The train to Taormina

Taormina, Sicily’s resort town, sits with regality on the cliff tops overlooking the emerald Ionian Sea.  It’s 45 minutes or so from Catania, by way of a local train on which, I could quite easily believe, we are the only paying customers. On arrival, it is advised that you catch a bus up to the town, and the reason for this becomes almost instantly clear.  The road ascends, clings to the cliff edge, and takes countless hairpin bends, up-and-round, up-and-round, as we climb higher and higher above the water.  The driver, clearly not one for passenger comfort, throws the bus all over the place, swerving here-and-there to avoid on-coming traffic, and with each glance out the window, the crash barriers protecting us from the cliff edge look flimsier and flimsier.

The regional train to Taormina

The ancient Greeks also saw the worth in visiting Taormina, building as they did a stunning theatre in the seventh century BC.  The Teatro Greco, arguably the most well-known archaeological site on Sicily, has the wow factor on two levels – it is both beautifully preserved and stunningly positioned, with views out to sea and also up to Etna creating, I suppose, a never-ending show of nature.  The theatre in its current form has been largely remodelled by the Romans (perhaps in the second century AD), and it’s so easy to visualise the throngs cheering, clapping, laughing and drinking.  There are throngs on our visit too – ubiquitous international tour parties, of which French is today’s primary flavour, being led around the site and being spoken at about the importance of this particular arch, or that special wall.  Maybe they’ve learned more than us, but for me, the theatre is a place for fun, for exploration, somewhere to work out for yourself what happened when.  Anyway, we’ve spotted something fascinating that most people probably haven’t even noticed – wildflowers, poking out of gaps in the stone, that somehow make the place feel both more archaic, but also more alive.  Only the appearance of a rain shower, rolling in black from the hills, gives us cause for worry, but we make the best of it and shelter under ancient arches, marvelling about how it suddenly feels like Britain.

Taormina's ancient theatre - still used for modern performances

Wildflowers grow between the stone terraces

Taormina is a lovely town –lively, pretty, interesting and historic.  Down from the theatre, the narrow main street, Corso Umberto, offers numerous restaurants, a few tacky souvenir shops, but also some real gems, including a couple of particularly colourful shops selling locally-made ceramics.  The street gives way to the picturesque Piazza IX Aprile, paved black-and-white like a giant chessboard, and said to be “the balcony of Taormina” because of its breathtaking view over the coast.  The street is also home to Taormina’s Duomo, a simple little cathedral more reminiscent of a parish church, but with a light and airy interior.  We take lunch in a restaurant on Corso Umberto, a window table with the same commanding view over the Ionian, without a doubt the finest view I have ever seen from the dinner table.  Down on the sea, a luxury five-masted yacht, surely the property of a multi-millionaire, drifts leisurely by, confirming this corner as one of the wealthiest parts of the island.

Piazza IX Aprile

Lunchtime in Taormina

For the afternoon, we stroll around the city’s main green space, Giardini della Villa Comunale, with its tropical vegetation, interesting war memorial, and quirky structures (that would look more at home in the Jungle Book), whilst gelato melts onto our hands and drips onto the paving in the increasingly humid air.  Sensing the need to cool off, we head with rapidity to the town’s cable car, which takes us down the cliff and drops us onto a picture-postcard beach for a paddle.  Neither of us are beach people, but it’s the perfect antidote to the scorching heat and, flip-flops at the ready (I hate them, but this area is known for spiky sea urchins), we wander into the waves.  I like the Ionian Sea, not just because we’ve paddled in it, or because of its crystal, fish-abundant waters, but also because I cannot think of a more historic sea anywhere in the world.  It teems with life, but it also teems with the past – you can feel it on the waves, a sense of the cataclysmic coming-together of the Greek and Roman worlds of old.

Giardini della Villa Comunale

The beautiful Ionian Sea at Taormina