Has anyone visited Savoca and is it worth it? My group will be staying in Taormina for 4 days in January. The tour is being offered to our group for $100 per person for a day trip with a charter bus and guide. As far as I can determine, its only claim to fame is that it was a site for filming scenes from "The Godfather" movie.
We are also being offered a day trip to Catania and Mt Etna for $100. That one seems to be a good one.
Thanks for any insight.
I agree: Catania and Mt, Etna..
Many years ago, in October 2010, we visited Sicily and Taormina on our first Italian trip. And through the company Sicily Life--still in existence, used them last year, great people--we took The Godfather tour. Visited Savoca, Forza D'Agro and Castelmola, which are all shooting locations for the first Godfather movie. They're all medieval mountain villages that look like nothing's changed in 1000 years.
In Savoca, we visited Bar Vitelli, where Michael Corleone asks Apollonia's father for her hand in marriage. It was very cool to walk inside and get a granita from the same machine that apparently Francis Ford Coppola wanted to buy.
Have no idea what it's like now, but all those towns were pretty cool, especially if you're a Godfather fan. Not sure if you can get there on your own--lots of hairpin turns up the mountain. Good luck!
Giangilberto from Milan here. You've read Savoca correctly: it IS essentially the Godfather pilgrimage — Coppola shot there because his Corleone scenes needed a village untouched by time, and Savoca still is exactly that. Which gives you a clean test: if someone in your group lights up at the idea of sitting outside Bar Vitelli where Michael asked for Apollonia's hand, the day will feel magical, just as Jay describes. If nobody has that connection, then you're paying $100 a head and a bus day for a pretty hilltop village — of which Sicily has a hundred.
Etna is the opposite kind of trip: it needs no story to justify itself. And here's what nobody has mentioned yet — you're going in January, which is secretly the best version of Etna. A smoking volcano covered in snow, steam rising through the white, black lava poking out of the drifts: it looks like another planet and most visitors never see it that way. Two honest caveats: winter weather decides how high you get that day (wind can close the upper cable car and jeeps), so make sure the operator states a bad-weather plan, and it is genuinely cold up there — proper shoes and layers, not sneakers. At $100 with a guide, that's fair value; the same money for the Savoca bus run is on the steep side.
And one move that might dissolve your dilemma entirely: if what tempts you about Savoca is really the "medieval village frozen in time with a view" part, you already have one hanging directly above your hotel. Castelmola sits on the peak over Taormina — one of Italy's certified most beautiful villages, castle ruins, views over the whole coast, and Etna smoking on the horizon. The local bus from Taormina takes about fifteen minutes and costs a couple of euros. Village box ticked for pocket change, Etna gets the $100, and if a Godfather fan emerges from your group later, Savoca is a taxi negotiation away rather than a group commitment.
Is anyone in the group actually a big Godfather fan? That honestly settles it more than any of our opinions.
