Taormina, Sicily. Photographs by John Peyton Cooke.

Taormina, Sicily (Italy)
All photographs by John Peyton Cooke, copyright © 2003 by John Peyton Cooke. All rights reserved.

This is the town of Taormina, Sicily (Italy), taken from the terrace of the Hotel Grand Timeo. The peak of Mt. Etna can be seen in the distance, just before the morning clouds rolled in to obscure it for the rest of the day.

RECOMMENDED READING
Daphne Phelps's memoir A HOUSE IN SICILY chronicles her adventures as the keeper of a pensione in Taormina from immediately after WWII to the present day. Inheriting the house, Casa Cuseni, from her uncle, the artist Robert Kitson, she transformed it into a way station for travelers and visiting writers, artists, and thinkers. The book is an episodic look at Ms. Phelps's life in Taormina, rich with anecdotes about her notable guests, such as Tennessee Williams, Henry Faulkner, Bertrand Russell, and others. Perhaps more interesting, however, are her tales of the locals and how she came to gain their trust over time. Her insights into the local Sicilian character(s) are immensely valuable to anyone wanting to travel to Sicily, but especially to Taormina. The town has changed enormously since she first arrived after the war; thus, most of her memoir actually captures a Taormina that is now lost due to overdevelopment and rampant tourism.

Private terraces at the Hotel Grand Timeo, before the ruins of the ancient Greek (later Roman) theater, commonly called the Teatro Greco.	View of the bay below Taormina. The peninsula jutting into the bay was the site of the original ancient Greek colony of Naxos, founded 734 BC.
The public terrace at the Hotel Grand Timeo, with ruins of the Teatro Greco in the background.	A glimpse of the gardens of the Hotel Grand Timeo, with the misty Mediterranean Sea in the background.
A view of the town of Taormina with Mt. Etna rising in the background.	Another view of the gardens below the Hotel Grand Timeo, with the bay and the modern town of Giardini-Naxos on the peninsula.
The terrace at the Hotel Grand Timeo, which has had as its guests Kaiser Wilhelm, Thomas Mann, Andre Gide, and many others, including myself!	A view of the Teatro Greco from just behind the Hotel Grand Timeo.
The church of Santa Caterina.	Looking up toward the Via Teatro Greco, at the intersection with the Via di Giovanni, at the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele
A view down the Via Teatro Greco, looking toward the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele.	The Torre dell'Orologio, a medieval clock tower along the Corso Umberto I, as seen from the Piazza Novo Aprile, named for the date Garibaldi liberated Sicily and joined it to Italy. The outdoor cafe is that of the Wunderbar, where Tennessee Williams would hang out whenever he was in Taormina to watch all the "squares" go by.
The church of San Giuseppe overlooking the Piazza Novo Aprile.	Another view of the church of San Giuseppe.
The 15th-century church of Sant'Agostino, now the town library. It sits on the Piazza Novo Aprile, on the opposite side of the Wunderbar.	A portion of the Corso Umberto I, looking toward the back of the Torre del'Orologio.
A fountain in the plaza before the Duomo.	The Duomo, originally built in the 13th century but since restored several times.
A broader view of the Duomo, with the Corso Umberto I on the left.	A medieval chapel, looking up toward the Madonna della Rocca.
Another view of the old chapel, which houses a memorial to those who died during the Allied bombing of Taormina in WWII, when it was Kesselring's headquarters for the German army in Sicily.	The Porta Catania.
The other side of the Porta Catania, from within the medieval portion of Taormina.	A church on one of Taormina's side streets.
Cypresses and urns in the Giardino Pubblico.	A dwarf tree in an urn in the Giardino Publicco.
View of the Via Roma from the terrace of the Giardino Publicco.	One of many eccentric 19th-century structures in the Giardino Publicco. In the days of the ancient Greek colony of Taormina, these gardens were the site of the gymnasium, or school, for the education of Taormina's youths.
More of the curious structures within the Giardino Publicco.	Blooming flowers in the garden.
A memorial for Taormina's fallen soldiers.	A walk lined with tall cypresses within the public garden.
One of the many cats of Taormina, pausing before a fountain.	Another fountain, without cat.
Another fountain.	Another Taormina cat. This one lives in the stands of the Teatro Greco.
Here again is the black cat of the Teatro Greco, patrolling his home.	View of the right half of the stage from high in the stands of the Teatro Greco.
The left half of the stage are of the Teatro Greco, with the bay in the background.	Entrance to backstage area at the Teatro Greco.











	On a clear day, you can see a nicely framed view of Mt. Etna through this archway, but on this day it was clouded over.
Roman columns within the Teatro Greco.
Tourists in the stage area, about to be eaten by lions.	Area under the stage, where lions were kept during the Roman era, when the theater was mainly used for blood games.

Composite photo of the Teatro Greco.