Anyone arriving on Etna’s south side set on reaching the volcano risks driving straight through Pedara without really stopping: a roundabout, a road sign, and off towards the craters. Yet the village deserves more than a passing glance. Pedara isn’t a town built for tourism, with shopfronts designed for passers-through: it’s a real village, with its own daily rhythm, its own hours, and its own square, where people still stop to chat in the evening after dinner.
The main square and the centre
Pedara’s main square is where village life is concentrated, especially in the evening: bars with outdoor tables, the ice cream shop that stays open late in summer, groups of older residents sitting on benches recounting their day, children playing between one streetlamp and the next while their parents chat nearby. Around the square sit the parish church, a few grocery shops, a pharmacy, and the odd historic bar that seems not to have changed in decades.
Strolling in the evening, it’s not unusual to hear Sicilian dialect mixing with Italian at the bar tables, or to stumble upon the weekly market that fills a few streets in the centre each morning with stalls of fruit, vegetables and local produce. It’s an atmosphere that tells the story of inland Sicily far better than the more famous coastal destinations ever could.
Why staying in the centre makes all the difference
Many holiday homes in the Etna area are tucked away in the countryside, surrounded by vineyards or hazelnut groves: beautiful, but reachable only by car, even for the smallest errand. Magma 610 is different: it sits just 300 metres from Pedara’s main square, an easy few-minute walk away.
That means you can leave the car parked and walk down into the village in the evening, with no need to worry about who’s driving back. It means having breakfast at the café on the square in the morning, buying fresh bread just steps from home, or simply taking an after-dinner stroll without planning a drive. For families travelling with children, being close to the centre is even more valuable: the pharmacy, supermarket and other essentials are all within easy reach.
Book your stay
Discover Pedara up close, just steps from the centre: book your apartment at Magma 610.
Pedara as a base for exploring
Pedara’s location isn’t just convenient for village life: it’s also an excellent starting point for exploring the surrounding area. Etna’s trails and viewpoints are 20-30 minutes away by car, the wineries of the south side are just as close, and the Ionian coast — with Taormina and Catania — is barely half an hour away. In short, Pedara lets you alternate, within the same stay, the quiet of village life with excursions to the volcano, the wineries or the sea, without having to choose an isolated base at the expense of one or the other.
Book your apartment at Magma 610 and discover Pedara: an authentic village at the foot of Etna, just steps from everything.