Description
This private Godfather tour from Taormina follows the film into the hills, with an English-speaking guide who knows the story behind the scenes. Your guide collects you from your hotel or the port, and the day starts in Savoca, the medieval hilltop town where Michael Corleone hides during the "Going to the Mattresses" sequence.
You stop at Bar Vitelli, which looks as it did on screen, and look through photos from the movie. The square of the wedding scene gives a fine view, and the church of Santa Lucia is where Michael and Apollonia married. Along the way the guide shares trivia about the director and actors and explains the real Sicilian mafia: its rise, its structure, the "Law of Silence" and the "Men of Respect". A mirror monument to Coppola stands on a terrace over the Ionian coast.
Lunch is at a family-owned restaurant with views over mountains and sea:
- cheeses, prosciutto, olives, sun-dried tomatoes and homemade bread to start
- caponata, parmigiana and pasta alla norma
- a lemon dessert, with local wine and water
The tour ends in Forza d'Agrò, another hill town. You walk its quiet streets to the square where the young Vito Andolini escapes Don Ciccio's men, visit the churches of Santissima Trinità and Santissima Annunziata, and climb to the ruins of a Norman castle above the coast. Church entry and the transport are included.