Tourists tourists everywhere!

I left Catania yesterday around lunchtime and caught a bus to Taormina, a small coastal town just north of Catania. The bus ride was almost an hour forty five and of course we had to stop in every coastal city along the way, but I'm not complaining, it was nice to sit and sight see. (I decided, because of my incredible ability to get car sick and because I wanted to see everything, to sit in the very front seat right behind the driver so I had a panoramic view of everything, and this was one of the big tour buses so your like 3 feet higher than the driver. Unfortunately its also where all the old ladies sit, and they all smell like old garlic.) I arrived in Taormina in the early afternoon walked up the hill to the town center and checked in with the hostel. Taormina is made of tourists, tourists, and more tourists so everything is either expensive (like Gucci expensive) or cheap touristy shops that sell cheap shit for an incredibly high price. This is unfortunate because Taomina has some cool sites to see. After I dropped my stuff at the hostel I decided to get my exercise out of the way and walk up to the old Arabic town/castle that overlooks the town. (Taormina and the surrounding coastal area is very rocky and mostly made of very steep mountains and cliffs. The towns in this area were literally carved out of the side of these mountains. Taormina is about 250 meters above sea level and the Saracen castle is another 150 meters up.) After walking up 150 meters of stairs I finally reached the castle to discover that's its closed on Sundays. But the views were fantastic!

 

 

After a while I climbed back down and walked down into the main part of town. There is one major street that spans the town form one end to the other and is filled with designer shops and expensive cafes and restaurants. There are also a number of old churches and some cool castle walls and old arches.

 The main sight in Taormina is the Greek theater. Because of the extensive use of bricks it was most likely built by the Romans, though it follows the setup of a Greek theater rather than a roman. This leads to the belief that the Romans probably built over the ruins of an ancient Greek theater. I wanted to wait and go to the theater in the late afternoon when the light would be better so I found a cafe and had an Italian beer. At around 6 I meandered on over, paid my 4 euro admission (students always get in cheaper ;) and explored the theater. The theater is a little bit higher than the rest of the town and sits in the middle of a large cliff like outcropping, hard to explain but you can see in the pix.

 Because of where its situated there are almost 360 degree views of the area. Pretty awesome. When I was done I headed back down to town and got some arancini (ragu and cheeeseeeee) yummm. Then went back to the hostel, which was pretty full and went to bed. Of course as soon as the lights went off we started to hear very loud deep rumblings which sounded like thunder at first but after listening for 20 min it was obviously not thunder. After a quick Google search we discovered that rumblings from Etna can often be heard in the towns that surround it. So cool.
Today I woke up early again, I can't seem to catch a break, people are always leaving the morning after I arrive and can't seem to get their shit together the night before so they wake up at the crack of dawn and start to pack. I laid in bed hatefully staring at them till they finally left at like 830. Then I waited an hour to use the bathroom (its a small hostel and there are only 2) I finally rolled out the door around 10 and walked down to the cable cars to go to the beach.

 

 It was a nice day and fortunately most of the beach going tourists had left for the week so it was pretty pleasant. There are 2 beaches in Taormina with a giant rock hill mountain cliff like thing between them. The north beach is very touristy full of chairs and umbrellas you can rent, almost no sand to sit on. The south side is much better, though there is little sand, mostly rocks, you can walk across a little sand bar to the island and sit on the small beach there.

 

The water is very very salty and still a bit cold like lake water but it is beautiful and green. Also unfortunately very rocky so its hard to wade out, also the bay was full of purple jellyfish. I don't know if they would hurt if they touched you but I didn't want to find out so I kept my eyes open. After sunbathing for a few hours I went back up to the hostel, had a shower, went to the grocery and got pasta and beer (I know such a healthy combo, but there were absolutely no fresh veggies, quite a change from the amazing markets in Catania) back at the hostel I realized everyone had left and for once I would have not only a room to myself but the whole place!! I went out for gelato to celebrate, then had dinner and soon I will go to bed!
Tomorrow I have to catch a bus back to Catania (where I'm tempted to stay... forever) then to Palermo.

Lazy days in Catania

Today was my lazy day. I got up and went to the castle on the south east side of the city. The castle was at one point built overlooking the ocean but a large eruption from Etna caused lava to flow down burying Catania and surrounding the castle and expanding the coastline. The castle is now a very cool museum.

After that I walked down to the port which was not very nice. The train runs right along the coast so its all fences and train tracks.

 I got back to the hostel around 130 ate lunch did some research on Taormina, Stromboli and Palermo and waited out the thunderstorm.
Tomorrow I am going to Taormina to explore the town and hit the beach.

Adventures on Etna

Yesterday I signed up to go on a group tour of Mount Etna and it was great! The green land Rover picked us (me and my new Russian friend Margarita) up at the hostile at 930 and we made our way out of the city through the morning traffic (which is really really shitty here). There were 7 people on the tour not including our guide; a couple from Paris, a mother father and college age daughter from Germany, margarita and myself. I sat in the very pack of the jeep with the french couple and let me tell you're it was a bumpy ride. I am very very very glad I took that dramamine. After about 20 min of highway driving we pulled off and started to make our way up the winding roads on the north east side of the mountain. We took a pee and coffee break at a little town about half way up and talked a little it about the history of the volcano.

The roads surrounding and leading up to the volcano are all surrounded by lava fields. After about 10 min we jumped back in the car and continued our trek up. Eventually we pulled off the winding road on to a very small, very bumpy logging road where, after a while, we parked and hiked up a short but steep distance to a small rock outcropping overlooking the lava fields.

 This was super cool. There are 2 major valleys surrounding the volcano and before they were valleys they were volcanos (like many many thousands of years ago). Eventually they collapsed in on themselves and created 2 craters over 1000 meters deep. These 2 valleys now catch most of the lava flow from Etna saving the towns below like Catania, Taormina, and many others. Apparently many tourist and hikers not familiar with hiking volcanos try to cross these lava fields and end up either badly injured or dead. The lava on the fields has not been worn down by wind, rain, or earth to the soft sand or brittle lava stones, its still sharp as glass. In the past, houses, churches, and other buildings once stood in this area and were surrounded and covered by lava flow, creating a hollow space, making it very easy for hikers to fall through.

 After looking at the fields from the outcropping we jumped back into the jeep and made our way up higher to another point on Etna. We hiked up to a place on the side of the volcano where in the 60's a huge crack was formed and 6 giant hills were formed.

 We climbed up the lava hills, very slippery because of the black sand, and walked across the 6 hills. Inside one of the 6 a new mouth was forming and we could see inside another where a hole had formed to expel carbon monoxide from the volcano (it is no longer active).

After we hiked back to the jeep and drove about 10 min down the mountain to another part where we could go inside a lava flow cave. Usually these caves take thousands of years to make but some are formed in a matter of weeks depending on the eruption and the topography of the area. The one we went in was formed very quickly, in about a month and had been there for a long time. Before refrigerators people of the surrounding towns would look for holes and caves on the side of Etna and fill them with snow so they could store food  and sell the snow to the coastal towns in the summer. As you can see the cave was very cool and had been dug out on one end and used to store food.

After the cave we jumped back in the jeep ready for lunch! We drove the winding roads around the mountain to the Gambino winery (Etna is very good for growing grapes and nuts until about 1000/1500 meters. There is no vegetation after 2000/2500 meters). At the winery we tasted 2 reds and 2 whites and ate cheese, olives, salami, mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes and bread. The food and wine were fantastic and unlimited!

After lunch we drove to a town carved out of the side of the mountain, very picturesque.

We stopped at a great place where a river had cut through a lava flow, very beautiful.

 We then began the long way back to Catania. As it turns our our guide is a bee keeper as well as a tour guide and he offered us a free honey tasting at the organic bee place that he works at. The honey was delicious and has won international honey competitions.

After our little detour (not included in the tour) we went back to Catania. Margarita and I were dropped off in the city center so we could grab dinner (it was around 8 by time we got back to the city). I got the marinated seafood, sooooo good, and the pasta.

We made our way back to the hostel around 10 and went to bed!

Best. Food. Ever.

Well obviously I made it to Catania. I arrived last night, immediately made a friend (her name was charly) and we went out to dinner at this wonderful incredible place on this little side street in the heart of the old part of Catania. The food was amazing I had no idea pasta could taste so delicious. For my second course I had octopus salad, amazing again the seafood here is so fresh everything was pulled out of the water that day. After dinner we wandered back to the hostel and went to bed.

Today I wandered out of the hostile at around 10 and headed down to the Piazza Duomo

then went up via Etna to the Bellini gardens where I stopped and had THE BEST arancini at a place called Saria (prosciutto and cheese).

My hunger sated, I wandered around the gardens

 then headed back down via Etna to the outdoor market. The market wound down multiple streets in every direction. Anything and everything you might need ever you will find here in this market. I bought a butt load of cherries for 2 euro and a pair of pants for 3 euro.

After the market I went to see the roman theater off of via Vittorio Emanuel II. This place was soooo cool! Admission was 5 euro but I talked the guy down to 2 euro. The pix speak for themselves. From what I gathered in the guides and listening g to other people. The Teatro Antico e Odèon was built with volcanic rock in the second century. Catania has been burried by lava a total of 7 times in recorded history. The first inhabitants were Greek then roman and now present day.

 After exploring the theater I went back to the hostel and had a shower. I went back out around 5 and found that the police had taken over Piazza Duomo, apparently they were doing a dress rehearsal to tomorrows "police party" as it was explained to me by a local. They march around to music and stuff.

 Then I went to grab a beer at a cafe at the Palazzo Degli Elefanti. The waitress was very friendly and spoke a little English, we talked about New Orleans and Catania and Taormina and she gave me some tips on where the best beaches were. Then she gave me my beer for half price! BONUS! After my beer I wandered back up to Saria  for more arancini, this time I got a ragu filled one, so good. On the way back to Duomo I got some tiramisu galato, it was OK. I think that the north might have one up on the gelato side over the south, so far at least. Ah and dad, I finally found a cigar shop with partagas, cohiba, and Romeo y Juliet all Cubans. Unfortunately their credit card machine was broken so I'll try back tomorrow, though I have a feeling their CC machine may never have worked (aka its mafia run and they only want cash) who knows. Once I got back to the Duomo I found the guy I had spoken to earlier, he was trying to sell me tourist train tickets (like the duck tours in Boston, yes Pitts it reminded me of you) but he was very friendly, but not overly friendly. After talking for a little while and watching the police dance around with their machine guns he let me go on the tour for free. It was around 730, last one of the day, and the lighting was very nice. I had already walked to all of the destinations the tour went by but it was nice to see them while sitting down and in the evening.

After the tour we parted ways and I headed back to the hostel. And here I am, in the common room about to make some tea and hangout. Unfortunately charly left this morning and there are only my 2 Asian dude roommates here right now and the staff who are friendly. The Asian dudes though are very inconsiderate and annoying. But whatever.
Tomorrow I am going to climb Mount Etna. I'm so excited!

these are some of the other places I went to during the day.

Via Etna

the old Monastary







churches