Isola Bella

A strip of pebbles connects this islet to Taormina's shore, and the tide decides whether it reads as bridge or moat. Protected since 1998 as a nature reserve, Isola Bella layers endemic wildlife, a Scottish noblewoman's 1890 purchase and hidden post-war pavilions into a few hectares.

Why it matters

Isola Bella is compact in scale and carries an unusual stack of designations. The regional authority declared it a monument of historic-artistic interest in 1984; the oriented nature reserve followed in 1998; the site entered the European Natura 2000 network as a Site of Community Importance in 2005 and became a Special Area of Conservation by ministerial decree in December 2015. Management of the reserve was entrusted to CUTGANA, the nature-conservation research centre of the University of Catania.

The archaeological park authority of Naxos and Taormina lists the islet among the nine sites of its network, and its own page calls the bay one of the most evocative historical landscapes of the Mediterranean. For Taormina, whose built monuments dominate the hilltop, this shore-level reserve is the natural counterpart: the ancient theatre looks down on it.

What to notice

A narrow spit of white pebbles joins the islet to the mainland; its central section is periodically submerged by high tide. The islet itself was known in antiquity as the isola di Santo Stefano, set between Capo Sant'Andrea to the north and Capo Taormina to the south.

Because the reserve is small, its rarities are easy to name. CUTGANA lists the endemic lizard Podarcis sicula medemi, the sea lavender Limonium ionicum and the Taormina cornflower, Colymbada tauromenitana, a flower that grows almost nowhere else, while the rare Audouin's gull passes along this coast. Underwater, the protected Posidonia meadows of the adjoining marine site and sea caves such as the Grotta Azzurra belong to the same protected system.

Look, too, at the buildings that are almost not there. At the islet's summit, beside the house that already stood on the site, the last private owners added a villa of separate pavilions and a swimming pool, all camouflaged among rock and vegetation until they nearly vanish from outside.

Context and history

The islet's story begins long before its owners. Ancient sources of evidence assembled by the park authority show that the bay held one of the landing points, the scari, that served Taormina before carriage roads existed, and eighteenth-century maps label a northern landing as the scaro dei monaci, possibly tied to a monastery of Sant'Andrea on the adjacent headland. Geological data suggest a coastline set further back, a sea level roughly two metres higher, and an islet then fully detached from the shore.

In 1890 Lady Florence Trevelyan, the Scottish-born traveller whom Visit Sicily credits with some of Taormina's most personal gardens, bought the islet and built a delightful home on it. After the Second World War the Bosurgi family of Messina, the last private owners, reshaped the island's present appearance with the pavilions and pool hidden in the greenery.

Public protection then caught up: the historic-artistic declaration of 1984, the reserve's institution in 1998, the Natura 2000 process from 2005 and the Special Area of Conservation decree of 21 December 2015 turned a private curiosity into a supervised reserve with zoned territory: Zone A is the islet itself, Zone B takes in Capo Sant'Andrea and Capo Taormina, within roughly 10.49 hectares in total.