My husband and I travelled to Gole Alcantara via rental car after arriving in Palermo. As there was no navigation / GPS system available, we had to rely on a map to find it. Tip: do NOT attempt a shortcut through the mountains to take a more direct route from Palermo (as we did) rather than stay on the main highway and travel through Taormina (as we SHOULD have done). The route through the mountains, although extremely scenic and offering a great view of Mt. Etna, is very winding, long and an all-around difficult drive.

Anyway, after a never-ending trip, we arrived at the Gole Alcantara park, where there is a very confusing and impractical system in place, which I had already been aware of, thanks to previous reviewers: regarding Gole Alcantara's hotels (made up of 4 villa-type houses with several rooms each), you must go to a cafe there to find out at which facility you're staying. If you are lucky, the one person in charge of this is there, if not you have to wait for this person, for hours if necessary. The person at the said cafe was unable to find our hotel bookings, despite our having a printed confirmation from a well-known hotel website. Luckily there was a spare double room available, which was given to us for our 2-night stay. But I found their lack of information concerning our reservation to be completely unacceptable. Not only that, we were directed to one of the hotels (La Casa de la Monache) and given a map to it, which turned out to have the wrong directions for this facility on it. It took us over an hour of driving to finally see the tiny sign on the opposite side of the road indicated on the map that pointed to this facility, which was up a hill!!!

After all this, we were almost ready to leave, however the staff of the Casa put us at ease and directed us to our room. The facility itself was immaculate, our room was new, clean and large, the hot water was plentiful and soothing (thermally heated water, we suspected) and the bed was very comfortable. Towels were plentiful and the A/C was appreciated, especially as the weather was so hot. The room faced the mountains overlooking the Alcantara gorge and the area itself was very peaceful. Breakfast wasn't extremely varied, but still not bad at all - there was the delicious golden Sicilian bread each morning along with a plentiful selection of fresh cakes and pastries, some cold meats and cheeses. We had dinner at the hotel both nights we were there (you have to inform them of this during the day) and, while the food wasn't outstanding, it was still quite good and very reasonably price (€12 per person, including excellent house wine).

All in all, even though the facility itself was fine, the negative experiences with finding the site and check-in/reservation problems outweighed our positive ones. The only way we would recommend the Gole Alcantara hotels is if you plan to visit the Alcantara gorge or climb Mt. Etna (as we did), as they are both nearby. Only then would it justify the possible risks and hassles.

Just spent 3 nights at Il Borgo, one of 4 small hotels that make up the "Gole Alcantara Parco Botanico e Geologico" that we booked through Expedia. You go into the cafe at the entrance to the gorge to get your instructions where you are staying and we were at the 4star Il Borgo a couple of minutes back down the road.

Its a fantastic restored farmhouse or manor house with about 15 or so rooms and a lovely peaceful location in the Alcantara valley.

Our room was very large and really confortable with a large bathroom but small shower.

Pool area is stunning and for most of the time we were there it was almost deserted - perfect to relax and unwind.

We ate there a couple of nights and the dining room is in a lovely room but the food was pretty poor - average pasta dishes and VERY poor meat dishes. We gave up on the 3rd night and drove into Giardini Naxos (about 10-15 minutes away). Despite this we loved the place and wished we had booked for longer.

(Not much English spoken though so you ideally will need to be ble to speak a little Italian).

For us it was an unforgettable place and for calm and relaxation hard to beat.

We stayed for 4 nights in the beautiful alcantara valley. Very relaxing and peaceful. Lovely swimming pool, views, and close to the alcantara river. Also can easily do day trips to taormina from here. Having seen taormina, we were much happier staying here and day tripping!

We spent 4 nights at Il Borgo. We were a family of 4 with 2 young kids, 9 and 7 years. Actually initially booked into La Casa del Monache but when we arrived there after a 3 hour drive directed to Il Borg for some reason.
Our stay was fantastic wtih a lovely "flatlet" two bedrooms, quite big for a hotel, an ensuite bathroom and a small walk in store room. We stayed in the restored farm house the only disadvantage being you have to climb a flight of stairs. Rooms beatifully decorated and airconditioned. The surroundings were lovely and peaceful. The kids loved the pool and would not get out in the afternoon. Breakfast buffet style and good choice. Evening meals fixed menu but varying from day to day and quite good. Hotel staff very helpful and though we met an English speaking staff on the first day it was helpful that we had some knowledge of Italian.
Only disadvantage being with two kids that apart from Gole Alcantara hotel was quite distant from the tourist attractions in Sicily, but having hired a car was very useful and all of us enjoyed it a lot.
Would return if I had the opportunity and knowing the surroundings better.