Sicily in Spring

A private passage from Taormina to the Aeolian Islands, planned for the weeks when Sicily is at its most generous.

There is a moment, somewhere between the third and fourth week of April, when the light on Sicily changes. The winter haze that softens the island for much of the cold months lifts, and the light that follows is the light the Greeks came for. It strikes the columns of the Valley of the Temples at Agrigento at four in the afternoon and turns them the colour of honey. It crosses the strait at Messina at first light and gives Etna, on a clear day, a perfect black silhouette. It is, for our purposes, the light that makes Sicily itself.

Why Spring

Sicily in summer is one of the great Mediterranean experiences — but it is a hot one. The deep south of the island, the African flank, runs to thirty-eight degrees in late July with regularity, and the masseria-style touring that an interior visit requires becomes a project of dawn starts and long midday breaks. Spring permits something different. From late March to mid-May the temperature is reliably in the low to middle twenties, the sea has warmed enough for swimming by early May, the wildflowers are in their two-week peak, and the coastal towns — Taormina, Cefalù, Trapani — are populated but not crowded.

We propose, for clients new to Sicily, a ten-day passage that follows the eastern coast from Taormina southwards, then crosses the interior and finishes either with a few days at the western tip or — our preferred conclusion — a private passage by sea to the Aeolian Islands. This is the route we know best, and it offers, in spring, a particular kind of completeness.

Taormina, As It Has Always Been

Taormina has been the Sicilian destination of the international traveller for nearly two centuries — Goethe, Lawrence, Capote, Dolce & Gabbana — and the town has accommodated each successive wave with reasonable grace. The view from the Greek Theatre to Etna is the view it was when Goethe first wrote about it. The Corso Umberto, in the early evening, is one of the great pieces of Italian street theatre. The hotels have improved considerably in the last decade: the Belmond Grand Hotel Timeo remains the institutional answer, but the more recent San Domenico Palace, restored under Four Seasons, has set a new contemporary standard.

We always include in the Taormina days a private excursion to Etna — not the cable-car-and-snow-park experience, but a private 4×4 ascent with a vulcanologist who can explain the geology and the history of the eruptions, ending with a tasting at one of the small wineries on the volcano's northern flank. Etna wine has emerged in the last fifteen years as one of the most interesting Italian terroirs, and a private visit to producers like Tenuta delle Terre Nere or Frank Cornelissen is a serious wine experience.

The Interior

The Sicilian interior — Caltagirone, Piazza Armerina, the great country house museums of the Sicilian aristocracy — is the part of the island most often missed by the visitor on a coastal-only trip. It is also, in some ways, the most interesting part. The Villa Romana del Casale at Piazza Armerina, with its extraordinary fourth-century mosaics, is one of the great archaeological sites of the western Mediterranean and asks for a private guide and an early-morning visit.

We base our interior visits at one of two estates: the Susafa, a restored masseria in the Madonie, or — for clients who want the most theatrical accommodation in Sicily — the Monaci delle Terre Nere on Etna's northern flank, where one sleeps in a converted monastic complex surrounded by vineyards. From either, day trips to Caltagirone, Noto and Modica are quietly arranged with private guides.

The Passage to the Aeolians

The most considered Sicilian itineraries finish on water. We arrange a private yacht — anywhere from a thirty-metre to a fifty-metre, depending on the party — for the final three or four days, with a passage from Milazzo across to the Aeolian Islands. The archipelago consists of seven main islands; the ones we anchor at are Salina, with its capers and Malvasia and the small hotel Capofaro on the cliffs above the sea; Stromboli, for the night swim and the volcano's quiet evening eruptions visible from the deck; and Panarea, smaller and more social, for a final dinner at Hotel Raya before the passage back.

These four days are, for most clients, the part of the journey they speak about afterwards. They are also the part that most rewards the spring booking. The Aeolians from late June onwards become, in places, fashionable; in early May they are still the islands of the fishermen and the volcano-watchers. This is the version of them we send our clients to find.