Taormina

Sit in the ancient theatre with your back to the town and you are looking at roughly what a Greek audience looked at: a curve of coastline far below, open sky where the stage wall once stood, and Etna filling the gap beyond it. That building lost its back and acquired a better one. Taormina has been arranging this view for visitors ever since, and it has had an unusually long time to practise.

A town that lives on a ledge

Height explains nearly everything else. Taormina occupies a terrace on the flank of Monte Tauro, well above the Ionian shore, on ground too steep to spread across and too good to give up. What fits on the ledge is one pedestrian spine running gate to gate, with lanes and stairways dropping away either side, most of them ending at a parapet rather than anywhere useful.

Sea and town are separated by a serious vertical distance, so reaching the water means a cable car, a bus or a long sequence of hairpins, and a hire car turns into a liability the moment you arrive.

When to come

May, June, September and October suit this town, and they are not interchangeable. Spring comes in green, with wildflowers on the slopes and snow still sitting on Etna's cone — an arrangement that looks improbable in photographs and is simply how Sicily behaves at that time of year. Early autumn runs warmer, the sea at its most swimmable, the light going long and gold well before dinner.

Day-trip traffic matters more than the month does. Coaches arrive through the morning and the main street thickens accordingly, then everything drains away by early evening. Couples should plan around that rhythm rather than the calendar: the town left behind after dark — lit, quiet, still warm — is the one worth staying overnight for.

Getting down to the water

Beaches here are shingle and pebble rather than sand, which keeps the water clear and the loungers in demand. Directly below the town a small islet sits just offshore, joined to the beach by a narrow bar of stones you can usually walk across. A cable car handles the descent in minutes and runs into the evening in season.

Whether it is expensive

Taormina is the most expensive address on this coast, and what the premium buys is not the room. Two rooms in one building, one facing the volcano and one facing a wall, are different products at different prices, and nobody involved pretends otherwise.

Cost falls as you descend, in every sense. Staying at the shore, or in a coastal town either side, saves a great deal and puts you a short ride from the same streets — at the expense of the evening, since the last leg back up is the part you will resent. Supply is squeezed into a small area and quality varies more than the frontage suggests, so comparing current stay and experience options across your dates is an hour well spent.

What is worth paying for

A terrace facing the volcano, if you take only one thing from this. Watching Etna change colour through an evening is what brings people back, and doing it from your own room rather than over somebody's bar bill is the whole difference.

Beyond that: an evening performance in the ancient theatre, where the sight line does work no set designer could; and a day on Etna, close enough for a return trip and serious enough to justify a guide and an early start.

Where to stay

The Aspirational Luxury Pick

A converted grand hotel or clifftop villa on the ledge, with terraced gardens, a pool cut into the rock and a private lift down to a shoreline platform. These are view-first properties, priced for the terrace. They suit travellers who intend to spend real hours on it rather than treating the room as storage.

The Mid-Tier Value Premium Selection

A small hotel or restored townhouse a street back from the main run, with a shared roof terrace and perhaps a dozen rooms. You trade the private panorama for a communal one and keep the location, which in a town this compact is most of what you were paying for.

The Smart Entry-Level Option

A guesthouse or apartment down at the shore, or inside the old town without a view. Staying below gives you swimming and quiet evenings; a no-view room above gives you the streets at night. Either suits anyone who would rather spend the difference on Sicily than on a balcony.

Taormina at a glance