I woke up early, as I often do, but today I was rewarded for it by seeing the sun rising over the Ionian Sea and the rugged mountains of Calabria. If only that crane weren’t in the picture!
Breakfast is included with our room, as it usually is in Europe. John loves this because he can meet people from other places and talk to them. All the usual stuff was available for breakfast here, although rather oddly they were placed on a giant Lazy Susan in the middle of a large table. Omelettes and other breakfast items were also available on request. Mina, the charming young woman from Mauritius who helps run the hotel with Michele, the owner, cooks breakfast. She has a whimsical way with eggs.
The biggest attraction in Taormina is the Roman theater. This is used for an extensive arts festival during during the summer. The annual film festival had just concluded and as we walked around the theater they were breaking down the sound equipment. We were told breathlessly by everybody that Brad Pitt and Angelia Jolie had just been there. I wondered if Miss Jolie’s famous lips had influenced Mina’s omelette design….
A young Australian tourist offered to take our picture though she seemed to think using a real camera, even a digital one, peculiarly old-fashioned.
We went looking for the aerial cable car from Taormina to the beach. We found this little church instead. It is dedicated to Saint Pancras, or, in Italian, San Pancrazio. For most people today, Saint Pancras is just a train station in London. But in Taormina he is an important person. Born in Antioch, Pancras was supposedly sent to Sicily by the Apostle Peter himself to spread the faith in on this island. Pancras met his death in Taormina when he was stoned by opponents of the new religion. He is naturally the patron saint of Taormina and later this month there will be days of special celebrations. During that time this statue will be carried in procession around the town. Alas, we will be gone tomorrow before any of this begins.
We still had not found the “funivia” down to the beach so we stopped in the tourist information office to ask some questions. Usually these places are staffed by cheerful young people who love to share as much as they can about their hometown with tourists. We encountered instead a remarkably sullen older woman who spoke minimal English. John wondered if they mostly operated on commission. For me, the only highlight was a great collection of traditional Sicilian puppets. Although puppet shows no longer travel from village to village in Sicily, there are many who are working to keep the tradition alive. The shows always told the stories of the brave knights who defeated the Saracens. As in commedia dell’arte, there were stock characters and plots, but each puppeteer improvised the details and dialogue of the stories.
The king, of course, was the good guy.
We finally found the cable car to the beach, but we also discovered at this point that John had almost no cash and I had left my wallet back in the room for safekeeping. We had enough to buy some tickets, so once we were down at the base of the cliffs we looked for a restaurant where we could put a meal on AMEX. We found the Grand Hotel Mazzaro Sea Palace. Despite the extraordinary name, this is just a big pile of rebar and cement from the early 1970’s. Fortunately, from the restaurant you do not have to look at the hotel. Instead, you have a lovely view of a small bay
and swimmers frolicking in the water.
The food was overpriced, of course, but with a view like this I could hardly complain.
On our way back up, we ran into a charming Italian family. It was stuffy in the car and one of the ladies pulled out a fan — "aria conditionata manuale” as she called it — and John surreptitiously pulled out his phone.
Right outside the cable car station we found the remains of what had once been a small hotel. John and I immediately figured that this would become a movie where some girl inherits the building, restores the hotel — though the locals all think this is nuts — meets a handsome young man, and all live happily ever after on plates of beautifully photographed Italian food.
Alas, the reality of Italy is sometimes not quite as good as the cinematic fantasy.
Back at our one-star hotel — which we like better than the five star Grand Hotel Mazzaro Sea Palace — I took a picture of John on our balcony
and he snapped a much artier one of his view from the balcony.
Our destination for the evening was the little town of Castelmola. Taromina is perched high up on a cliff, but when you are there you can see another small town far higher up. This is Castelmola. Michele, our host, told us we could walk there. Looking at a 1000 foot climb straight up, we opted instead to take the city bus instead for a reasonable 1,90€. Castelmola is unbelievably cute. In fact, it’s town motto translates roughly to “This is the cutest darn town in Italy."
The cathedral there is new but we still found it interesting. It has not only deliberate Moorish elements to the architecture, but there are several six-pointed stars on it. As this was built during the Fascist period, I wondered if there was something of a political statement here.
We took the bus back and walked through the town back to our hotel.
This is our last day in fair Italy. We are off to Malta tomorrow. I am not sure why, but I feel remarkably at home in this country and I look forward to coming back here again. Arrivedirce, Italia!
