We were welcomed by Francesco with a fresh basket of fruit and a homemade apple cake from his wife!! Over the course of the week he also brought us fresh marmalade and pesto. Fantastic!

The home is in the country side, 5 minutes from town. A car is highly recommended. It was a great base for very active and outdoors people like us, that wanted somewhere private and quiet for the evenings. Being situated half way between Taormina and Mt. Etna, just five minutes uphill from the small town of Linguaglossa, it was an ideal base for the many activities we had planned. Including exploring Mt Etna, quad riding around the forests of Mt Etna, exploring Alacantara valley, SCUBA diving and squid fishing from Giardino Naxos, and shopping and dining in Taormina. This house was no more than 30 minutes from each.

There is a delicous pizza place within walking distance. The house sits among Francesco's vineyard and orchards, very pretty sights. Except some of what ever is in season. Francesco loves to share!

The only negatives were the lack of Wifi (which we knew about), which made planning difficult. I highly recommend renting a Wifi unit with a rental car for ease of planning and accessing the different sites. The bathroom began to have an unusual and irritating smell to me the last few days of our 8 day stay, but was fine in the beginning. There is no heat or air condition, but these are usually not needed with the nice weather. There is a wood fire place for heat and a small bathroom heater, which brings me to the main "inconvenience."

The house is not wired to accommodate my heavy electrical usage aka my American standards, haha. Of the water heater (aka shower), the bathroom heater, the oven, and the water boiler for coffee...ONLY ONE should be used at a time. If you have more than one on at a time expect all the power in the house to go off, and it cannot be reset from inside the house. We had it go off on us three different times, and Francesco or his cousin had to go to another house on the property and flip the main breaker back on. Not a problem unless your in a hurry. They were nice and quick enough to resolve it when we made the mistake, but just be aware so to avoid the issue.

Overall, it was a fantastic stay with an incredibly wonderful host. We highly recommend it and will likely be back if ever in Sicily!!!