Where was Cinema Paradiso filmed?

This beloved tribute to the magic of moviegoing is steeped in nostalgia, and its warmth comes in large part from the sun-warmed Sicilian settings where it was filmed. For travellers it is a chance to wander the kind of timeless southern Italian town the story remembers so tenderly, the village square and seaside lanes that feel almost unchanged.

Its emotional heart is the village square of Palazzo Adriano, Piazza Umberto I, where a fountain stands between two old churches and where the open-air cinema at the centre of the film once flickered to life. The seaside town of Cefalù adds another layer, its old lanes, beach and great Norman cathedral threading through the story to lend it that lazy Mediterranean glow that lingers long after the credits.

Both lie in the hills and along the coast of Sicily, an island made for slow, scenic travel by car. Pair the inland square of Palazzo Adriano with a few days in Cefalù and the wider north coast near Palermo, go for the light and the long lunches as much as the film, and let Sicily's unhurried rhythm carry the trip.