.