Etna's white plume from Casa Arancio in Giarre

Etna's white plume can be seen from the bedroom or balcony of Giardino Arancio, a late 19th-century Sicilian farmhouse nestled among the mandarin, clementine, orange and kumquat plantations in the Giarre countryside. Run by a French-Italian couple with a passion for trekking among the trees, this farm is the ideal place to spend a few days among the orange blossoms and apples ready to be peeled. After all, it is located in the most fertile part of the island of Sicily, where even exotic species grow: testimony to this is the flourishing Radicepura Botanical Park where the Garden Festival is staged until 7 December. The Mother Church dedicated to Sant' Isidoro Agricola, with its neoclassical architecture and its façade in white Comiso stone, the Art Nouveau style of Palazzo Bonaventura with its sumptuous salons, the small port of Riposto so dear to Franco Battiato who was born right next to the inlet, together with the Baroque churches of Acireale fill the days with sweetness. A tour that can meet its apotheosis before a cabaret of orange and lemon almond pastries and martorana fruit at Massimo Cannavò's pastry shop in Corso Savoia.