Hello all,
There are a few vendors of the hop on/ hop off bus in Taormina and trying to select the best one. I would love to hear the comments about the one that you selected and why. Thank you as always!
Marie
Posted by
Paris
7259 posts
Hi!
Taormina is...really small, and there is already a cable car from the town to the coast. I am not sure where the bus would take you that you could not reach in foot.
Posted by
Freedonia
16024 posts
And much of the center of town is mostly pedestrain only.
Posted by
Chicago
2043 posts
Don't think logistically a HOHO bus going to serve your purpose. I didn't even know one of those existed there.
We're returning to Taormina for 4 nights next April after 15 years. The main drag has always been Corso Umberto, which is totally pedestrian & relatively flat in & of itself, from Porta Catania on the south to Porta Messina on the north. That's where most everything happens. Venture off, and you're either going up...or down, which is part & parcel of the town being on the side of a mountain. Many stairs.
The crown sightseeing jewel of Taormina is the Teatro Greco, built by (maybe) the Greeks in 321 B.C. It's a 10 minute walk off the Corso. Otherwise, Taormina is surrounded by a bunch of winding roads/highways, brutal to navigate on foot, and frankly there's not a ton to see by bus. We are taking the train into Taormina from the north, crossing the Strait of Messina and into Sicily on the train/ferry, the last left in Europe. The train leaves us off at the Taormina/Giardini Naxos stop down near the beach, and we've hired the tour guides Sicily Life to take us up to our AirBnB. They're also hosting a gastro/winery tour for us on the slopes of Mt. Etna one day--really looking forward to that!
We booked this AirBnB because it looks beautiful, great vistas of the sea. And because they said it's '100 meters' from Porta Messina. Then I got on Google Street View, and I think it's 100 meters only if you can fly! Not to worry, they say there's a series of pedestrian walkways/staircases that will take us where we want to go, or back to the AirBnB. But me thinks we'll be taking a taxi some nights after big dinners!
Taormina is wonderful, maybe not prehistoric-looking like rural Sicily, but different enough from the mainland that we'll totally enjoy it.