Taormina, Sicily, Italy

Day 1

• Ancient Theatre

  The symbol: a Greek-Roman cavea carved into the hillside with Etna and the sea as scenery. Ticket €14 (reduced €7 for EU 18-25s, free under 18); go at opening or late afternoon for the best light and fewer groups.

• Corso Umberto and Piazza IX Aprile

  The pedestrian drawing room crossing the town between Porta Messina and Porta Catania: palazzi, boutiques and the terrace of Piazza IX Aprile with the church of San Giuseppe, the clock tower and the view over the bay. The stroll is free; the coffee in the square is not.

• Isola Bella

  The islet-reserve joined to the pebble beach by a tongue of land: you visit the garden-museum (€6, reduced €3, 9am-4pm) and swim in transparent water. Early morning it's a dream; at noon in August, an anthill.

Day 2

• Taormina-Mazzarò cable car

  It links the hilltop town to the coast in minutes (€3 one way, €5 return): the right way to combine the old town in the morning and the sea in the afternoon without hunting for parking twice. During maintenance there's the ASM replacement bus.

• Mazzarò and Spisone beaches

  They are the two pebble bays below the town: Mazzarò with the historic beach clubs and Spisone longer and slightly cheaper. The practical point is that nearly all of it is club-run and the public access gaps are few and narrow, so in August they have to be taken early or there is no room. You go down by cable car, not by car: parking on the coast is as scarce as it is up in town.

• Mount Etna (day trip)

  Europe's highest active volcano (about 3,350 m), an hour and a half from Taormina: summit-crater excursions with a guide, lava flows and lunar landscapes. In winter you can combine snow and sea in the same day.

Day 1

• Villa Comunale (Lady Trevelyan's gardens)✦ hidden gem

  The public gardens created by the same English noblewoman as Isola Bella, with bizarre brick 'Victorian follies', palms and a continuous balcony over the sea: free, cool and strangely ignored by the groups.

• Madonna della Rocca sanctuary and Saracen Castle✦ hidden gem

  The little church is cut into the rock above the town and reached by the Saracen stair: about 30 minutes of steep steps with no shade, and there is no alternative by car to the top. From up there the theatre, the town and the coast come into one view, which never happens from the town itself. It costs nothing and has no closing time: sunset is the moment, but the descent in the dark wants a torch.

• Castelmola✦ hidden gem

  The acropolis-village 550 metres above Taormina: medieval alleys, the chequerboard piazzetta and the cafés where the ritual is almond wine. Reached by bus, ten minutes by car or a fine climb on foot.

Day 2

• Alcantara Gorges (day trip)✦ hidden gem

  The black basalt canyon carved by the Alcantara river about 20 km away: prismatic walls up to 25 metres high and icy water to wade through in summer. Combinable with the valley's villages in half a day.

• Savoca and Forza d'Agrò, the Godfather villages (day trip)✦ hidden gem

  They are the inland Messina villages where Coppola shot the Sicilian scenes of The Godfather, and the Bar Vitelli in Savoca is as it was, with the stills on the walls. They are about forty minutes by car from Taormina on narrow mountain roads, and there is no convenient public connection. It is an atmosphere trip for people who have seen the film: anyone who has not finds two handsome villages and nothing more.

Day 1

• Granita with brioche

  Granita is ordered in the morning with a brioche col tuppo, and it is dunked: it is breakfast, not dessert. The classic eastern Sicilian flavours are almond, lemon, pistachio and coffee with cream, and in the serious bars they are made without industrial bases, which shows in the texture, grainy rather than creamy. It costs a few euros and it is how to start the day before the corso fills.

• Arancini and Sicilian rosticceria

  Arancini with ragù or with butter, pizzette and cartocciate from the rosticcerie are the lunch that saves the budget in a town of expensive restaurants: you eat standing and pay a fraction. The rosticcerie are in the side streets off the corso, not on it, and that is where people from Taormina buy. In Taormina the arancino is masculine and pointed, unlike Palermo's: the difference is real and you notice it at once.

Day 2

• Ionian seafood and pasta alla Norma

  Raw red prawn, swordfish alla ghiotta with capers and olives, and pasta alla Norma with fried aubergine and salted ricotta, which is Catanese and at home here. The Etna DOC whites from carricante grow a short distance away on volcanic soil, and they are the right thing to drink with fish instead of a generic white. The trattorie off the corso cost markedly less than the ones with the view.

• Castelmola almond wine✦ hidden gem

  It is an almond-flavoured liqueur invented in the cafés of Castelmola, the village above Taormina, and it is drunk cold in small glasses looking at the Etna. It is not a table wine and it is sweet: it is taken at sunset, which is the hour it exists for. With the Etna reds it is the wine souvenir of the area, and in Castelmola you buy it where it is made rather than in the shops on Taormina's corso.