And stairs, and stairs, and stairs. Taormina is not for the feint hearted or frail. If you are not sure footed then I’m not sure how you get around.
We are staying in a great apartment / look it up on AirBnb ‘Panoramic Apartment’. It’s a great 2 bedroom apartment with a big terrace looking over the hillside and sea – the Messina Strait – at night you can see the lights of Calabria . There is a pool and sun terrace and an interesting garden.
We can walk up to town via 16 flights of stairs- approximately 1km and we have been doing that every day sometimes 3 times a day depending on our plans.
Taormina vieed ftom Madonna della Rocca – a small chapel high on the hill above Taormina
And thde Greek Theatre where we went to the movies the other night
This is the apartment hiding in the palm trees. Three levels – the owners are up top, we are on the middle terrace , then the pool terrace and lastly a separate studio apartment on the first level
fabulous cacti everehere. this one is particularly nice
The pool
And pots and pots of geraniums
It’s just as well we are doing so much walking because we start the day with these amazing granites( granita). Apparently a Sicilian speciality – caffe and almond combo with cream on top served with brioche. There are many other flavours but we have swapped hot coffee for ice coffee for the moment.
calle and almond granite with cream
And Brioche
We hired a car for a couple of days and drove to Siracusa and Noto one day. Beautiful. Quite different from Taormina – big spaces, big buildings ….
New Att Gallery in an old setting – clever
The Duomo in Ortigia. we are never going to build like this again
Cafe Barcolo in a courtyard
Panorama of the main street from the top of the Campanile
On Sunday we went to Etna and toured around the north side of the park. What an amazing landscape with lava flows rolling down. We visited Maniace – Castello di Nelson An estate gifted to Horatio Nelson in 1799 by King Ferdinand. 60,000 hectares. It remained in the Nelson – Hood family until 1983 when the local community bought it back. A bit run down but spectacular none the less.
A couple of days at the beach enjoying the shingles and sun beds. The water is very fresh – maybe 20 degrees or so and super salty. Lots of great anchorages here. It would be fun to bring the boat over and explore more of this place.
On our way home tomorrow – arrivederci
janeandrogersadventure 