challenged them all to go to Taormina with him, promising that he would pay everyone's expenses if he were not telling the truth. During the early 20th century the town became a colony of expatriate artists, writers, and intellectuals. DH Lawrence stayed here at the Fontana Vecchia from 1920 to 1922, and wrote a number of his poems, novels, short stories, and essays, and a travel book, Sea and Sardinia. Charles Webster Leadbeater, the theosophical author, found out that Taormina had the ...