Itinerary Madonna delle Grazie

By Sicily Holidays in : Itineraries, Taormina // May 10 2010

This is the old route of the fishermen of Taormina that lived in the adjacent area of ‘Le Mura’ which in a few minutes meets the sea of Villagonia. To take this little road you need only to walk along Via Roma or Via Bagnoli Croci near the south gate of the Giardino Pubblico (public gardens).

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Beginning the descent on the left we can see the Hotel Monte Tauro and immediately after on the right a small church dedicated to Madonna delle Grazie, where the old fishermen would offer a prayer before going to sea. This simple church was built as a religious promise by the mariner Francesco Parisi, a survivor of a shipwreck towards the end of the 1800’s. Although the church is only open for the festival of Madonna della Grazie (2nd July) through the keyhole of the church door you can see the image of the Madonna with her child.

Little by little as we descend the old road the panorama panorama becomes increasingly more beautiful with the fusion of the blue of the sea with the snowy peak of Etna. The wide bay which stands out between Capo Taormina and Naxos reflects the various tones of the day from intense blue to violet and all this is framed by the Mediterranean land that rules with its Indian fig trees, agave, acanthus and broom.

Naxos is presented before us like a strip of lava that comes from Etna and dips into the Ionian Sea. In fact in prehistoric times the lava of the smaller volcano of Mojo Alcantara flowed from the nearby valley to heat our sea creating a small peninsula where the Greek colonists from Eubea came in the eighth century b.c to construct their first Sicilian colony.
Bewitched by the glimpse of the panorama they quickly built the little village of Villagonia a true fisherman village which has now lost its original connotation.

Passing along a small stretch of road we arrive at the Stazione di Taormina-Giardini, which was opened between 1866 and the start of 1867 and rebuilt in an art nouveau style in the first 20 years of 1900 in place of the Palazzo owned by the noble family San Martino Ramondetto Prince of Pardo, Duke of Montalbo and Santo Stefano di Briga. In this station at the end of 1860 arrived a red haired Prussian noble called Ottone Geleng who through his paintings exhibited in Paris for the first time, was the first person to bring to the world’s attention the name and beauty of Taormina.

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