Taormina

The Sicilian city of Taormina is both a commune as well as a small town that is located on the eastern side of the Sicilian Island and features a Saracen castle that rises about 150 m above the rest of the city and is also considered to be the location of the ancient Arx or citadel.

One of the major yearly attractions in the city of Taormina is The David di Donatello Taormina Film Festival which has consistently been held for the past fifty years and features a plethora of international film stars that come to view films on a large screen that was built in an ancient Greek theatre. There is also a nature reserve just south of the city called the Isola Bella as well as a number of tours to the Capo Sant’ Andrea grottos and due to the city being built along a hilly coast line, it is only natural that Mount Etna which is Europe’s largest active volcano is only an approximated 45 minute drive away from the city.

The first novel by the Icelandic writer Halldór Laxness which was called Vefarinn mikli frá Kasmír meaning The Great Weaver of Kashmirwas written in the city in 1927. The write was considered to be proficient at writing about a plethora of literary, social and religious works as well as works on sexual issues which was, in his times, a large arean of different litterary works. Laxness also won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1955, was known to have written most of his novel while he was in Taormina which he also highly praised the city in his book of autobiographical essays called Skáldatími in 1963 which means The Time of the Poet.