Visit Taormina in Sicily: in a weekend or a longer holiday at Mon Repos Hotel, Taormina offers glimpses ofMediterranean beauty, ancient architecture and an enviable social life.
If you have a weekend to visit Taormina from our hotel, or if you are lucky enough to be able to linger longer, the city offers attractions and unique beauty of great scenic and cultural value to fully enjoy a vacation in Sicily.
Taormina immediately welcomes you with a magical, almost mythical atmosphere, radiating the pure essence of the Mediterranean sea, with its smells and its perspective on the open sea. A simple walk to discover the things to do in Taormina reveals extraordinary wonders and allows a journey into our deepest roots.
Definitely the Villa Comunale, which is the green lung of Taormina, is one of the favorite spots by local people to look out at the sea, refreshing on hot summer days, slightly off the busiest streets, in the shade of old trees of this luxurious garden of palm and cactus trees and with the charm of a large number of colorful flowers. Inside the park the eccentric towers called “Victorian Follies” tell the fascinating story of the house and the park, which were inhabited by the Scottish noblewoman Lady Florence Trevelyan, expelled from England for having had an affair with the heir to the throne Edward VII. Once in Taormina, the Lady married the mayor who then presided over the town hall, and in 1922 the Villa and its park became property of the municipality. A visit to the Greek theater in Taormina is unavoidable, the greek-Roman structure of this amphitheater is in itself a spectacle of extraordinary beauty for the natural scenery offered in the eyes of the viewer: the Mount Etna, often snowy, and its slopes going down into the sea offer the eyes a multitude of views into one. This scenario is a natural backdrop to what was surely one of the most important theaters of Ancient Greece in size and importance of stage performances.
Palazzo Corvaja testifies with the different styles in the layered structure the succession of the many dominations on Taormina. In the square that housed the Agora in ancient Greek time and then the Roman Forum a square tower was built during the Arab domination with the purpose of military defense, and in Norman times it expanded into a veritable palace where were hosted among other things the first sessions of the Sicilian Parliament.
Isola Bella is one of the natural attractions of Taormina that should not be missed: the island is separated from the mainland by a narrow strip of sand that appears with the low tide. The bay is surrounded by crystalline clear waters and the island is an untouched nature reserve of the Mediterranean sea. Ferdinand I of Bourbon donated it to the city only in 1806, and in 1890 the same Lady Florence Trevelyan set up a rare plants garden. Today the so-called Isula Bedda can be visited with a 4€ ticket and in groups of 15 people every day except Monday, taking the cable car Taormina-Mazzarò. To St. Nicholas of Bari is dedicated the imposing Cathedral of the thirteenth century also called the fortress cathedral, flanked by a embattled tower bastion with evident defensive purposes, today the church’s bell tower. The medieval cathedral was probably built from the remains of an older church and perhaps with architectural elements taken from the greek-Roman theater, and has a Latin cross with three naves and three apses structure, outside graced by the presence of gorgeous rosettes, bows lancet, lancet windows and portals of various architectural styles, from Gothic to the style typical of the eighteenth century.
The sea of Taormina and its beaches are an attractive scenery at the same time and discovering them is a trip to Taormina in itself.