Page 277 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

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D.H. LAWRENCE IN TAORMINA

If you’ve got twenty minutes to spare you could turn literary sleuth to see the villa in
which D.H. Lawrence lived for three years in the 1920s – though there’s nothing to

see except the back of a house. From Porta Messina, follow Via Cappuccini and then
Via Fontana Vecchia, before dropping down to Piazza Franz Pagano. Following the
road around a steep left fork – Via David Herbert Lawrence – puts you on the right
track for the villa, up the hill and just around the corner. On the right-hand side of the
road, the pink- and cream-coloured building, now a private house, is marked by a
simple plaque reading: “D.H. Lawrence, English author, lived here 1920–1923”. He

wrote many of his short stories and essays here, and much of Lady Chatterley’s
Lover, which was supposed to have been inspired by the exploits of an
Englishwoman living in Taormina who had fallen for a local farmer. Lawrence