le stelle di casa leonardo

Ho passato alcuni giorni di benessere e completo relax in questa casa con vista impressionante sulla baia. Hosts molto cortesi.

Me and my family enjoyed our stay and were taken really good care by Louise. Her guests are very important to her, she says, and she really made sure we feel that! Ask her for the local advice too.

Louise met us to show the way to the house. The last 7-10 minutes deserve your extra careful driving. Don't get me wrong, it isn't particularly dangerous, and anyway all depends on your driving experience, but just pay attention and be prepared to stop, or to pull from handbrake on a slope on a blind turn, or to reverse downhill i.e. to give way to a bus. You might want to use lower gears. Many touristic guides are overdramatic about driving in Sicilia, but I found the local drivers are actually very tolerant of people who do not really know how to drive on the narrow steep zigzags. I really enjoyed driving in this area, and you can too. Stay safe.

It might help to save the location of the house both on your phone and your navigator. Old TomToms, which agencies love to rent out, often loose GPS and go off the rails giving wrong advise (i.e U-turn all of a sudden).

I think Louise left her guests the best parking. It is in the shade, and has a longer stretch before a steep driveway (see on the left of my photo). If you can't make it to the top the first time, just slide back to where you started and try with a bit more gas.

The house is on the bottom two floors of a 3 storey building, bedrooms are on the first, kitchen and sitting are on the ground. Both floors have the entrance floors from outside. I wouldn't recommend this accommodation to a family with a todler or elderly, because of a spiralling stairs. Carrying trays of wine glasses and snacks might be easier going outside by the road ;) And you want to do that -the view from the main bedroom balcony is breathtaking day or night!

Small bedroom only has a fan, but we found it is not a problem even in high heat (or go sleep on a coach in the sitting room with the air conditioner). Air conditioner in the main bedroom has a strong flow, we didn't find a way to reduce it, so used none at night. Generally, even 35°C feels much better here in the hills then in a city.

I highly recommend eating out in Castelmola (cheaper, tasty, 5min drive, parking is not much of a problem) rather than Taormina (busier, about 20min away by SP10, etc). On your day of arrival you might want to buy groceries before arriving, to save a trip down and back. If you see large queues of cars in multistorey car park in Taormina, most of the time it goes quickly because someone guides the cars to available lots. The beach near a good caffe Cavallaro is with the boulders but has advantage of being relatively close and having two free manual showers that work after the sunset too. Do visit the Greek theatre.

Enjoy!

Bellissima esperienza! La signora Luisa molto gentile e disponibile, appartamento pulito e dotato di tutto ciò che serve! Conviene fare la spesa prima di salire in quanto essendo una zona di montagna non è molto servita. Ottima zona per soggiornare d’estate in quanto fresca durante la notte. Vista bellissima!