Day 26 - Saturday 4th May

Although the rain seems to have cleared overnight, there is still a cover of grey cloud hiding the sun. Once again the forecast for Syracusa is 19C and the current temperature is 16C. It feels cooler than that because of a breeze.

Today we would be leaving Syracusa and travelling north to Taormina. As usual our departure time was to be 8:45am and we had to have our bags outside our room at 8am. We went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast soon after 7am.

Once again, taxis took us from our hotel on Ortigia Island to our bus on the other side of the bridge in Syracusa. The first destination was to be Catania.

Along the way, Luca pointed out that many of the buildings now were constructed with grey volcanic rocks instead of the blonde limestone and marble we'd seen up till now. Much of the scenery was farmlands.

When we arrived at Catania at about 10am, Luca took us on a tour through the local markets. We'd seen other markets on our trip but these were possibly the busiest. It was a very lively scene. There seemed to be a lot of fish as well as the fruit and vegetables. There were even live snails.

Next he took us up the steps to the main plaza - a large coblestone quadrangle lined with buildings and with an elephant statue in the middle. Although it was busy with pedestrians, it seemed to be a major bus route too.

Then we had free time to explore the old town. As we walked through the plaza and up various streets, we noticed three soldiers with automatic weapons. There was also a police helicopted hovering overhead.

At one of the churches, there was a function of some sort - perhaps a wedding. There was an honour guard and people in elegant clothes. Perhaps local dignitaries. We found a coffee shop to sit and watch the passing scenery.

Suzy visited a souvenir shop near our group meeting point at the arch at the bottom of the plaza. At about 11:20pm, we were on our way again.

Before travelling too far, we stopped at a lookout for a panoramic view of coast with a fortress nearby. Once again, the fortress was built with dark volcanic stonework.

For lunch, we stopped at a  restaurant (Lido La Romantica) next to the beach at Giardini Naxos which is a seaside town close to Taormina. Outside the restaurant, there were beach umbrellas, lounges, golden sand on the dark volcanic pebbles.

It was an excellent lunch but too generous. We just couldn't eat it all. As usual, there was plenty of wine.

Next the bus drove us up the mountain to Castelmola. It was a long windy road up the side of mountain. It just went up and up and up via tunnels, bridges and viaducts. We had great views from the bus as we climbed.

It was really an incredible piece of engineering to build such a road. Apart from the hairpin bends on the side of the mountain, we would go through tunnels and then out on a semi-circular viaduct before going back into another tunnel to climb even further up. We would look down and marvel that we'd only been down on this lower bridge or road below a couple of minutes earlier.

Eventually we reached the top and stopped to get an incredible view back down the valley down to the sea. Here it was cool and there were light showers. Luca led us down the narrow cobblestone streets for a walk through the shops after which we had free time.

As usual we visited a coffee shop to use the facilities but this was quite different because the walls of the bathrooms were lined with erotic artwork on the tiles. Even the taps had the same theme.

The bus drove us to Taormina but once again was unable to drive all the way to our hotel because of the narrow streets and so we had taxis for the last part of the journey. We reached the hotel (Hotel Villa Schuler) at about 4:15pm which was apparently earlier than they'd been expecting us.

We were greeted by the hotel owner who gave us  a very comprehensive talk about the hotel. They even provided wine and nibblies. Apparently it has been a family hotel since 1905. They seem to be very service oriented.

By the time he'd finished his presentation, our bags were already in our room. The room is quite spacious. It has a balcony overlooking the garden. It has a bench for my laptop and two chairs. Believe it or not, it even has two bathrooms - one is probably meant to be a disabled bathroom. We've never been in a hotel room with two bathrooms before.

Luca took us on an orientation tour of the town at 7pm. Most of the group came along. He took us through the hotel garden and up steps to the main street which was very busy with pedestrians. The main street is lined with classy well-presented shops.

The street is long and paved with cobblestones. Our hotel laneway is close to a stone arch referred to as the middle gate. At the southern end is Catania Gate and at the northern end there is Messina Gate. Most of the shops were still open. As the sun went down, the shops and the street were well lit.

Luca took us around several streets and back to main street. On one of the lower laneways, we saw Roman ruins with new buildings on top. Afterwards we had free time to wander the town. It was a great photo opportunity.

Suzy wanted to find the Obag shop and she bought a new handbag. We kept on running into other people from our group. Some shops starting to close at 8:30pm but most apparently stay open until 10:30pm.

We were not hungry after our big lunch and so we just bought a focaccia and an ice cream. Further along we bought a bottle of red wine  (Nero D'Avola again) and took it back to our room.