The Views of Taormina

On the last day of our final road-trip through Sicily, we drove a few kilometers up the coast from Catania to Taormina, the island's most popular beach resort. Word of its charm had reached our ears from just about everyone we'd come in contact with: friends, strangers in bars, neighbors, Twitter acquaintances. Even my grandmother called to say that we should really visit Taormina. She's never even been to Sicily and she's been dead for ten years! Phone calls from beyond the grave are pretty persuasive: we had to go.

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The Teatro Massimo

After centuries of foreign occupation, Sicily enthusiastically joined the Kingdom of Italy in 1860. Finally free of the hated Bourbons, Palermo celebrated its allegiance to the new King Vittorio Emanuele by ordering a theater built in his honor. After thirty years of construction, the Teatro Massimo ("Maximum Theater") opened to great fanfare in 1897. It's the largest opera house in Italy, and the third largest in all Europe.

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