Touring Italian The Best of Sicily I have yet to visit Sicily, although I hope to get there soon. In the meantime, I asked the folks at Go Ahead Tours what they love most about the Mediterranean's largest island., Here are their top five favorites—all part of Go Ahead's Best of Sicily tour. 1. Mt. Etna Europe's largest active volcano, Mt. Etna has regularly shown off its temper since antiquity (in Greek mythology, Zeus imprisons Typhon, "the father of all monsters," beneath Mt. Etna). Etna's frequent eruptions have raised its peak high above the surrounding plain. Etna shoots up from flat ground to nearly 11,000 feet in the air with no foothills in sight. Four separate calderas can be seen at the mountain's peak, while more than 300 smaller vents on Etna's flanks help prevent a catastrophic eruption like the one that destroyed Mt. St. Helens. While Etna's eruptions often produce clouds of ash and the "globes of fire" Virgil describes in the Aeneid, Sicily's most famous mountain has also been observed emitting smoke rings, an extremely rare occurrence in volcanology. 2. The cannoli A mouth-watering cannoli is the perfect conclusion to any Sicilian meal. From the Italian for "little tube," the recipe is simple and endlessly variable: wrap dough around cones to create the tube shape, fry the cooked dough around a dough ring, then mix ricotta cheese with sugar and a hint of vanilla extract for the filling. If you've ever visited one of America's many "Little Italies," you've probably seen cannolis adorned with candied cherries, powdered sugar, chocolate chips or even ganache. In Sicily, there's only one other ingredient in a true cannoli: succade, the chopped, candied peel of any citrus fruit or the citron fruit in particular. Cannolis can range in size from slender finger-sized bites to behemoths that take two hands to eat. Mangia! 3. Syracuse Though it's now part of Italy, Syracuse is a decidedly Greek town. Located on the southeast corner of the island, Syracuse was once a great Mediterranean power thanks to its strategic situation athwart vital sea lanes. After forming an alliance with Sparta's Peloponnesian League, Syracuse witnessed the foundering of the Athenian navy on its shores, an event that would precipitate the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War... and serve as an eternal warning for overly ambitious empires. The city was also home to the famous polymath Archimedes, one of the great engineers of the ancient world. Legend has it that Archimedes devised ingenious, almost magical devices to defend his hometown during the Athenian invasion, including mirrors that reflected the sun to set fire to Athenian ships and an enormous claw designed to pluck boats from the water. 4. Taormina Just a few short miles from Mt. Etna, you'll find Taormina, Sicily's favorite resort town since ancient times and home to perhaps the most dramatically situated theater in the world. The Greek Theatre (known locally as the Teatro Greco) appears at first blush to be a carbon copy of the amphitheater you saw in Syracuse. But when you take a seat where the ancient Greeks would have sat, you face southwest, which makes the snowy slopes of Mt. Etna and the gorgeous Sicilian coastline the backdrop for every scene. The city's architecture reflects Sicily's unique blend of cultures from around Europe and Africa, from the Normans to the Greeks to the Arabs. Nature lovers should take time to explore Isola Bella, a teardrop-shaped island in the heart of Taormina's tranquil cove. You won't need a boat to get there, since a rocky sandbar connects Isola Bella to the mainland. 5. Savoca Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part II includes a look at the Corleone family's history in Sicily. When Coppola began filming the movie, he realized that much of modern Sicily had been built up and adorned with the trappings of modernity—cell phone towers, tall apartment buildings, electrical wires and such. But the script called for scenes delving into the life of Vito Corleone during the first quarter of the 20th century, so Coppola struck out into the Sicilian countryside in search of a town untouched by time. When Coppola saw the commune of Savoca, perched on a hill about a mile from the Ionian Sea, he knew he'd found the town of Vito's childhood. Savoca's Bar Vitelli and San Nicolo and San Michele churches have become popular destinations for fans of the film, but Savoca's natural beauty remains unspoiled.