Geez My Legs Are White (Italy, Country #13)

We spent a few short days on the island of Sicily. It was gorgeous, but we were there for 5 days and that was not enough time. We went specifically to Catania and Taormina - with a day trip to the inland town of Randazzo.

Catania

We arrived in Catania late at night, took the bus into town, and quickly realized (shit) that I had made our hotel reservation at Gem De Luxe for the wrong night. So there we were, 11:00pm, eating dinner at a table on the sidewalk at a little restaurant, and NO hotel reservation…….shit. Upon hearing our plight in my really crappy Italian, our waiter (and several of the old Sicilian men also eating at the restaurant) pointed us to the Hotel Romano House down the street. We were not led astray, that place is NICE.

Getting lost (aka. trespassing) in a gorgeous courtyard.

No one does an old-and-crumbling patina quite like Italy, though France is a close second. Catania is a great place to wander and take in the architecture. The town feels like a non-sinister (and much cleaner) Naples. We saw all the major monuments and churches easily in a day. However, the highlight of Catania for us was the morning street market. Every fish, cheese, meat, fruit, and vegetable you can imagine – including quite a few things I had never seen before. Once again, I am finding a correlation between how much I like a country and how much to-go food and coffee they have (i.e. there wasn’t any here so I loved it).

Sorry for the food porn.

Catania got me thinking - so the Italians get loads of vacation time; eat a HUGE variety of fruits and veggies, drink great cheap wines; suffer from way less heart disease, cancer (despite all the smoking), and depression…….so who is rich and who is poor? Debate amongst yourselves.

One of the street markets, a million tents.

Our typical lunch, octopus and Caprese salad.

 

Taormina

This was meant to be a relaxing vacation, which is tough for Dave and me since neither of us can sit still for 5 minutes. We stayed at the Villa Astoria (which I cannot recommend enough, especially at €85 a night for an ocean view room with a balcony). The hotel owner, Mauro, significantly contributed to our relaxationamente (one of Dave's made up Italian words) by discouraging us from renting a car for the day - too much traffic, too complicated and expensive; and taking a bus-train-bus-taxi to Siracusa for the day, which Dave probably accurately described as taking mass transit from Palo Alto to Marin - you could do it, but why in your right mind would you. 

So while I think we may have missed some cool stuff, I think we were better off hanging out in Taormina and just enjoying ourselves. We managed a day trip to Randazzo, but that was about it. Sicily is WORTH another (much longer) visit in the future. 

St. John the Baptist festival in Randazzo.

Old stuff in Randazzo.

This is where we had our aperitivo in Taormina each night, redic.

 

Lunch on a random side street.

 

Besides the amazing Mauro, I also liked that the Villa Astoria is near the main bus terminal and is adjacent to a trail that led right down to the beach. It is about a 10 minute walk down and maybe 15 or 20 minutes up (if you stop to take in the views every 100 feet like we did). In summary we did a lot of wandering, checking out of old stuff, eating, swimming, and goofing off. 

 

Here is a Taormina report card so you don’t get bored reading:

- Day trip on the bus to Randazzo in the Mount Etna foothills: B-

- Fancy-pants dinner at the Hotel Timeo: C

- Hikes to Castelmore and the various ruins above the city: A

- Dave almost having a heat stroke at the top of Castelmore, which then turned into a coughing fit     where I thought he was going to croak: D-

- Lemon granitas after the near-death experience: A+

- The Roman ruins randomly scattered throughout Taormia: A

- Greco-Roman coliseum in Taormina: B

- Isloa Bella and surrounding beach: A+

- Adjacent beach town of Letojanni: B- (reminded us of parts of Puerto Vallarta or Sayulita, but definitely not for everyone)

- Eating a million figs, cherries, and apricots each day, warm from the sun and perfectly ripe: A

Mount Etna, ominously smoking.

No words.

In summary it was wonderful, friendly, tasty, and a great trip. Ireland is next week, then we are trying to work in a bit of France in early July, then the London Olympics!

Taormina Logistics (the stuff I had trouble finding out about/think is helpful)

- There is a direct bus from the Catania Airport to Taormina, super easy and it runs every hour plus a few extra buses during the afternoons. The timetable is here at the Interbus website.

- Taormia itself is elevated from the beach, so you either hike, take the free shuttle bus, or take the cable-car (3€ per person one-way).

- A car is completely impractical for Taormina, don’t bring one. Instead, maybe rent a car for a day from one of the many agencies in town.

- If you want to go to Siracusa, plan to stay the night there due to generally inconvenient train and bus schedules. Catania would be an easy day-trip from Taormina though – and go EARLY for the market!

- Stay at the Villa Astoria, you won’t regret it.

- It isn’t worth dining at the expensive restaurants in town, so look down the side streets off of Corso Umberto. All the restaurants have very similar menus, and the food is good everywhere.

- A good local medium-bodied white can be found for less than $20 at any restaurant. Try a Grillo, Carricante, or Cataratto – perfect with all the seafood here.