Beautiful towns! Well organized tour - We did Castelmola and Taormina + the Greek theater (without the included lunch) as a cruise excursion, and ended up going to the same restaurant since others in our tour were already going there. Both towns are beautiful! There was a good balance between the guided tour and free time in both places. Mariarita was a great guide, making accommodations for people and herding the kittens quite well. 😅 If you’re doing the included lunch, just note that the restaurant does cooking lessons so it was busy and quite slow (especially if you order pizza) - but it was really tasty. Also I don’t think the Greek theater was particularly great - if the weather is right you’ll get a really cool view of Mount Etna, but otherwise it’s not as interesting as any other Greek or Roman theater you can see in other places (they still host shows there so they had these ugly white plastic chairs covering the lower levels), and definitely not worth it if you’re there on a super hot day when you can’t even enjoy yourself and take your time wandering the premises.

Taormina & Castelmola with lunch. - Excellent tour. Our guide Chiani was wonderful. She had a great knowledge of the history of the area. Lunch was four courses with wine at this delightful restaurant in Taormina. Definetly recommend.

Amazing trip ! - We enjoyed very much of this beautiful trip to Taormina and Castelmola, and the included lunch in this tour was absolutely fabulous. We thought the appetizer was the main course, and it surprised us with a tasty main course and the ice cream for desert. We love our two lovely lady tour guides, they are very good.

Would not recommend - Not worth the time or money. The tour description is deceptive. We thought it would be ancient sites/architecture but you spend the entire Taormina in a packed city with the occasional church you see from the outside. Castelmola was a cute village on a hill but the Roman ruins are not included in the tour. The tour guide gave virtually no information on ancient history, architectural knowledge, or actual knowledge of the history of the sites. Her accent was so thick it was truly hard to understand her plus you’re in a crowded city half the time with poor quality speaker/headphones that I could not hear anything she said once we arrived in Taormina. You basically pay for a ride to and from the port. You’re much better of getting a private driver or staying closer to the port.