Taormina, Italy: keep your passport with you when you get off the ship for the day…read more Our tour guide must be a linguist cuz he would inform you for 4 hours if a word was from Latin or another language. Invested in a ring valued twice our monthly mortgage Lots of black lava made into jewelry. Instead of a panoramic bus tour I should book moderate vs easy sightseeing.

This is a beautiful little town in Sicily with a picturesque coastline and quaint towns. We were…read morethere one day on an excursion from our cruise ship and it was impressive. This town is walkable and filled with great food and shops along with friendly people. We had some delicious wood fired pizza and of course cannoli, it's a definite winner when in Sicily.

We were on the Etna People tour and stopped at Cantine Don Saro, a lovely little winery where had a…read morelovely lunch package included in our trip. We were seated and soon greeted by The Don who talked about his wine, food and enjoying life. The table had several wines during lunch a white, a red and a rose but I didn't have any but most people seemed to enjoy them all. The food was good and certainly appreciated by everyone at the table, some of the ladies on our table received some free gifts of jewelry as a thank you for visiting the winery. They also have a number of great wines for sale in their store so I would suggest you pick up a bottle or two if you can.

Loved our visit to Don Sara's winery - we walked away with 9 bottles! Very affordable bottles to…read moretake away. The hostess who taught us about the wine was very sweet, and included in the tasting was cheese, bread, olives and salami -- perfect accompaniments to the wine. The sparkling wine was exceptional. Worth the drive!

Short and sweet: Nice hotel that serves a nice breakfast. We are so pleased the people of Sicily,…read moreall we have met were so warm and friendly. The gentleman at the counter late in the evening, with us having no reservations, was polite and accommodating. Even helped explain where to park and not to park on city streets with paint coloring for the slots. (recall white was for residents, blue for visitors. Check first). We found a place a few minutes walk away by the waterfront.

AMA ing place to have a nice cocktail. Got snacks and enjoy our afternoon enjoying the ambiance…read more Love to come back

The view of Mt Etna is stunning! There were no AC/fans yet in April. Depending on side of hotel,…read moregreat breeze through windows or doors. Can keep them open all day. No counter space in the bathroom. Tight/small shower. Shampoo, conditioner, soap, lotion and other small amenities like shower cap, nail file, etc. Bed is comfortable. Mini fridge is packed with many beverage options to buy. Close to all shopping. Pool is very far and down many steps. Poor reception/wifi gave us no tv access. Others reported that when they have access, no channels with English. Overall, I would stay here, again.

It was great Claudia at Etna People was able to accommodate my last minute request to take a trip…read moreto Mt Etna, they sent two SMS messages with details about my guide Emanuele and that he would pick me up from the entrance of Isola Bella at 9:05am. It was great they were just 1 minute late as they were stuck behind a truck unloading for one of the nearby cafes. Once aboard Emanuele introduced me to everyone and made sure we were all ready for an amazing day out exploring Mt Etna. This wasn't the cheapest tour option but it was all inclusive so you can't really go wrong as all the additional costs add up quickly on other tours. Our guide was really great on the way to Mt Etna as he made everyone feel part of the group and had some fun true/false questions about Volcanoes and the history of Mt Etna. He was also talking about the age of the different lava flows and how you can tell the age of a lava flow by the colour of the rock and if there is vegetation growing there. The shots below were from a lava flow about 200+ years ago apparently after 200 years it's very hard to easily notice the difference in age. After a fun drive upto the chair lifts at the base of Mt Etna we arrived and Emanuele got out the provided hiking equipment. I would listen to the guides advice and take the hiking shoes they offer as your own shoes will get rather dusty and certainly take a jacket and gloves for sure if you are here in early spring (April-May) as it does get very cold on top of Mt Etna. It's best not to wear shorts if you are travelling in Spring as two people did on our tour. It was really great being part of an organise tour as Emanuele was able to organise all the tickets for the chair lift ride and we were able to skip the massive line as we already had our tickets and were in an organised group. It was the first benefit of getting an all inclusive tour that we didn't waste anytime waiting in line. Once we arrived at the top of the chair lifts 2000m up Mt Etna we walked down a bit to some massive 4WD buses to take us up to the 2900m point to the base of the main crater. Passing a lot of people in the chair lift and in the 4x4 bus I was glad I opted for the transport option as a number of people we passed were really struggling to climb in mountain ash and loose rocks as you can see from the chairlift view below. We had a good amount of time at the top of Mt Etna and our guide stopped every 40-50 minutes as we walked around the crater to explain a bit more about what we were seeing and about the geography of the craters and geology of the area. This gave us plenty of time to take some amazing photos and the only thing that was missing was a great photo of the tour group while on the mountain. I'd make sure you pick a day that doesn't have too much cloud cover as you won't be able to enjoy as much of the mountain. After the exploration of the crater finished we headed back down via 4x4 buses to the chairlift and stopped at a lava tube, again all the equipment was provided including hard hats and led lamps to explore the tube. One of the ladies was claustrophobic so she stayed outside while we explored inside the lava tube. The tube was small but that was because the other 1.5 kilometers was closed off to tourists, but our guide was able to tell us the history of how the tube was created and how the locals used the tubes to create ice in winter. For lunch we stopped at Cantine Don Saro, a lovely little winery where had a lovely lunch package included in our trip. We were seated and soon greeted by The Don who talked about his wine, food and enjoying life. The table had several wines during lunch a white, a red and a rose but I didn't have any but most people seemed to enjoy them all. Entree was a plate of local salami, soft cheese, potato bake, garlic bread and Parmesan cheese. The food was good and certainly appreciated by everyone at the table, some of the ladies on our table received some free gifts of jewelry as a thank you for visiting the winery. They also have a number of great wines for sale in their store so I would suggest you pick up a bottle or two if you can. Our last stop was Alcantara Gorge which was an amazing lava flow that has been reclaimed by the river for form an awesome natural attraction, it's a paid attraction but yet again it was paid of the all-inclusive tour. The water was quite cold but it was so refreshing to walk through and some people on our tours were even brave enough to let their friends push them into the stream, but this was not me this day. Our guide talked a bit more about the rock formations that we were seeing and how they were created and how they were similar to the Giant's Causeway in Ireland. Probably one of the more expensive tours I've been on but certainly one of the best I have been on, can't recommend it enough, you must do a tour with Etna People for sure! They also have several other tours such as an all-day hiking trip, maybe next time

Best volcano tour ever! I've taken tours to see volcanos in Hawaii before but Mt Etna still blew me…read moreaway. The views were magnificent and was glad to spend the day with an amazing guide and great people. Ezio was our guide for the Etna Day Trip in November and was super knowledgable. We took all the backtrails and avoided the tourist crowd (so glad!,) and had the most amazing views of Etna and the Gorge Alcantara. Itinerary: Hiking to Etna craters, Lava cave exploration, Lunch & wine tasting at an Etna winery, Gorge Alcantara. They provided helmets, flashlights for the lava cave part of the tour, and hiking shoes for people who don't have proper footwear. All you need is atheletic-ish clothing and a warm jacket. Highlight of my Italy trip. Highly recommended.

It is amazing how much you can get for such a little prize…read more The appartment is nice and warm, all the rooms have tv air conditioning and a neat furniture set. Breakfast in the little patio is lovely and Marco, the owner helps you to organize the best tour and the yoummiest dinner. In the area ther are a lot of great restaurants my favourites are Marricriu, Santi e Briganti and osteria Agostiniana. The only problems is that you have to reserve this place in advance since marco has only feed rooms!

I really should give it 5 stars but prefer to save 5 stars for the extraordinary. Having said that,…read moreColori del Sole was very nice. As we showed up without reservations, Marco hadn't planned for breakfast in the morning so discounted the room price. What a gentleman he is. He's very attuned to the tourist aspects of the area so spent at least an hour giving us detailed recommendations that all proved to be invaluable. Because of him, we made some discoveries we'd have entirely missed. He speaks good English. As for the location, it is right in the midst of midtown Fiumefreddo with every restaurant and attraction within a few minutes walk. We worried about parking. Marco has slots right there, curb-side for his guests. He even invited us to leave our car there the next day so we could walk the town without parking hassles. I'll bet the breakfast would have been good too.

This may just be the most gorgeous train station I've ever visited. Everything still in tact and…read moreyou can just feel the history. The have a restroom on site for .50 euro which I will gladly pay if I've drank too much water and figuring out where to go was easy! Cafe was not opened but there was a petrol station across the street that was easy to run to for a drink or snack before leaving Taormina.

This is probably one of the most exquisite stations I've come across in my travels, it certainly…read moreretains a lot of the style from back in the day when this was a exclusive destination for Europe's rich and famous. This is the main station for destinations of Giardini, Naxos, Taormina and Isola Bella. There is a staffed ticket box where you can buy your tickets from and there is a bar where you can buy your bus tickets from or get something to eat. The staff was very well maintained unlike every other station that I visited in Sicily.