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Dear Annie,
I'm half Sicilian and I have a little flat in Taormina where I spend my vacations every year in the month of September. My mother was from Taormina but I live in Naples.
While the weather was awful in all the rest of Italy, in Taormina we have had a wonderful climate.

I'd suggest to your friends the following excursions:

1) Gole dell'Alcantara (wanderful cold waterfalls)
2) Castelmola
3) Forza D'Agrò and Savoca (where Francis Ford Coppola worked at some scenes of the movie "The Godfather" (1972)
4) Caltagirone (city of ceramic)
and MANY MANY other places.

[QUOTE=Annie T]Some friends are going to Sicily at the end of the month for a fortnight. They will be based in Taormina but will be out and about. They would be grateful for advice on what the weather is likely to be and which places they should visit. They are pensioners so mountaineering is out! Thank you.[/QUOTE]

Dear Anne
In this moment the weather is pretty bed (talking about the area of Taormina) and can be rainy till the end of the month (off course we will have sunny days as well).
However if your friends will have a car with them, travelling around will not be a problem, sometimes using Sicilian public transports can be a nightmare (busses or trains).
From Taormina they can easily reach Mount Etna at 2000 mts. with their own car, The Alkantara gorges (very close to Taormina). They can also visit the city centre of Catania and also Syracuse with the archaeological park Neapolis and the isle of Ortigia inside Syracuse city centre.
They have also the chance to visit the Aeolian isle archipelago taking a ferry or better a hydro foil boat from Milazzo (about 1hrs from Taormina) to the Aeolian island.
Best regards

Dear Annie

Also, not far from Caltagirone, are the substantial remains of a Roman villa, the Villa di Casale, thought to have belonged to the Emperor Maximillian. It has the most amazing mosaic floors depicting African animals, hunting scenes, girls in bikinis etc. Well worth a visit.