The overpowering, snow-crested silhouette of Mt. Etna was etched against the sky as we headed north from Syracuse on the last Iap of this journey. Etna's immense majesty is mixed with more than a faint foreboding, for the volcano is still periodically active.
More than one village and farm on this gently sloping giant have disappeared under the advancing clinkers, hut the Sicilian farmers who cultivate these hills are tenacious. They always come back, for Etna's dusty perimeter is extraordinarily fertile. Fruit trees prosper mightily, as do chestnuts, almonds and hazelnuts. Vineyards thrive on its lower slopes and produce a heady and very acceptable table wine. Higher up are evergreen forests where local huntsmen go gunning for hare and wild boar, which are prepared in the piquant Sicilian fashion-hut not for the hotel dwellers, alas! Villainous as it has been for the past millennium and more, Etna also has its bountiful side.
TAORMINA
This ancient town, sitting on a shelf 672 feet above the sea, is more popular with travelers than any other place in Sicily-and it deserves to be. For decades it has made the greatest effort to provide comfortable accommodations for them. Its hotels and pensioni are a joy after some of the rugged experiences which traveling in southern Italy entails. They are clean, well-heated and cheerful, In every category, from the expensive San Domenico Palace (where bridegroom King Farouk took some sixty rooms for his honeymoon with Narriman) to the second-string little places, they offer excellent value, hospitality and service, and usually a palm-sheltered garden with a view. Taormina's main thoroughfare, the Corso Umberto, is the cleanest street in Sicily, and the only street where the temptation to shop is irresistible.
A traveler's resort par excellence, it has somehow retained its native charm. Ancient as the Greeks, its architectural treasures are many, the hill-top Greek theatre being its greatest monument. From this site one of the most thrilling panoramas in Italy is revealed-the sunlit town in the foreground. the sea below, and the grandeur of Etna as a back-drop. Taormina's old churches, its Moorish and Gothic buildings, its cactus and tropical vegetation make it a perpetual favorite with painters and aquarellists.
Of course, there is a slight extra charge for Taormina's many privileges. Prices are upped on everything from a chocolate to a bottle of Sotch. Its restaurants are routine. and there is small temptation to desert one's hotel dining room, where good, middle-of-the-road cooking, designed to be acceptable to polyglot pilgrims from a dozen different countries is the rule. Everything considered, Taormina's eleven principal hotels and its sprightly little pensioni deserve a blanket endorsement. with no particular names singled out. They have done quite as much as the shops, the sunshine and the scenery in making Taormina the most charming spot in southern Italy even without pasta alla sarttc and wild boar.