I’ve longed to write this up for several months. My husband has planned and led a number of small group trips to Europe and, as an artist and professor, has learned the delight it gives to travelers to start with an exclamation point. So in designing our first Sicily adventure – in this case to share with just our daughter and her husband, he chose Taormina and Hotel Villa Ducale as our #1 stop. What a perfect choice! By our request, the hotel had arranged for a driver to meet us at Catania airport after our long journey from California. Antonio was truly personable and kept us from dozing by sharing his in depth knowledge of the area, quickly picking up on our special interest in history and architecture. From the town of Taormina, the road curves up the mountain yielding tantalizing snippets of the views to come. Arriving at the entrance, we were ushered down the gracious stone stairway and into the homey reception/lounge area where we were greeted by charming Allessia whose... more