Sicily out of season - Telegraph The benefits of our eyrie became clear in the daylight. I got up to find my friend, Nico, sitting outside, silhouetted against a glittering morning sea. North of him were high promontories of rock, covered in grass and spring flowers. South was Etna, which, he said, had revealed its snowy shoulders completely before veiling over again. The villa was a converted farmhouse with an almond tree, laden with blossom, growing through the patio roof. There was a pool, tightly covered for winter. Below us the landscape lurched down towards the blue sea, to the busy, snaking roads linking coastal town after coastal town. It was sunny, so we made for Etna, about 20 miles away, and drove around the base. The road followed the charming little railway line called the Ferrovia Circumetnea. I've been on this before and loved it: the trains are tiny and used by Etna residents as well as tourists. It passes old lava flows and jumbles of prickly pear in the fields. Driving is nothing like as relaxing, but after an hour of bumping into kerbs, avoiding people on tiny pavements and believing the road signage, you get into the swing of it. Lava is everywhere. The ash-grey roads develop a patina with age, so they feel oddly intimate, like driving across a ballroom floor. Lava blocks edge the windows and doors of houses, soar skywards in churches and pave piazzas, sparkling in the sun but giving everything a sombre mien, as if death is never far away. We stopped in Linguaglossa for coffee and asked if it was OK to park. "Si!" said a cheery man. The traffic wardens are all asleep. Or dead! The lone open coffee shop supplied pastries - no plates, only napkins - volcanic cones of almonds or pistachios, gleaming almond brittle and spoglia con crema pistachio, a sort of millefeuille turnover stuffed with rich pistachio cream. We strolled in peace around the dark lava town of Randazzo, which has three distinct districts - Greek, Lombard and Latin - and some buildings that were Norman-Swabian, going back to the 13th century. We stood in a silent piazza to gaze at the black lava facade of San Nicola, starkly infilled with white plaster, and the bifore windows - two arches divided by an elegant column - on nearby buildings. We pottered up and down narrow alleys where washing and potted plants burst out of the backs of houses. Without the car we couldn't have got to Lord Nelson's estate at Bronte, north-west of Etna - he never went there, but it was in his family until the Seventies - which lay dreaming under scaffolding with no one around but a languorous dog. The barn of a church had a Norman nave and a strange combination of restrained Britishness and hectic Catholicism: one of the abbots lay under the altar in his coffin and a polychrome figure of Christ lay bleeding in a glass cabinet, while across the church were the discreet tombs of naval officers. A road wiggled up the south side of Etna, which looked like a giant Hereford cow, its auburn lava variegated with snow. Sometimes the way had been sawn through a flow of rock. Woody Etna broom glowed yellow and birds trilled. The cable car wasn't running yet, but we went for a walk as high as we could before driving back down to reality. The best way to see Taormina is from the Greek Theatre, which - before the Romans enlarged it - must have grown gently out of its surroundings. The stage is set in a natural semicircle of rock, framing the town on its steep slope and above it the even steeper hamlet of Castelmola. This corner of Sicily is near the mainland, so invasions were frequent: inhabitants tried to build their towns out of reach. Just off the Corso at Taormina, with its designer shops and glittery bars, we came across the remains of a Roman cistern, more than a 100 yards long, now a quiet public garden. The biggest challenge was finding somewhere to eat. Until Easter, many restaurants are shut or undergoing maintenance and those that are open might serve just lunch or dinner, or open only at weekends. A chance meeting with a Bostonian, who was wintering in Taormina, sent us to the Osteria da Rita, where they produced platters of steaming seafood and a Mount Etna pizza hot with chilli, and prepared the misshapen lemon or limone cedro we had bought, sliced, pith, peel and all, with olive oil and salt. That night on our mountain top the shutters began to bang ominously and a storm howled in from the sea, hurling thunder and lightning until the early hours. We woke to find everything intact, bar a small puddle under the front door. You never would have guessed: the sky was rinsed blue, the sun came out and we set off on a jaunt north-west, to see the Cappuccini Monastery at Savoca, where the crypt contains the bodies of local dignitaries, still in frock-coats and lawyers' suits. That was weird enough: even weirder was crunching along on the terrace above and realising we were standing on fresh cinders from Etna. All the restaurants along the coast were shut as we made for the airport. Then we found La Gabbiano ("the seagull"), whose light-filled terrace had views across a bite of dancing blue sea to the mysterious island known as Isola Bella, connected to the mainland below Taormina by a sand causeway. Our villa, we decided, was a magical retreat for anyone who loved reading and walking and sensational views, though possibly not near enough to coastal action for teenagers, and probably not for anyone with vertigo. I wish we'd had time to do the 90-minute walk to Castelmola or to explore the flowered hills and some of the beaches below. And I'd love to see a teeny eruption on Mount Etna. Sophie Campbell stayed at Villa Etna Mare, which sleeps up to eight. From £750 per week, through pureholidayhomes.com (property ID 113618). Eating and drinking Osteria da Rita, via Calapitrulli 3, Taormina (0039 0338 520551), serves home-cooked Sicilian food, costing from €8/£7 for pizza. Seafood platters cost €30/£26 for two people. Bar Vitelli, Piazza Fossia 7, Savoca (0334 922 7227; barvitelli.it), is pricey - four coffees cost us €12/£10 - but fun; and considering it starred in The Godfather it's remarkably uncommercialised. It has a little exhibition and a fabulous terrace looking down from the mountains to the sea, with a figure of Francis Ford Coppola and his movie camera. Ristorante Il Gabbiano, Via Nazionale 115, Taormina (0942 625128; ilgabbianoristorante.it), charges about €30/£26 for two courses with wine - we had local fish, violently coloured "Sicilian cake," which is really a very sweet pudding, and almond-and-pistachio parfaits. What to do in good weather Climb Etna: either drive yourself up the southern approach or take a tour. Noema Viaggi in Taormina (0942 625323; noemaviaggi.it) leads sunset tours between May 7 and October 15 (€78/£67). The cable car, which takes you nearer the summit, opens for the summer season in April. The Cappuccini Monastery (no phone or website) in Savoca is open from Tuesday to Saturday, morning and afternoon, and Sunday afternoons. It costs €6/£5 to see the small, well-lit crypt: the bodies have been removed from their wall niches and placed in wood-and-glass coffins. See Taormina from the Greek Theatre, visit the beautiful gardens of the Villa Commun and stroll by the Roman cistern, La Naumachia. What to do in bad weather Trundle around Etna on the Ferrovia Circumetnea (095 541250; circumetnea.it). It's amazingly cheap - Randazzo to Bronte, for example, costs €2.50/£2 - but it doesn't run on Sundays or holidays. Shop for lava jewellery: Sicilian taste can be quite flamboyant, but shops such as the one owned by the Vandalà family on Via Pirandello 11, Taormina (0942 625345), sell simple pieces in deep, matt black - highly worked lava - and less expensive ones in grey. Visit Nelson's Estate at the fine Benedictine Abbey of Santa Maria at Maniace, outside Bronte. We just walked into the church and gardens, but there's also a museum, which has been undergoing restoration work; more details and photographs are available at tinyurl.com/cxen36d. Hillside villa £1,000 Five-bedroom villa with garden and private pool, on a hillside close to the sea near Cefalù, on Sicily's north coast. From £1,000 per week. ID 148227 on pureholidayhomes.com.