Taormina's public garden was invented by an Englishwoman who arrived here in exile. Florence Trevelyan, a cousin of Queen Victoria, landed in the town in 1884 and never went back to England; in 1890 she married Salvatore Cacciola, professor of surgery and mayor of Taormina for more than twenty years. Between 1897 and 1898 she bought 87 plots of land along the slope and laid out an English garden full of rare species, which she called “Hallington siculo” after the English village where she had grown up. She died in 1907 and asked to be buried at Castelmola, above Taormina. So that the park would stay with the townspeople it was expropriated by Royal Decree no. 528 of 18 February 1923 and registered to Giovanni Colonna, duke of Cesarò: ever since, everyone calls it the parco Duchi di Cesarò, although today it carries her name.
What to see
The structures rising among the hedges are the victorian follies, the fanciful pavilions Trevelyan had built between 1890 and 1899 out of lava stone, brick and wood, for watching birds. No two are alike, with Arab, Gothic and Eastern details assembled without much scholarly scruple: some people in town call them the beehives.
The rest is botany and view. Palms, agaves, cacti, bougainvillea, figs brought from India, maritime pines, wisteria and jasmine sit on a natural terrace facing the Ionian sea, the bay of Giardini-Naxos and Etna. There are aviaries with parrots and, beside the war memorial, an old cannon and a Second World War torpedo.
Visiting
The way in is on via Bagnoli Croce, five minutes below Corso Umberto and about ten from the Ancient Theatre. Entry is free and the gate usually opens at 8:00 and closes around 20:00, with seasonal changes. The paths are level and shaded, there are benches, a children's playground and a bar: forty minutes is enough for the round, an hour if you sit down. The seaward side is one long balcony, and that is where everybody stops.
Our editors' tip
We come in the late afternoon, when the coach parties have gone and the light catches Etna sideways: that is the hour when the park goes back to the people of Taormina. Then we look at the follies close up rather than in passing from the path; the lava stone, brick and wood were set by hand, piece by piece, and it shows. If you have time, do the route backwards, entering by the upper gate and walking down towards the sea: the view then arrives all at once, at the end.