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.