Made some coffee, had some hot instant oatmeal, and a nice conversation with Tina, gave her a load of fresh newspapers "in English!" she exclaims. We get into a most interesting discussion with Alex from Holland from everything to war, Bush, his bus trip all over America, to Bhudhism to Spirit. Nice guy!
We head out to town again, and stumble apon the Greek ruins of an ampitheater built in the 3rd century. Great views of all around from up there. Hot sun but not overpowering at all. Nice breezes. No view of Mt Etna yet, we hear the stories of eruptions, even one last Thursday with lava visible at night! Strolled through a nice garden park with tall trees and varieties of flowers. Had an outside lunch, and strolled back to the hostel about 3 to work on our laptops, put some pictures on them, and relax. So far, we seem right on the same wavelength about level of activity, when to sleep, etc. We stroll back into town again, walk all the way through, and our familiar restaurant is strangely closed as is the pizza place next door. We see the peak of Aetna now, with some smoke too! We order dinner at Carpe Diem, an obvious tourist place, but nicely shaded and our waitress is real spunky and has a cute behind. The fresh squoze OJ tastes like only water and orange rind! No sugar or orange flavor. I reject it. What was going on here? The pizza was very acceptable.
After we picked up some provisions for the train ride tomorrow at a grocery store, we strolled around in the darkness, and J lets out a "Dude! Look at the volcano!" to me. A DCP first, we are watching from a safe distance an active volcano at night with often 2 streams of red glowing lava spilling down the side. It wasn't coming from the main crater but a side eruption. It would die down, then only a red dot visible, then start again. I even witnessed a spurt of it shooting out. Way, way cool to see. Many others watching too! That was certainly the highlight so far!
Back at the ranch, more talking with Dutch Alex, who shared some "Mafia wine" with me. He snored again.

Had a huge breakfast up on the 7th floor with sweeping harbour view. Lots of Germans with a tour group here. We each had 2 ham and cheese sandwiches accidently follow us back to the room. A leisurely check-out, we walked back the bus area we arrived at from the airport, and ended up just jumping on a city bus without a ticket for the 3 kms to the Central Railway station. Got our First Class railpass validated, good until 13 MAY. Purchased a pesky supplement seat reservation, walked out to our track #4 just as the train was backing in. Dirty windows! Had our own private compartment for the 3 hour journey to Messina. Ate our sandwiches, enjoyed talking, lots of sea views and apricot trees full of fruit. Made a short, easy connection to our all 2nd class hour-long train ride to Taormina. Ran right along the water, view of mainland Italy across the water, beaches, a few tunnels, chased a kid on a moped. Hung out the window a lot. Fun!
Some lovely British ladies gave us change for a 5 at the station, showed us a local map so we could see where we needed to walk, and we hopped on the bus for a 10 min ride from sea level to the city. Another 20 minutes thru town on foot, on impossibly narrow streets, always watching out, mopeds, small cars zipping around, and we arrived at our hostel Oddysey. Tina from Buffalo showed us our room, the tiny kitchen, and 3 small baths with showers. Beds are soft and springy! love it! 4 bunk beds. An older gentleman from Holland arrives into our room right behind us. Judge whispers to me "he snores". How does he know? He did! Not real badly, but like a deep base snore, even got up a few times, put on earphones, to which Judge in the middle of the night had some choice words about. Anyway, we took what felt to us like a well-deserved nap, often happens on the 2nd day in Europe, and I fall into a deep sleep from which Judge woke me. Glad he did, it was time.
We venture out for a stroll, it's cooled off a lot, and we feel like pizza and found a great place. Family run. Outside. I am noticing Judge using British words, and what made it even funnier is that he had no idea he was doing it. I hear about his adventures traveling with his buddy, Colin driving in a jeep from Utah to Baltimore. Hilarious. We walk later to a fantastic overlook: huge hotel, half moon getting bigger, twinkling stars, beach, hearing waves, and blinking lights all over hillsides. It's a quiet neighborhood where we reside. Nice. 18 Euros/$30 a nite/person. No internet.

Y cena en Castelmola.

Taormina Day 2: 5/15/08

            Today started off very slow; I got out of bed around 08:00 and after a shower I sat in the room talking with Dave and our snoring friend from the Netherlands . We talked world politics, 9/11 theories, the US presidential race and so much more. It was nice sitting around relaxing and just having a good conversation with a foreigner; this is one of my favorite parts of traveling! Speaking of our new friend, he was just recently in Salt Lake City . He was traveling in the US and went to SLC. I had no idea there was a hostel in SLC but now I do since he stayed in the hostel there.

Getting off the subject a bit; I am sitting in the room right now writing this up and next door is a worker singing in Italian while he is working on the house.

            Dave and I headed down to the Teatro Greco (Greek Theater). It is a very neat structure with an AMAZING view! The Mediterranean bellow and Mt. Etna in the background; but we have been unlucky so far when it comes to being able to see Mt. Etna . The clouds have been hanging around the volcano ever since we got here. Last week there were some eruptions and the girl running the hostel said she could see the lava coming down the mountainside at night. I hope the clouds clear out and I could see such a sight.  We did some more walking around the city before grabbing a nice lunch then walked through a park with some spectacular views. Here it is 16:30 and it is time for nap after writing this up.  

            We walked back into the main town and got a bite to eat. After dinner we walked back over to see if we could see Mt. Etna . The whole day I just had a feeling things would clear out and we would be able to see Mt. Etna. Sure enough there she was and low and behold there was some lava flowing out of the top. It was one of the neatest sights I have seen! Every once and awhile it would damn itself up then break through in two different streams. From the distance we were watching this; it reminded me of watching forest fires at home from a distance. From time to time Etna would let off a little burp and a good amount of lava would flow out. I got some pictures but from the distance I was shooting it was quite hard to get real good pictures.

            That night I got a bit of a stomach ache, I think it is from all the rich Italian food over here. After reading my Bill Bryson book from 03:00-06:00 I finally fell asleep before having to wake up at 08:30 to start a very long day of traveling.  

Next stop the famous Amalfi Coast .

BEAUTIFUL TAORMINA!!! The train station is actually in an adjoining town called Giardinni Naxos, and we took a taxi to Taormina itself which is located up a wonderfully windy road. Arriving in the early evening, we settled into our apartment, and it was like a load off our feet. Putting our things down and heading out into the town, we stepped into a picture-perfect setting. Taormina's main street has lots of cool shops lining it, cafes, gelaterias etc. but the really pretty part is the little streets coming off the main street, overlooked by cute little balconies covered in draping colourful flowers.

At least part of every day was spent lounging on the gorgeous beach which can be reached by cable car. We also visited Isola Bella, only 100m down the road from the cable car (come out of the carpark and turn right, walk up the hill and you'll shortly see it). It is really picturesque and worth the walk, but we enjoyed lazing around on the beach right at the bottom of the cable car best. We also took a boat excursion to the Azure Grotto, which also stopped off at a number of other places, well worth it. Nothing beats sitting on a boat with a cocktail in hand, wind blowing through your hair and the sun shining on you. Also got to swim out off the headland, it was perfect and the water is so clear and blue.

The main touristy sight is the Greek Theatre, a truly impressive sight and fantastic views from it out across the coastline and looking back on Taormina town. If you see a massive mountain behind the stage, it's Mt Etna - absolutely huge, and when we were there, erupting!! If the weather is partially cloudy, sometimes Mt Etna looks like it's floating in the sky, really amazing.

The town seemed fairly quiet most nights we were there, but we were told Saturday night was really different, so we hung around to find out. It was really true, suddenly the town was absolutely heaving, especially an area off the main street called Piazzeta Giuseppe Garibaldi which had lots of cool bars and clubs around it. If you follow Vico F. Paladini from the main street, it leads down to the Piazzeta.

Food is amazing, I ate nothing but seafood whilst there (swordfish being a speciality). MUST TRY: Granite, a frozen ice treat, absolutely delicious. Almond is the local speciality, but melon and kiwi are also scrumptious!

Taormina had everything, a nightlife, delicious food, gorgeous beach, cool shopping, I want to go back!!

Tuesday we departed the Domus Mariae around 9am for a full day trip to the hilltop town of Taormina.  Melissa and I had begun spending a lot of time together and sat with one another on every bus ride - usually finding some comfortable position in each other’s arms or laps in which we could get the sleep we so desperately needed.

Taormina is spectacular; it was the best day yet!  The views were unbelievable.  According to our guide, we were approximately 750 feet above sea level.  We could see Mt. Etna “milking” in the distance, as well as the bay of Naxos and even the mainland of Italy.  One of the sites we toured was another Greek theater.  The Romans had later renovated it, so a combination of styles and materials can be observed.  Constructed around the third century BC, the theater is the second largest Greek “room” in Sicily.  The three most important elements in the design of the Greek-Roman Theater are the skené (scenic wall or backdrop behind the stage, which also served as the changing area for the actors), the orchestra (the space in front of the stage where the Greek chorus would perform), and the cavea (subterranean cells used to confine wild animals until it was time for their combat).  45 steps separate the five different seating sections.  The theater can accommodate a total of 5400 people.

Following the tour, Melissa, Amy, Carl, and I went out to lunch in a inviting little restaurant with one open wall overlooking the town.  We each had a personal pizza.  I ordered the swordfish and salmon and it was the greatest (and last) pizza I’d ever had in my life!  During lunch, we talked mainly about everything we had thus far seen in Sicily.  Discussing our favorite sites, everyone concurred that Taormina was in the lead and we were all excited about the other destinations still to come.

When the water served desert, I realized that I wouldn’t have room for all of it, so I offered some cake to Melissa, who had not ordered any.  As I reached my cake filled fork across the table, Carl became excited and hurriedly grabbed his camera for the photo-op.  This threw the four of us into fits of laughter, which in turn drew the attention of the rest of the restraint, including another large group of students from Central at a nearby table who had come in shortly after us.  As soon as Melissa found the strength to control her amusement, Carl shot what appeared to be a nearly pornographic image of me feeding cake to Melissa across the table.  We planned to show the picture to Mikey as a joke when we got back.  The joke continued as we carried it further, taking pictures of me feeding Carl.

After lunch we had some free time to walk around and shop.  Of course due to the touristy nature of the town, the prices were way too steep for me, so we just did some window-shopping.  By the time we’d finished looking around at the shops, it was time to head back to the bus.

On the walk from the bus I found a tiny store with in a kilometer from Domus Mariae where six liters of water was only 35000 Lira (~$1.75).  As soon as I was back in my room, I started getting ready to go out and experience more of the local nightlife.

After dinner a bunch of us went to The Atrium again where we played pool and tried to communicate with some of the locals.  Draft beers are sold in one-liter mugs, so Andy and I each took one of those.  Melissa then challenged me to chug it.  I was less than enthusiastic about swilling a liter of beer in one shot, but I was a college student on spring break in Italy and a cute girl had challenged my doubted prowess, so I had to step up.  With a few deep breaths and a little determination, I raised my full mug and poured it back.  Every drop of the cold, gaseous brew went straight to my stomach and then to my head and my audience was impressed.  I was dizzy almost instantly, but that had passed by the time my next beer arrived.

After the emotional experience of Calabria we needed a break so it was off to the gorgeous seaside town of Taormina on the south east coast of Sicily.

It was a good choice!

A very beautiful, relaxing place.

Plenty of fantastic food and the beaches were superb!

Unfortunately it's a very 'romantic' location so is full of honeymooners and old american and english couples.

Regardless, my parents deserved the break and it was a place unlike any of us had seen before.

The Greek Ampitheatre was pretty cool. We walked the main street and checked out all the shops. I wanted to check out Mt Etna but the trips take a whole day and I was due to fly out to Hamburg for the Australian Football championships in a day so it was time to gormandise as much pizza, pasta and gelati as I could for the time being.

I left Italy with a drooling apetite to sample and experience more of my now slightly familiar motherland.

I'll be back as soon as I can!

The Hotel Andromaco was just out of the main town of Taormina, about a 15minute walk. We actually found this beneficial as after all the pasta, pizza, tiramisu and gelati the walk is more than required! It was a very nice hotel, with very nice facilities, great staff, large rooms, a fantastic swimming pool, view, and by Italian standards - the breakfast was superb! It was not expensive at all (40E/person) and if you decide not to stay there is a backpackers hostel next door.

On Thursday we went into what turned out to be my favorite city, Taormina. It’s in Sicily and it’s a lovely little town right on the Mediterranean. Again, no tour. We just went into the city and caught a bus that took us up into the town. We got out and walked around and discovered a cable car that took us down to the sea. The water in the Mediterranean is an incredible color blue and we had excellent weather throughout the entire trip—one gray day and that was it—so we were treated to this blue wherever we went.

After an hour drive, we arrived to Taormina, and carried on with the car till Castelmola. One can walk through this medieval little city for 1-2  hours, then have a rest with a beautiful look down to Taormina.

In Taormina, you need at lest 1 day, in order to see the amphitheater and walk around the charming streets. Perhaps a little shoppng, a little eating (fantastic restaurants) or an excursion to the Etna.

If you are in town on Saturday night, you'll see more brides in a few hours than you did in your whole life. Weddings in Taormina are very fashionable...I recommend you to sit somewhere outside on the way between the parking place and the cathedral and count the brides (also admire the shoes they have on, with which they walk at least a kilometer!)

Take care to book a hotel with parking places, the streets are very narrow and the parking places rare and mostly limited to an hour and a half. We stayed at Hotel Ariston, excellent quality for fair price (100 €).