Letter from Italy/Paddy Agnew: Sitting in the ancient Greek theatre of Taormina, with its perfectly framed view of cloud-covered Mount Etna across the sea in the distance, it is not difficult to understand just why for more than 200 years the world's shakers and makers have been coming here for rest and recreation.
On a sunny April evening the view, the sense of Mediterranean light and space are quite simply breathtaking. No doubt, Kaiser Wilhelm II, King Edward VII, the Rothschilds, the Krupps and friends all felt the same sense of relief when they finally made it up the steep, winding and narrow road that leads to Taormina on its rocky plateau 650 feet above sea level.
Unlike ourselves, they probably had the good sense not to arrive on Easter Monday or Pasquetto, as Italians call it - a day long since marked by a mass exodus of city dwellers for the nearest, nicest and about-to-be most overcrowded beauty spot.
Travelling down the autostrada from Catania, it soon became clear that one was not alone in having opted to visit Taormina.
Such was the jam at the autostrada exit point that our busdriver, in his understandable desire to assert his right to the bus lane, managed to intimidate a number of obstinate drivers before finally swiping a wing mirror right off its Mercedes "A" Series hinge.
Just as we Roman dwellers were waiting for the inevitable shouting and screaming match that almost always accompanies such close encounters of the minor car-shunt kind in the capital city, however, the two drivers stopped vehicles, exchanged insurance data and went their ways without as much as a no-claims bonus being raised in anger.
You see, as one soon discovers, this is Sicily, and even on a busy day like this the time and pace of things are still slower and more easygoing than the rest of us are used to.
As for the madding crowd, that, too, had largely disappeared by Easter Monday evening. Taormina attracts a distinctly non-mass type of tourism.
This is not a beach, sand and sun venue for the noisy northern European in search of late-night pubs that sell fish and chips.
(Mind you, we do reluctantly have to report that the ubiquitous Irish pub, this one called The O'Seven, has struck here.)
Rather, this is a venue for the tourist who might just be curious enough to attempt to soak up the architectural impact left by the various Greeks, Arabs, Normans, French and Spanish who at different times dominated the island.
In that context, the seventh-century BC town of Naxos, down at sea-level below Taormina, is eminently worth a visit.
The peace and quiet of Naxos, allied to its still obvious grid-plan as laid down by Hippodamus of Miletus, are in sharp contrast with the ugly, ill-planned, urban chaos of modern Sicily all around it.
Then, too, Taormina is a place for the visitor for whom the hypnotic, Mediterranean smell of fresh orange blossom in the street is its own reward.
To walk past the Wunderbar café late of a windy evening with the pianist playing melancholy, 1930s-style popular music, is to step back into an Amarcord sense of time when Greta Garbo and Tennessee Williams used to meet there for a quick aperitivo.
The best show in town is provided by the pasticceria windows with their enticing turrone cakes complete with dried figs or their brilliantly inventive marzipan sweets, made in the shapes of oranges, sandwiches and even fried eggs.
After tasting a post-prandial cannoli dolce, one realises that, outside of Sicily, the art of cake- and pastry-making is still in its infancy.
Even the dusty little Museo Siciliano di Arte e Tradizioni Popolari offers up hidden gems.
For example, there is a section containing ex-votos, in this case painted panels, that record vividly the event for which thanks have been offered up.
There is the father who in February 1872 by mistake shot his son late at night, thinking him to be a thief.
There is the wife who in September 1870 was thrown into the river by her husband and his lover.
There is Pietro, who got hit in the eye by the ball whilst playing tennis in 1891. As the ex-voto says, "thanks to a miracle" they all lived to tell their tales.
Sitting at a bar overlooking the little bay of Marazzo, down the hill from the town at sea level, it is again easy to understand the lure of Taormina.
The April sunshine, the fresh breeze and the absurdly romantic sound of fishermen blowing into their sea-shell horns or conches (this is no exaggeration) are totally captivating.
At one point, we ask the man of the house how long he has owned the bar: "Oh, no, I don't own the place. I wouldn't want the bother. You'd have the Mafia coming round looking for protection money all the time. No, no, no thanks".
As we said, this is Sicily.