Salina

OK so from Taormina I took a bus to Palermo. Palermo was cool but it didn't really float my boat (I had 2 very detailed blog entries about it but because of this stupid blogger app they no longer exist and I WILL NOT retype them) so after Palermo I took a train to Milazzo then a ferry to Salina. Best random choice I ever made. I have now been living in Salina for 4 days and decided that I should probably make it permanent, or at least semi permanent. So today I went out and found out who spoke English, like 4 people on this island, and asked them what I could do and where to live. By 4 pm I had a job, a place to live, and a nice 2 day trip to Stromboli, I leave tomorrow. Not bad for a leisurely afternoon.

My first day here I climbed to the top of the island, mount fossa, very awesome and super fun. The highest point in the Islands.

My second day I went to the beach in Lingua, also very cool and empty!

Yesterday I hitchhiked to Pollara to go to the beach and the caper festival. And today I got a job!




This is the old lookout castle overlooking the coastal cliffs in Pollara.

 

Caper festival, Yum!!

Stupid

My blogger app doesn't work anymore so no more updates

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!