Day 22/7: Taormina, Sicily

As before, we rose at 0615 and had breakfast brought to the room at 0630.

We had requested breakfast at 0645, but Ashof has been bringing it earlier each day. We journeyed to the Riviera Lounge just before 0800 to pick up our tender tickets and sat around until about 0830. It was raining lightly now and then, but the temperature was mild (mid-60s) and very comfortable. The tender to the coast was smooth. Taormina is built into the side of high hills with steep cliffs. As with Sorrento, once on shore, we were put into a small minivan and driven up the sheer cliff to another parking lot where we were transferred to a mega bus. There were 40 people on this tour. This is just a four hour tour of the highlights of the city. Martina was our guide. She was born in Strasbourg, studied in Amsterdam and fell in love with Mt. Etna. She has been studying the mountain and living in Sicily for the past 40 years.

Due to the cloud cover, we could never see the summit of Mt. Etna, but Martina said there is normally about 20C (36F) difference in temperature between Taormina and the top of the mountain. So if it is 65F down here, it is probably snowing up there (about 11,000 feet elevation).

We drove to the center of town and were dropped off. Martina walked us to the third century amphitheater. Started by the Greeks and modified by the Romans. Again, I have some really interesting pictures, which cannot be uploaded. I am now adding the photos, using the hotel internet, here in Athens.

We were then given a couple of hours to roam around the city. T and I walked through the gates into the Greek/Roman area, then through the gates to the Moorish influenced part of the city and finally through the gate into the Norman part of the city. Here, we sat at a sidewalk café and had a glass of wine and bruschetta with pesto.

Moorish Part of Taormina

Lunch at Sidewalk Cafe Just Inside Norman Gate

Bruschetta 

Around noon, they loaded us back onto the shuttle to get to the mega bus to take us to the tender to take us to the ship. We got back on board around 1300. We could not see Mt. Etna, but we could still see the black lava flows which made their way to the see from the eruption 5,000 years ago.

Lava from Mt. Etna

Tonight we dine at the Red Ginger restaurant. Tomorrow we will be anchoring at Zakynthos, Greece. This is also known as Zante Island. This is where the currents we use come from. Again, we will be doing a “highlights” tour lasting four hours, however, we don’t have to report for tendering until 1000 hours. So we either can sleep in or, as T suggested, we could use the morning to do laundry.