Taormina, the spectacular seaside city in Sicily, has been a favorite of tourists since the greats of Hollywood’s golden days put it on the map 60+ years ago. With so many sights to see, so many activities to partake in, and so much pizza to eat, how is one supposed to choose from this romantic mecca? We toured Taormina, Sicily with Experience Taormina by Sicily Lifestyle and experienced the best tours in all of Taormina Sicily .

While we only had a few short days with Experience Taormina, their educational, enriching, and enlightening tours helped us tap into the authentic Taormina, away from the touristic crowds of Corso Umberto.

Experience Taormina by Sicily Lifestyle offers dozens of delicious and delightful tours around the Taormina area, but we focused our touring on food and wine. I mean, this is Sicily, come on! The difference with Experience Taormina and other tour companies is that Experience Taormina is passionate about people. They genuinely love providing people with the absolute best experiences and showing the authentic city of their picturesque town of Taormina. When someone loves what you do, it’s apparent in every detail, and Experience Taormina leaves no stone unturned. Experience Taormina not only creates memorable experiences, but you leave their tours having made lifelong friends.

Onto the tours! Our first stop with Experience Taormina was their pizza & cannolo making class.

After we put our cooking aprons on, it was time to get to work! The chef, Diego, took us through the art of pizza making. Too often, cooking tours make you sit back and watch the cook, but this tour really taught us the ins and outs of pizza. The “Pizza & Cannolo Tour” is a get your hands dirty (literally), authentic pizza making and it’s the only way to go!

The pizza making experience was delightful and fun! We created the dough from scratch, kneaded the dough out to a perfect pizza circle, added our toppings, and even attempted (hey, this stuff is hard!) to put the pizza in the oven. Luckily, Diego was there to help us with every step along the way.

After we made our pizza dough, it was onto our cannolo creation. We started with the cannolo dough; after mixing our flour, sugar, coffee, and marsala wine together, it was time to kneed the dough, which was not an easy task! I give those Italian bakers credit! I’d say that was our arm workout for the day! We then rolled out the dough and wrapped it around a small cylinder to fry the cannolo dough.

For the cannolo filling, we whipped up some ricotta cheese (hello, heaven) with sugar. I took my spoon and started to dig in for dinner. Oh wait, that goes in the cannolo? Ok, fine I’ll wait.

After cooking our pizza and cannolo’s, we were ready to reap the rewards of our efforts. We sat down to a lovely dinner that WE created! Along with some delicious Sicilian house wine (seriously, you can’t go wrong with the wines here), we were feasting on our food and enjoying the best ingredient of all – the wonderful Sicilian company. I would highly recommend this activity to people of all ages looking to learn a Sicilian tradition and have fun while doing it.

Our next stop was the Etna Wine Trail, a tour that will go down in history as one of the top tours we’ve ever experienced. We started bright and early (it’s not a bad wake up call when you’ll be drinking all day), and set off for the Etna wine trail with our private sommelier.

The wine region of Etna is unique, with its apparent volcanic soil creating hills of lava, which add a rich complexity and intricate mineral notes to their wines. Wine tasting with the monolithic Mt. Etna in the background is unquestionably the best way to experience Taormina.

With three stops on the tour, we tasted white wine, rosé, and robust reds. A private tour is arranged through charming cottages, wine terraces, and scenic vineyards. A knowledgeable guide teaches you the particulars about the specific winery while you nosh on delicious snacks and sip enchanting wines. Experience Taormina’s private sommelier is able to explain and teach you about each individual wine along the way, making sure no taste bud goes unturned.

Our last stop was at a private villa, where the vines are over 80 years old. After walking through the vineyards littered with kiwi, peach, and cherry trees, we dined on an unforgettable homemade Sicilian meal.

Overall, Experience Taormina provided the absolute best and most authentic tours we’ve experience on our journey around the world. If you’re ever in the Taormina area, contact Experience Taormina to complete your extraordinary Sicilian holiday.

Thank you to Sicily Lifestyle for hosting us as their guest. The content & opinions listed here are entirely our own.

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