Relaxing Sicilian Style

The last week in Giardini Naxos has been a great opportunity for us to relax, recharge, and get ready for the next leg of our trip.

We started the week off with a trip up to Taormina where we walked up the stair pathway to the top of Castelmola, wandered through the botanical gardens, perused the shops with the other tourists, and were chased home by a pretty impressive thunderstorm.

A visit to nearby Catania proved to be a little disasppointing. The Duomo di Sant'Agata was impressive, but many of the other sights and museaums were closed either for renovation or for Easter Monday. Even the botanical gardens were closed for the day.

The sun came out so we headed for the beach just down the block from our hostel, Gianni House. The water was still too cold to swim, but there were a handful of brave souls plunging in anyway.

The original plan was to get up early and visit Mt. Etna this morning, but our alarm did not go off so we missed the only bus of the day. Looks like we're in for another beach day.

Tomorrow we head to Naples for a night and then over to Bari where we'll catch a ferry to Patras, Greece. From there its a couple of trains to Athens where we'll spend 3 or 4 nights before heading north.

Storm Shutters Required

We took a bus from our neighborhood of Giardini Naxos on the beach up to Taormina on the hillside today and hiked up to the top of the hill where we beheld amazing panoramic views of ... clouds. It's been kinda rainy all day and now the massive storm that caused us to miss our boat in Tunis seems to have caught up with us here. Lightning, thunder, sideways rain, flickering lights, and strong winds - we have them all. Looks like the plan for the rest of the day is to sip Lemoncello under the blanket until it's time for dinner or the lights go out. We've extended our stay in Giardini Naxos through Friday so hopefully we'll have some nice days on the beach later in the week.

Happy Easter.

The Tunisian Adventure

Tunis turned out to be a bit more of an adventure than we were expecting. As a blond hair, blue eyed woman, I stood out quite a bit and attracted more stares than I really wanted. Tim enjoyed wandering through the Souks and exploring the neighboorhood around Carthage. It rained so hard in Tunis the night we were supposed to head back to Palermo that the streets flooded and we ended up missing our ferry crossing. Since the next ferry is not until Saturday, we're hopping a plane to Palermo this morning and then heading to Taormina by train. I will be happy to get back into Italy.

UPDATE:
We made it to Taormina and after only one bus trip in the wrong direction, managed to find our hostel. Gianni at Gianni House is very friendly and we would definitely recommend this place if you find yourself in the area. Today is laundry day, the sun is out, and it's great to be back in Italy.