Taormina

Before the First World War Taormina took in a particular kind of foreigner: English painters with private incomes, a German emperor who came three times, and men who found the town more tolerant than home. Most of the addresses below date from that period, including two hotels and a painter's villa, and in 2022 a television series added a fresh round of guests to one of them.

Stay

Institutions

Grand Hotel Timeo (Via Teatro Greco) — Francesco La Floresta began letting rooms in 1850 and in 1874 bought the land directly below the Greek theatre; his son Giuseppe enlarged the hotel between 1896 and 1906. Kaiser Wilhelm II stayed three times, Edward VII between 1906 and 1908, and Jean Cocteau and Tennessee Williams came later still. The Franza family sold it to Orient-Express in 2010, and it is now a Belmond hotel.

San Domenico Palace (Piazza San Domenico) — A Dominican monastery from the fourteenth century and a hotel since 1896. Four Seasons reopened it in 2021 with 111 rooms in two wings; the second season of The White Lotus was filmed here.

Crossing Town

Casa Cuseni (Via Leonardo da Vinci) — Robert Kitson, a Leeds painter who left England partly because Taormina was kinder to men like him, built the villa between 1905 and 1907, and Frank Brangwyn decorated the dining room. His niece Daphne Phelps kept it until 2005. It is now a national monument, with a museum and a few rooms to let.