Isola Bella Beach(Stretto di Isola Bella)

If you get hungry, there are many restaurants near Isola Bella Beach.  Pizzichella – Ristorante – Lido is known for serving excellent seafood dishes including seafood pasta and grilled fish, along with many other dishes including risotto, sandwiches, salads, and soup.  Bell'Assai Taormina offers a variety of excellent dishes including pizza, pastas, soups, chicken steak, seafood, salads, and risotto.  Isola del Pescatore da Santino is known for serving amazing seafood including octopus, grilled prawns, swordfish roulade, and seafood pasta.  Ristorante Da Giovanni is renowned for its delicious seafood pastas and risotto and it has been praised in a variety of publications including the MICHELIN Guide.  If you are looking for another good and affordable restaurant nearby, PizzaMania Taormina serves delectable pizzas and arancini.  Another great nearby modestly priced restaurant is Caffe Isola Bella offers a variety of excellent Italian-style snacks including pizza, pastas, and sandwiches, along with many refreshing beverages and desserts.

If you are looking for a hotel near Isola Bella Beach, there are many great nearby options.  The 5-Star La Plage Resort Taormina offers many amenities including multiple restaurants, a bar, a private beach area with a beach club, and a spa.  Another great upscale hotel is the 4-Star Panoramic Hotels Taormina that offers many amenities including a terrace, a pool, a lounge, a restaurant, sunloungers, and complimentary breakfast.  The 4-Star Hotel Ipanema offers many amenities including a pool, a restaurant with a patio, a nearby private beach area, and a bar.  Another great hotel where you can stay is Isola Bella Infinity Suites that offers many amenities including a private beach area, massage services, and watersports equipment rental facilities.  A more affordable hotel is the 3-Star Mendolia Beach Hotel that offers many amenities including a private beach area, boutique, and car rental facilities.  If you are looking for another good and affordable nearby hotel, 3-Star Hotel Isola Bella offers many amenities including a bar, a terrace, an outdoor pool with a sundeck, and complimentary breakfast.

Isola Bella Beach does not have lifeguards or any other public amenities.  However, there are private beach clubs here that offer a few amenities for a fee including access to restrooms and rental service for sun beds, beach chairs, watersports equipment, and boats – please note that some of the beach clubs here might only be open in summers.

Isola Bella Sicily Beach offers many fun activities including sunbathing, beachcombing, snorkeling, diving, swimming, paddleboarding, boating, kitesurfing, windsurfing, kayaking, jet-skiing, canoeing, and wildlife watching. 

The beach has calm, clear, and shallow water and this makes it ideal for less-experienced swimmers, children and paddle boarders.  In addition, scuba divers and snorkelers also frequent this beach for exploring the underwater biodiversity here – the eastern part of the beach is a particularly great snorkeling site.  There are many boat rental concessions near this beach – you can also hire chartered boats to explore the beautiful nearby shoreline.  People often hire boats here and explore the interesting sea-caves nearby including Grotta della Conchiglia and Grotta Azzurra.  

However, if you plan to swim, snorkel, or canoe here, we recommend being careful because the water here has a rocky bottom and can cause serious injuries.  In addition, the water here can also have unpredictable rip currents, along with cold temperatures between November and April. 

If you like taking pictures with beautiful views, this beach offers amazing Instagram-worthy photos of the Taormina shoreline and the Mediterranean Sea.  If you like birdwatching, you can see many migratory and resident birds around Isola Bella Beach.

The nearby islet of Isola Bella was once home to famous conservationist Lady Florence Trevelyan, who planted many non-native and exotic plant species here.  This led Isola Bella to have a unique ecosystem with a vibrant biodiversity.  The islet is now a nature reserve named Isola Bella Nature Reserve and it is maintained by the Worldwide Fund for Nature – you can visit the reserve every day except on Monday.  A ticket to this reserve costs around € 6.   

Isola Bella Beach does not offer wheelchair access to visitors with disabilities.

Getting to Isola Bella Beach is easy – the steep staircase to the beach – which has around 150 steps – is easily accessible through a highway named Strada Statale 114.  There are free street parking spaces near the beach, along with a nearby paid parking lot that charges around € 4 per hour.  This beach is also easily accessible from the Downtown area of Taormina.  There are street signs around the beach that offer directions for Isola Bella. 

As an alternate travel option, you can also take a cable car from a road in Taormina named Via Luigi Pirandello – this cable car will drop you off to an area named Mazzaro.  Once you reach here, you need to walk around 200 meters to reach Isola Bella Beach’s staircase.  The cable car runs every 15 minutes between 8 am and 8 pm and it costs around € 6 for a one-way ticket. 

If you like to travel by bus, you can also take a bus to the beach – there are many bus services to Isola Bella from Taormina’s main bus terminal.  The ticket for a bus trip to the beach costs around € 4.  You can visit the Italian-language website of the bus service provider Interbus for more information regarding the bus service booking rules and regulations. 

We recommend visiting this beach early because it can sometimes get quickly crowded.

Isola Bella Beach was featured in the second season of the acclaimed HBO series The White Lotus.  In addition, the name of the beach – Isola Bella – literally means “beautiful island” in Italian. 

There are many attractions near Isola Bella Taormina Beach.  The Villa Comunale has beautifully landscaped and vibrant gardens that were built during the 19th century – this villa was built by an English gardener named Florence Trevelyan.  The Villa Comunale also features buildings with exquisite Victorian architecture and it also has a playground.  The Ancient Theatre of Taormina – Teatro Antico di Taormina – is an Ancient Greek theatre built during the 3rd century BC and it also currently hosts many interesting events including operas, theatrical plays, concerts, David di Donatello awards, and the Taormina Film Fest.  The Corvaja Palace – also called Palazzo Corvaja – was built between the 10th and the 15th centuries and it has a variety of architectural influences including Gothic, Norman, and Arab influences – it also has interesting frescoes.  This palazzo also has a museum named Museo di Arte e Tradizioni Popolari, which exhibits local Sicilian handicrafts.

The Duomo di Taormina – also called the Cathedral of Taormina – was initially built in the 13th century and it was rebuilt in the 15th, the 16th, and the 18th centuries.  This cathedral has interesting Sicilian Romanesque-Gothic architecture and it also has a variety of beautiful religious Christian paintings – in addition, there is also a beautiful 17th-century fountain near the beach.  Porta Messina – also formerly called Porta Ferdinanda – is an old gateway that was built in 1808 by the Bourbon ruler Ferdinand IV – this gate offers a unique insight into local history.  If you are looking for another attraction near the beach, Castello di Taormina – also called Castello di Saraceno – is a castle that was built in its present form by local Muslim rulers in the 10th century – this castle offers a unique insight into local history and it also offers amazing views of the eastern Sicilian coastal landscape.