Sicily (Italian and Sicilian: Sicilia) of all the regions of Italy, Sicily covers the largest surface area with 25,708 km²and currently has five million inhabitants. It is also the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, though several much smaller islands surrounding it are also considered part of Sicily.

Throughout much of its history, Sicily has been considered a crucial strategic location due in large part to its importance for Mediterranean trade routes. The area was highly regarded as part of Magna Graecia, with Cicero describing Siracusa as the greatest and most beautiful city of all Ancient Greece.

Although today it is a region of Italy, it was once a country in its own right, as the Kingdom of Sicily, ruled from Palermo. The Kingdom of Sicily ruled over southern Italy, Sicily, and Malta. It later became a part of the Two Sicilies under the Bourbons, which was actually centered in Naples rather than Sicily. Since that time the risorgimento has occurred and Sicily has been a fully fledged part of Italy.

Sicily is considered to be highly rich in its own unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, cuisine, architecture and even language. The Sicilian economy is largely based on agriculture (famously orange and lemon orchards); this same rural countryside has attracted significant tourism in the modern age as its natural beauty is highly regarded. Sicily also holds importance for fine arts, architecture archaeological and ancient sites such as the ones herewith described.

Taormina displays a surprising cultural heritage where visitors are welcome

Corvaja Palace is the most important medieval palace of which the town boasts. It takes the name from the Corvaja family, one of the most ancient and noble families of Taormina, which possessed it from 1538 to 1945. It rises in Abbey square and is the most important medieval palace of which the town boasts. It has an Arabic style and at the same time Gothic and Norman, turned out from transformations brought by various dominations.

Corvaja Palace, Taormina

Palazzo Duchi of Santo Stefano is a masterpiece of the Gothic Sicilian Art based on the Arab-Norman experience. Built between the end of thirteen hundred and the beginning of fourteen hundred, it was integral part of the medieval town wall of Taormina. On two façades there is a frieze that forms a wonderful lace with inlays thanks to the alternation of plugs in lava stone and plugs in white stone of Syracuse. The original look of a fortified building, was changed in the fourteen century.

Isola Bella is a small island near Taormina, Sicily. The beautiful island (also known as The Pearl of the Ionian Sea) within a small bay on the Ionian Sea was a private property until 1990, when it was bought by the Region of Sicily and became a nature reserve, administrated by the Italian branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature. There is a narrow path that often connects the island to the mainland beach. The island has a small and rather rocky beach which is a popular destination for sunbathers.

	The “ISOLABELLA” near Taormina

Monte Aetna(also known as Muncibeddu in Sicilian and Mongibello in Italian, a combination of Latin mons and Arabic gibel, both meaning mountain, in Latin, Aetna) is an active volcano on the east coast of Sicily, close to Messina and Catania. It is the largest active volcano in Europe, currently standing about 3,326 m (10,910 ft) high, though it should be noted thatthis varies with summit eruptions; the mountain is 21.6 m (71 ft) lower now than it was in 1865. It is the highest mountain in Italy south of the Alps. Etna covers an area of 1,190 km² (460 m²) with a basal circumference of 140 km. This makes it by far the largest of the three active volcanoes in Italy, being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius.

The fertile volcanic soils support extensive agriculture, with vineyards and orchards spread across the lower slopes of the mountain and the broad Plain of Catania to the south. Due to its history of recent activity and nearby population, Mount Etna has been designated a Decade Volcano by the United Nations.

	Mount Etna eruption

Other examples of fine Arts and Architectural splendours in Sicily

(distances are indicative and are taken from Taormina)

Acireale (35 km)

(Aciriali in Sicilian) is a seaport city in the north-east of the province of Catania, Sicily (Italy), at the foot of Mount Etna. It is famous for its neogothic cathedral and its paintings, such as The Basilica di San Sebastiano whose shapes summarize the entire baroque movement in Sicily. The oldest academy in Sicily, the "Accademia dei Dafnici e degli Zelanti" is located here.

San Sebastiano Basilica

The Greek Theatre of Syracuse (120 km)

Villa Amerina - Piazza Armerina (148 km)

Valle dei Templi –Agrigento (216 km)

Ancient Akragas covers a huge area — much of which is still unexcavated today — but is exemplified by the famous Valle dei Templi ("Valley of the Temples", a misnomer, as it is a ridge, rather than a valley). This comprises a large sacred area on the south side of the ancient city where seven monumental Greek temples in the Doric style were constructed during the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. Now excavated and partially restored, they constitute some of the largest and best-preserved ancient Greek buildings outside of Greece itself. It is listed as a World Heritage Site.

The best-preserved of the temples are two very similar buildings traditionally attributed to the goddesses Juno Lacinia and Concordia (though archaeologists believe this attribution to be incorrect). The latter temple is remarkably intact, due to its having been converted into a Christian church in 597 CE. Both were constructed to a peripteral hexastyle design. The area around the Temple of Concordia was later re-used by early Christians as a catacomb, with tombs hewn out of the rocky cliffs and outcrops.

The other temples are much more fragmentary, having been toppled by earthquakes long ago and quarried for their stones. The largest by far is the Temple of Olympian Zeus, built to commemorate the Battle of Himera in 480 BCE: it is believed to have been the largest Doric temple ever built. Although it was apparently used, it appears never to have been completed; construction was abandoned after the Carthaginian invasion of 406 BCE. The remains of the temple were extensively quarried in the eighteenth century to build the jetties of Porto Empedocles. Temples dedicated to Hephaestus, Heracles and Asclepius were also constructed in the sacred area, which includes a sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone (formerly known as the Temple of Castor and Pollux); the marks of the fires set by the Carthaginians in 406 BCE can still be seen on the sanctuary's stones.

Monreale (267 km)

Christ Pantocrator (Monreale)

Monreale, from "Mons Regalis" (Royal Mountain), is a town of some 25,000 residents located on the slope of Mount Caputo (764 Meters) about 7 kilometres south of Palermo's centre. Monreale overlooks the "Conca d'Oro," the beautiful valley beyond Palermo, and the town itself is situated at an altitude of roughly 300 Meters above sea level.

No trip to Palermo is truly complete without a visit to Monreale.

Monreale is world-renowned for its cathedral, a dazzling mixture of Arab, Byzantine and Norman artistic styles framed by traditional Romanesque architecture, all combined in a perfect blend of the best that both the Christian and Muslim worlds of the 12th century had to offer. The beautiful mosaics in Monreale Cathedral are said to be one of the world's largest displays of this art, surpassed only by Istanbul's famous Basilica of Saint Sofia, once an Orthodox church. (Unfortunately, many of those beautiful mosaics were destroyed when the Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453.) Monreale's mosaics emblazon 6,340 square meters of the duomo's interior surface, more than those of the splendid church of Saint Mark in Venice.

The mosaics of "Santa Maria la Nuova," the official name of Monreale Cathedral, are far more extensive than those of the cathedral of Cefalù, and while the mosaics of the Palatine Chapel in Palermo's Norman Palace are of equally exquisite craftsmanship, the latter convey the sense of an elaborate work of art stuffed into a tiny house. In contrast, the mosaics of Monreale's duomo are grandiose, covering practically every inch of the vast interior.

The splendid cloister of the Benedictine abbey alone would make Monreale famous. Located next to the cathedral, these 228 columns, some with mosaic inlay, each with a meticulously stone carved capital, enclose the gardens of the cloister. The capitals themselves depict scenes in Sicily's Norman history, complete with knights and kings. The style of the Norman knight figures evokes the knights depicted in the Bayeaux Tapestry, a chronicle of the Battle of Hastings. Historians have determined the date of the introduction of heraldry (coats of arms) in Sicily by the shields of the Monreale knight figures, which lack any heraldic decoration.

Aeolian Islands – Lipari Islands (86 + 42 on ferry)

A view of the Lipari Islands

The archipelago of the Aeolian islands counts seven islands: Lipari, Vulcano, Panarea, Stromboli, Salina, Filicudi and Alicudi. Lipari is the main island and the biggest as well. Every island has its own peculiarities, so it is really worth a visit.Lipari offers a great choice for accommodation, restaurants and nightlife. Panarea is quite exclusive and elegant. Vulcano's fame is due to its natural mud spas. Stromboli, with its active volcano, offers every night an amazing eruption. Alicudi, Filicudi and Salina are the less known by the tourism and preserve their original wilderness. Alicudi and Filicudi are the ideal resorts to find relax and quietness.