In the Footsteps of the Godfather
Experience Sicily’s incomparable beauty as featured in The Godfather film series during your scenic tour of Savoca and Taormina.
You will meet your guide and your driver on the pier and you will depart to Naxos.
Giardini Naxos is a seaside resort strung along a wide bay below the famous Taormina. Its setting is picturesque, and although the little town is not particularly elegant or exciting, it’s a joyful place in the tourist season, with superb views of Taormina and the Sicilian hills.
You will drive by Naxos and reach Savoca.
The village of Savoca is in an attractive hillside setting. A ruined castle – Castello di Pentefur – stands above the village. Savoca has numerous small churches, among which ‘Chiesa di Santa Maria in Cielo Assunta’ is the most important.
The main attractions of Savoca are The Bar Vitelli, an attractive building called Palazzo Trimarchi with a balcony, decorated with plants, featured in Francis Ford Coppola’s famous film ‘The Godfather’.
The Cappuccini Monastery features an impressive collection of 32 ancient mummified monks – some intact some not – in their catacombs, dating from the 18th century
Savoca is listed as one of the “most beautiful villages of Italy”.
You will then continue for a short drive toward Taormina, and a visit to Forza d’Agro. This attractive little village overlooks the Arab-Norman castle of Capo Sant’Alessio, and the coastline towards Messina and the strait. In 1990, Al Pacino and Sophia Coppola came here to film some scenes for The Godfather III. From the main square, a lane leads up to circular steps that ascend to the Gothic-Catalan portal in front of the Church of St. Agostino which features a beautiful 15th century facade.
After a visit to the Baroque Chiesa Madre, you will board your coach again to go back to the port.
Mount Etna
You will meet your guide and your driver at the port of Taormina and you will depart to Mount Etna.
Mount Etna, also known as Muncibeddu (beautiful mountain) in Sicilian and Mongibello in Italian (from the Latin mons and the Arabic gibel, both meaning mountain), is an active volcano on the east coast of Sicily. In Greek Mythology, the deadly monster Typhon was trapped under this mountain by Zeus, the god of the sky.
Volcanic activity first took place at Etna about half a million years ago, with eruptions occurring beneath the sea off the ancient coastline of Sicily. Currently standing 3,329 meters (10,922 ft) high, Etna is the largest and most majestic active volcano in Europe: all around the craters, the lava flows confirming the ceaseless activity of the volcano.
Today Etna, which dominates the entire province of Catania, looks like an enormous black cone (white in winter), visible from 250 km away.
For the sailors, the volcano is “a natural lighthouse that does not need a lighthouse keeper”; once upon a time, its sight alone was enough to navigate, no need for a compass. Thus, the Etna for Sicilian sailors worked as an “anemometer, because the direction in which the smoke drifted indicated the direction of the wind forces, also as a barometer because, the arrangement of the clouds along Etna’s slopes, indicated the past rainfalls”.
Mount Etna is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and is in an almost constant state of activity.
The visit with your guide will lead you up to Cratere Silvestri (approx 2,000 metres high).
Here you can wander around at leisure.
After the visit of Mount Etna you will return to the port.
Mount Etna on 4×4
Sicilian Wines
Taormina and Greek Theatre
Taormina and Mount Etna
