Sicily 2023

 The beautiful beach of the Island- or the beautiful island beach, or a bitchin’ beach.   On the morning walk- brought to you most days at 6:30- I went down and sideways which took me to a Belvedere, or overlook, that I hadn’t found before. From the Belvedere I saw this.  It is the same shape as Sveti Stefan in Montenegro.  Look up images.  Only smaller.  So I made note of that. The light is always better in the morning! Yup, finally figured out that’s mainland Italy in the distance.  I had to go see the Greek theatre in town. It was amazing.  I think it is a bit bigger than Syracuse Greek theatre. What a setting. It was stunning and the weather was perfect.  That is Taormina. So the end of November, what could make my day better? Tim- the discoverer of super cool trails!! Turns out, at the base of the Belvedere or look out vista point thingy, there is a nice stairway shortcut down to this amazing beach. Apparently in summer it’s nuts, but today was a perfect day to go to the beach and

  This morning:  I’ve seen this mountain from many places on my trip. It has always been shrouded with clouds-but today- it will not be that way.   So, I found out kinda late, that my host offers tours to Etna. I made it a point to not tell him I booked a trip with a tour company.  On this morning’s walk I saw him, and of course that’s the first thing that came out of my mouth, “I’m going to Etna today”.   He showed me very nice photos of his last trip up. Then later, when I was waiting for the van, he called the company to make sure I was ok.  I met Carmelo, the guide, and entered the van which had three women already seated. They had really nice clothes and puffy jackets and were putting on makeup.  I was wearing the same shirt I have been wearing for 4 days, had a pack with my hiking poles attached.  Carmelo asked us to call him Melo. Which means Apple tree.  He was speaking alternately Spanish and English. Turns out the women were from Puerto Rico.  After trying to understand Itali

 Hey kids. These are in reverse order.  Note that the Taormina station is right by the ocean On the way to Taormina, I saw Etna cloaked by clouds. This is an official train. Not those two car, graffiti covered rascals. It took two hours to go 51 miles to Taormina.  Easy.  I walked up from the train station.  I know I trash Google maps, but today it led me up an actual trail into town. I had to walk about 400 meters before getting off the main road.  Yup!  That’s Taormina above. The train station below.  This is the trail up to town.  The trail turned into a street, but it was still very steep up to town.   Going to my apartment  Closer.  View from the street by my place.  I explored town and climbed about 500 stairs to a church with a good view and a rock ceiling. The stairway up.  If you look closely you can see the Greek theatre  Church with a rock ceiling  Mount Etna. Where I will be tomorrow.  I booked a half day tour for €65. We will see how that turns out.  More Mount Etna.  Tim