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Sicilia 2026Seven days on the Ionian coast
Day2Day 2 · Tue 18 Aug

Messina, Taormina & Randazzo

The Strait at noon, a Greek theatre in the afternoon, and Etna wine at sunset

  • Caravaggio at the MuMe
  • The clock at noon
  • Teatro Antico
  • Etna DOC tasting
The ancient theatre of Taormina with the ruined stage framing the coast and Mount Etna beyond
The Teatro Antico, with Etna framed through the stagePierowriter · CC BY-SA 4.0

The biggest day of the week, and the one that needs an alarm. North first to Messina, three kilometres from Calabria, for two of the last paintings Caravaggio ever made and the largest astronomical clock in the world, which puts on a twelve-minute mechanical performance at midday and at no other time. Then back down the coast to Taormina for the afternoon, and inland over Etna’s northern flank to Randazzo, where the whole town is built of lava and the vineyards on the black sand make the most interesting wine in Italy.

What it looks like

The route

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8 stops, by car

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The day, hour by hour

  1. 07:45

    North to Messina

    Aci Trezza → Messina, A18

    Up the motorway with Etna behind you and the Calabrian mountains slowly resolving across the water ahead. The early start is the price of the noon clock, and it also buys the only cool hours of the day.

    Drive1 h 05

    Coffee at an autogrill rather than in the village — leaving at a quarter to eight is what makes the rest of the day fit.

  2. 09:15

    Museo Regionale — the last Caravaggios

    MuMe, Viale della Libertà

    Caravaggio came to Messina in 1608 on the run from a murder charge, and painted the *Raising of Lazarus* and the *Adoration of the Shepherds* here about a year before he died. They hang in the same room, enormous and very dark, and they are the reason to be in Messina at all. Antonello da Messina, the city’s own painter, is a few rooms away.

    Sight1 h 30€10
    Map

    The museum is a couple of kilometres north of the centre, so this is a short drive rather than a walk. Tuesday to Saturday it runs 09:00–19:00 and closes on Mondays, so a Tuesday morning is the safe slot.

  3. 11:15

    Piazza del Duomo & the Fontana di Orione

    Messina centre

    The cathedral is Norman underneath and largely rebuilt twice over — the 1908 earthquake levelled the city and killed most of its people, and the 1943 bombing finished the job. The fountain in front, carved by a pupil of Michelangelo in 1553, is dedicated to Orion, whom Messina claims as its founder.

    Sight45 minFree
    Map

    Get into the piazza well before noon and pick a spot facing the bell tower. It fills up.

  4. 12:00

    Noon — the astronomical clock

    Campanile del Duomo

    Built in Strasbourg in 1933 and the largest of its kind anywhere. On the stroke of twelve, and only then, fifty-four bronze figures start moving up the sixty-metre tower: a lion roars and shakes its banner, a cockerel crows, Dina and Clarenza ring the bells, and the whole thing runs to Schubert’s *Ave Maria*. It takes about twelve minutes and it is gloriously silly.

    View20 minFree

    This is the one immovable appointment of the day. Miss noon and there is no second showing.

  5. 12:45

    Back down the coast to Taormina

    Messina → Taormina, A18 south

    Park at Porta Catania or the Lumbi garage and take the shuttle up — driving into the town itself is not realistic in August.

    Drive45 min

    Taormina’s car parks are full by mid-morning in high season, but by half past one the morning coaches are leaving and spaces open up.

  6. 13:45

    Lunch, slowly, out of the sun

    Taormina

    The middle of an August afternoon is not for walking around, so this is a long lunch by design. Keep it light, though — there is a tasting and a mountain dinner coming. Pasta with pistachio, and a granita di gelso afterwards.

    Food1 h 15

    The side streets off the Corso have shaded courtyards and half the prices of the terraces on it.

  7. 15:15

    Villa Comunale

    Via Bagnoli Croci

    The public gardens, laid out by an exiled Englishwoman who came to Taormina in the 1890s and stayed. Terraced, planted with enormous ficus and bougainvillea, and hanging directly over the bay — it is the shadiest and quietest place in town, which is exactly what three o’clock in August requires.

    Pause1 hFree
    Map
  8. 16:15

    Corso Umberto I & Piazza IX Aprile

    Taormina centre

    The pedestrian spine from Porta Messina to Porta Catania, opening halfway along into a terrace over the sea with a black-and-white chequerboard floor. Undeniably touristic; still one of the best streets in Sicily.

    Walk30 min
    Map

    Duck into the side stairways off the Corso — they are empty two metres from the crowd.

  9. 16:45

    Teatro Antico di Taormina

    Via Teatro Greco

    Greek in origin, largely rebuilt by the Romans, and positioned by someone who understood exactly what they were doing: the broken stage frames Etna on one side and the coast down to Capo Schisò on the other. Late afternoon is the right time — the crowds have thinned, the stone has stopped glaring and the volcano usually comes out of the haze.

    Sight1 h€14
    Map

    Last admission is an hour before closing, which is 19:00 in summer. There is no shade in the cavea at all.

  10. 18:00

    Over the north flank to Randazzo

    SS120 via Linguaglossa

    One of the best drives on the island, and it climbs into cooler air the whole way. The road leaves the coast for chestnut and oak woods, then breaks out onto old lava flows with the summit craters directly above.

    Drive1 h

    Passenger job: watch for the black 1981 flow cutting straight across the vineyards on the way into Randazzo.

  11. 19:00

    Randazzo centro storico

    Via Umberto I, Randazzo

    The closest town to the summit and, improbably, never buried. Everything — churches, palazzi, paving — is built from black lava, which makes it look permanently like dusk. Santa Maria is the one to see. At 750 m it will be a good ten degrees cooler than the coast was at lunchtime.

    Walk40 min
    Map
  12. 19:45

    Etna DOC — tasting and dinner at the winery

    Contrade around Passopisciaro

    The northern versante is the heart of the appellation: Nerello Mascalese for the reds, Carricante for the whites, grown on terraced black sand between 600 and 1,000 m, much of it pre-phylloxera and ungrafted. The wines come out pale, high-acid and savoury — closer to Burgundy or Barolo than to anything else in the south. Book the tasting with food and let it be dinner; the sun goes down behind the vines at about ten to eight.

    Wine2 h€35–60 for a tasting with food
    Map

    Book at least a week ahead — these are small estates and nobody takes walk-ins. Ask to taste across contrade rather than up a range; the single-vineyard differences here are the entire point.

  13. 21:45

    Down off the mountain

    Randazzo → Aci Trezza

    An hour and ten minutes back to sea level, most of it downhill on empty roads. Late, but the day earned it.

    Drive1 h 10
    Map

    Settle who is driving before the tasting starts, not during it. Whoever it is should be tasting and spitting, which every estate here expects and provides for.