I can safely say that Sicily is one of the most beautiful places i’ve ever seen. Alison, Erica and I left Urbino on the 4th of May and made our way to Pisa, where we flew to Trapani, on the northwestern coast of the island. We opted to fly rather than take the train, since the train means 13 hours in the same tiny box with lots of possibly smelly people.

The night we arrived, we got stuck in Trapani. We stayed in a hotel for the night because there were no buses or trains running at the late late hour of 9pm. That was one of the most difficult things to deal with in Sicily – the public transportation was a lot less reliable than mainland Italy. Twice during our vacation, our trains were an hour late.

The next day we woke up super early (5am) and got ourselves to Taormina, which took some time (forever). We wandered around, did a little souvenir-shopping, ate cannoli and went to the Greco-Roman Theater, one of the coolest places I’ve ever been. During the summer they actually still put on shows and operas. The view from the top of this place was like no other.
There were so many gorgeous views in Taormina. The town is perched on the side of a mountain, so it’s easy to get up high and look down to the rocky coast and turquoise water. In the theater it was great because you could walk all over – we sat in the same spot where greek people watched tragedies and romans watched gladiators fight lions over 2 millenia ago. It’s completely mind-blowing.
After the theater, we went to the public garden, which also afforded beautiful views, along with plenty of shade and roses. We hung out there for a bit and I wrote some postcards while resting my feet. It was a great place to relax. We also had to suppress the urge to pick the oranges and lemons from the trees. (The whole of Sicily is covered in groves and groves of bright citrus trees.)
We crossed the street and ate at the Ristorante Ai Giardini, or Restaurant at the Gardens. I got caprese salad and some fried calamari. I had made a promise to myself to eat seafood everyday while I was in sicily, but it ended up falling through soon after this meal…most times we were too strapped for cash and time to sit down to a dinner.
The hotel we stayed at that night was decent – Cundari Inn. It was clean and the people were friendly, but it was still at 40-minute bus ride from Taormina, but probably only 10-15 minutes in a car.
One thing I did notice about visiting Taormina is the mass amounts of Germans. Taormina is a resort-type of city, which relies heavily on tourism. Apparently Germans are to Italian tourism what the Japanese are to New York City tourism. Even in Urbino, there are lots of German couples walking around, taking in the scenery for the weekend. Here it was more like NYC because there were tourists by the busload.