Situated at 200 metres above sea level, Taormina looks like a terrace, facing one of the most incredible landscapes in Sicily: Mt. Etna volcano.
Rising as a tourist city, first chosen by the Siculans, then by the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines and finally the Saracens, over the centuries it was enriched with villas and monuments.
Today Taormina combines the antique monumental attractions with the hospitable nature of its people and is a first class tourist attraction.
In 1770 Patrick Brydone visited Taormina, followed by J.W. Goethe in 1787, but it was only towards the end of the nineteenth century that Taormina reached its apex as an international holiday destination. Increasing numbers of noble and well-to-do Englishmen descended on the town and several of them bought villas. Very soon they had North American, Austro-Hungarian, Baltic, Belgian, Swiss, Dutch and German neighbours. The most prestigious personalities from all over Europe visited Taormina.

Several artists and writers passed through here, besides Goethe, Truman Capote, Salvador Dalì, Edmondo De Amicis, Alexander Dumas, Gabriel Faure, Anatole France, Andrè Gide, Paul Klee, Gustav Klimt, D.H. Lawrence, Guy de Maupassant, Vladimir Nabokov, Luigi Pirandello, Bertrand Russel, Leonardo Sciascia, John Steinbeck, Elio Vittorini, Oscar Wilde. Musicians and orchestra directors followed suit: Johannes Brahms, Leonard Bernstein, Nikita Magaloff, Richard Wagner.

Taormina achieved impressive success also in the world of cinema, theatre and show business: among those who loved Taormina were Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, Francis Ford Coppola, Edoardo De Filippo, Marlene Deitrich, Eleonora Duse, Federico Fellini, Greta Garbo, Cary Grant, Marcello Mastroianni, Gregory Peck, Tyrone Power.
Heads of State, financial magnates and reigning monarchs included Willy Brandt, Lord Carrington, Alcide de Gasperi, Kaiser William II, King Gustav, King Juan of Bourbon, Huro Kekkonen, Mitterand, King Olaf, Grand Duke Paul of Russia, Sandro Pertini, Philippe d’Orleans, Rothschild, Nelson Rockfeller, Umberto di Savoia.
In 1904, in a New York publication, the most important hotels in Taormina were: San Domenico, Timeo, Metropole, Castello a Mare, Naumachie, Vittoria.

Full of charm, natural and historical beauty, Taormina has had its highs and lows. But the city has been and will always be an exclusive destination for tourists from all over the world, who are fascinated by this country and all that it has to offer.