Naples, Overnight Ferry and Taormina (Sicily)

21 - 23rd September

Right, I'm spending Sunday afternoon writing these last couple of entries up, because it's been more than a month now since we arrived back from Sicily (and I've forgotten lots of what we did already!).

We spent most of the day in Naples, fearing for our lives, before heading to the port to catch the overnight ferry across to Sicily. Most of the day we spent in Naples, just walking around the scary streets having a look in the shops. We did manage to make time to enjoy a pizza for lunch - kind of obligatory to do in Naples, as that's where the pizza comes from. They were OK pizzas but we'd had better in our travels. As night started to descend on us, we made our way down to the port and after much strolling through the industrial centre we eventually found where we had to get our tickets and board the boat. Whilst waiting for the boat to be ready for us to get on, there was some crazy old man just talking away to himself, or us in Italian, and he didn't seem the least bit phased when we never responded to him. He just kept sipping his brown paper bag, and was quite content. We were both praying that he was not getting on our ferry.

We were eventually allowed to board 'The Love Boat' - It really did look like it with all the mirrors and chandeliers and stuff, and we staked our claim on one of the couches that surrounded the outside of the bar. We dropped bags and took turns checking out the rest of the ferry (Someone had to stay at all times to guard our couch and bags!!) - there was a restaurant and a shop and a few other cool little things on board. After waiting around for almost 3 hours the ferry finally set off into the darkness. There wasn't a great deal for us to do on the boat, so we bought a sandwich each from the bar for dinner and washed it down with some drinks from the vending machine. As the night wore on, most of the passengers headed off from the bar to their cabins for a nights sleep. Not us though, being too cheap to shell out for the luxuries of a bedroom, we created pillows out of jumpers and settled into the couches with a number of other people. It wasn't the best nights sleep I've ever had, with the boat rolling around from side to side, a TV above my head blaring, Dan kicking me and all the lights on, but I did manage to get a few hours in. Dan didn't have the same problems. He snored the whole night through, and it was difficult for me too wake him up in the morning. So I did spend quite a bit of time, watching the sun come up as we sailed past Mt. Etna, it was a pretty awesome view. The last 3 hours getting into Catania seemed to take forever, but eventually, after 13 hours of sailing we'd eventually made it.

We got off the boat pretty quickly and headed for the train station, which wasn't that far of a walk from the port, which was handy. We grabbed some breakfast - as it was 10am and we'd only had that sandwich from the night before and were quite hungry - of some pastries and such from the train station. We found tickets and the correct train, and were on our way to the seaside resort town of Taormina.

We arrived at the train station, Giardini-Taormina, which is located between two towns… We couldn't afford to stay in Taormina itself so we ended up in the poor cousin town of Giardini-Naxos. It was equally as beautiful, but it just wasn't perched on up on the top of a hill. So anyway, we get out at the train station, which is in no mans land between the two towns, and we had incredibly vague descriptions about a bus we needed to take to find our accommodation. With very little signage up about said buses, I headed back into the train station to ask someone there. The man behind the information counter, refused to help, even after I'd attempted some Italian, he just kept shaking his head and saying 'No'. We found another more helpful man, who pointed us in the right direction, and eventually a bus came up and took us to where we needed to be.

Our hostel was basically empty, and the guy was incredibly helpful and showed us all the things we needed to go and see. The hostel also had this awesome rooftop terrace, with views of Mt Etna to the right, the beach straight in front and Taormina to the left.

After we'd unpacked we walked down to the beach and the main shopping strip of the town. We grabbed a late lunch at a nice restaurant and then continued on our walk. Most of the beaches needed you to pay to use, but we found some that we're shut and just walked through and put our toes in the water. We stayed down there for a little while, but the weather turned really quickly and the blue skies rapidly turned grey and then the rain came. We headed for refuge in nearby shops. We decided that we'd go to find the big supermarket up near our hostel. It turned out to be about a mile further down the road that we were aware of. It ended up being quite a long walk in the rain to get some food for dinner. We spent the rest of the afternoon indoors away from the rain and cooked dinner at the hostel. It was early to bed to catch up on the many lost hours of sleep from the previous night.

The next morning we were determined to make the most out of our one full day in this beautiful part of the world (It was a shame we didn't have another day to go and do a tour up Mt Etna). The gods had decided otherwise and sent bucket loads of the wet stuff our way overnight.The beaches had all turned a yucky dirt colour from all the flooded streams and waterways, roads were flooded and everything was just wet. The rain was still continuing, but we thought we'd still venture up to Taormina for the day. After waiting for almost 1.5hours in the rain for a bus, and then being stuck in traffic (due to flooding on the roads) we eventually made our way up the massive hill to the town on the top of the hill. The view would have been spectacular. You had to catch a cable car down to the beach, and the little island off the coast, but it wasn't running, as it was way to wet and cold for people wanting to visit the beach. We ended up just strolling through the streets and finding cover in a nice, and popular little restaurant. After a delicious lunch, we thought we'd try to go and visit the Greek Theatre Ruins, which are up on the top of the hill in town. We fought through the torrential rain and found the theatre, paid the exuberant entrance fee and went and climbed through the ruins. It was pretty cool, but we didn't really want to hang around as we were getting drenched. Apparently on a clear day, through the back of the theatre you can see Mt.Etna and the beach of Giardini Naxos. We were lucky to see the stage, from standing at the back of the theatre! When we left the ruins we headed back into the town, taking photos of the waterfalls down the steps. Water was running down the hill so much that it was covering our feet as we stepped. Even after having on waterproof jacket and umbrella, everything I had on was soaked through, including my bag, camera, wallet, right through to bra and undies. It wasn't very pleasant; I don't think I get that wet whilst in the shower. We'd decided to give up and go back to the hostel, but as we said that the rain suddenly stopped! We took advantage and explored the rest of the city. Dan picked up some Sicilian cake things from one of the best pastry shops I've ever seen, and I admired all the beautiful, and expensive, jewellery. Apparently Taormina is the holiday choice for the rich, and it is very apparent with the cost of pretty much everything that was for sale in the town. The rain returned again, and we were straight back to the bus stop and on the next bus back down the hill. The journey should've taken no more than 10 minutes, but after an hour we were still a long way from home. (More traffic banked up due to even more severe flooding). As we could hardly see out the windows of the bus, we thought we'd arrived at our stop so got off the bus. We were wrong, and ended up having to walk for another 20 minutes through the flooded roads (No footpaths), with cars spraying water over us continually, and it was STILL raining, back to the hostel.

After some hot showers, and a change into trackies we spent what was left of the afternoon in the hostel. We couldn't be bothered trekking back up to the supermarket for dinner, and the rain had momentarily stopped, so we got changed again and headed down for a nice meal at another restaurant along the beach. It also gave Dan a chance to go back to the previous day's lunch place to collect his hat and sunglasses, which he'd left on the floor. Afterwards it was back to the hostel to pack up the wet clothes and get ready to leave early the next morning!