We based ourselves in Taormina for 4 days in early April 2025 to immerse ourselves in this location, as it is a beautiful coastal town (up in the hills) with an amazing amphitheatre and character itself (not UNESCO).  We were blessed with a wonderful view of Mt Etna from Taormina for the first 2 days and then the cloud cover came in.  We choose a local tour company for a Morning Tour of Mt Etna which was 75 Euro per adult.  The tour company picked us up at 8.30am for a leisurely drive up the Northeastern slope of Mt Etna where we then hiked for about an hour and half along the slope of Mt Etna amongst the lava flows and landscape.  Snow was still visible across the top of Mt Etna, although we only went up to 2000 feet.  The wind was gusting between 30 - 50 kilometres per hour and whipping up some great sand (lava dust) storms as we navigated the walking trails and crests of some of the hills in the area.  We then continued to Grotta della neve, where we walked through an old lava tube before having lunch nearby and returning to Taormina at 3.30pm in the afternoon.  It was a great experience, with the Northeastern slope being less "mass" tourism as the Southern slope has the cable car and more tourist infrastructure.  Ironically, we climbed on Monday and on the Friday. 4 days later, Mt Etna erupted providing a lovely show, which we missed as we had moved to Syracuse by this stage.