Day 5 - Taormina

Coastline near Cefalu'

We started the day with a 3-hour drive down to Taormina on the east coast. From Cefalu' you take the A20 Autostrada across the northern edge of Sicily to Messina. The A20 is somewhat of an engineering marvel as there are so many tunnels that it is hard to see the sun or listen to music. We did get a glimpse or two of the Eolie Islands to the north. At Messina you head south and follow the Straits of Messina until you can only see open sea. You see mainland Italy (Calabria) from Messina across the straits but there is no bridge, so if you are going across you have to take a ferry. That applies to trains as well.

Jeanne at a cannoli stop in Castelmola

From the main road we go up an amazingly winding road to Castelmola. You have to pass through the tourist crowd at Taormina before you can even start the steep climb to Castelmola which is at least twice as high as Taormina. To do this you better not have a fear of heights or using the clutch. Not sure if I ever got out of second gear.

The town of Castelmola is small but cute and we enjoyed a very nice pizza (bufala mozzarella, cherry tomatoes and basil) in the town square, followed with a cannoli stop for Jeanne. That's Taormina, the little town way down below in the photo.

View from our balcony

Then we drove back down to our hotel in Giardini-Naxos. We're slumming it at a beachfront Hilton resort (on points) for the next four days, using it as a base for day trips. Giardini-Naxos is a beach town and about 2 blocks wide running along the Mediterranean Sea. There are actual waves here and it is nice to hear them crashing on the shore from our room. That sound makes everything seem more relaxing.

In the evening we went to Taormina to attend an opera concert. The concert consisted of two singers, one male and one female, and a pianist. They sang a selection of arias from various operas, but they featured La Boheme pretty heavily. They closed with three Italian popular classics: "Funiculi, Funicula," "O Sole Mio" and "Torna a Surriento." Very entertaining and the singers were quite good.

Opera Theater in Taormina

We ate light tonight. I tried the arancini from Da Cristina, which everyone on the Internet raves about but I think Fabrizio, the tour guide from Palermo, has gotten in my head. He claims that the arancini in Palermo are superior to those in Catania. I tried two varieties, the traditional type with meat, cheese and tomato sauce and one with pistachios, cheese and grapes. They were okay but not as good as the one in Palermo. Fabrizio might be right.

"Non funziona" is the phrase of the day. It means "not working" and that applied to many things today. When we parked in Castelmolo, the pay station took my money but didn't print a ticket for the window. I left a note in my best Italian explaining the problem but no one seemed to care. I paid for parking in Taormina but the gate opened before I could put my ticket in. Okay. We stopped to buy gas and the person ahead of me said "non funziona" so we moved on to another gas station. After struggling to figure out where to pay (there is only one credit card machine for all 4 pumps) and how to get the gas cap off (you need the car key), I put my card in and it was rejected. An Italian guy helped me but it still didn't accept my card so I pay in cash. Non funziona.