Advertisement
Published: July 12th 2006
Edit Blog Post
L'Isola Bella
The little island just off the coast of Taormina and right next to on the beaches My next stop after Stromboli was Taormina, one of Sicily's most popular resorts, located on the northeastern coast of the island, not far from Mt. Etna. The town is perched high above sea level, and a long switchback road leads up from the train station. My guidebook said that it was about a mile away, but my guess that would be if you drew a straight line in the air versus actually walking or driving up the road. While checking into the hostel, I met an architect from Bolivia named Christian, who has a similar travel philosophy as I do. Stay in inexpensive places and eat at nice places. Within a few minutes, we made a reservation for one of the top restaurants in town called Casa di Grugno.
We still had most of the afternoon before dinner so we did some exploring. I was impressed with how well some of the old buildings and architecture was preserved. It's amazing what a difference a strong tourist economy can do for preservation in some cases like this one. The town is known for a Greek ampitheater, which strangely enough, Tracy Chapman would be playing in one week later, and also for
Raviolini at Casa di Grugno
A dish from one of my best meals of the trip some beautiful gardens overlooking the coast.
---
Other than having to wait 30 minutes because somehow they did not have our reservation (I later found out that I gave accidentally made the reservation at the wrong restaurant, which was just below Casa Grugno in the guide), dinner was fabulous. We had about six or seven courses, mostly seafood and matching wines. The original wine program was supposed to be four wines, but as we began asking questions about the grapes, the producers and the regions, the sommelier decided he was going to bring us six wines to taste. The olive oil that they served was great, and we inquired where we could buy a bottle. A few minutes later, the waiter came back with two bottles and said we could have them. Almost four hours later, Christian and I were the last to leave the restaurant and fully satiated.
---
Having spent a few hours looking at the big sites the day before, the main activities remaining were some of the best--going to the beach, eating more and going out at night. To get to the beach, you take a funicular, and then walk a couple
hundred meters up a hill and then down to the beach. The water and the coastline were beautiful, but I can't say that I am a big fan of the rocks instead of sand. The beach itself is right next to a small island known as "isola bella" which has some decent snorkling around it. The one thing to watch out for are the jellyfish, which were all over the water. Christian will be the first to tell you that the bites are not just little stings. I managed to steer clear of the jellyfish mainly because the cheap 9 euro mask I bought on the beach was letting in water and didn't work for me.
Later that night, a bunch of people from the hostel when into town to watch the Italy vs. Germany semi-final match. The cool this about this hostel was that since it was relatively small, you got to know most of the people staying there. The game was 0-0 for almost 120 minutes. Just as it looked as we were headed for penalty kicks at the end of the overtime periods, Italy scored. Almost before people could sit down after celebrating, they scored another
Geared up to hike up the river in the gorge
Renee, Caroline, myself and Jen in out wetsuits and the town was going crazy. The restaurant next door to where we were watching was completely empty and all the staff was gathered at the door to watch the ending. People were running up and down the streets yelling "forza azzuri" and humming Italy's world cup theme song--Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes. Don't ask. I have no clue why that is their theme song. We popped into a bar a little later and we found a huge group of Italians singing songs and jumping up and down as the game was already on replay. Soon after, I realized that the home team had won every game they played while I was in the country (that would be Germany and then Italy). As you probably know, that ended up working out quite nicely for Italy.
---
On my last day, I had a choice between checking out Mt. Etna or going to Alacantara gorge, just outside Taormina. Since I had just seen Stromboli, and amlost any other volcanic expedition would probably be a let down after that, I decided to do the gorge. A river ran straight through the gorge and a would hike up it,
a twist on canyoning, which I did in Switzerland seven years ago, only this time we had to go up the river before floating down. This was definitely not a simple walk in the park, we actually had to do some rock climbing, and let's just say that some of the group had to repeat a few sections and they slipped on the way up and had to climb back up again. The climb required a lot of teamwork, as many of the areas were slipery and steep. At the end of the gorge, which was carved out by lava over 8,000 years ago, there was a ten foot waterfall. From there, we turned around and floated down the river, through the rapids on our backs. It was a nice change of pace from hanging out at the beach and sightseeing. It didn't hurt that there was a super cute French Canadian girl in our group of four who had ventured out from the hostel.
The next morning, I caught a train up to Salerno, my jumpoff point for the Amalfi Coast. On the way, I experienced something that I bet most human beings have not. While crossing from Sicily to mainland Italy, I was sitting in a train, which was parked on a ship that took us across the Straits of Messina. Who can say that they have been in both and train and on a boat at the same time?
Advertisement
Tot: 0.232s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 46; dbt: 0.0599s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb