Honeymoon Day 9: Relaxing in Taormina

By the time we woke up early Tuesday morning the sea had become choppy and moving on the ferry took a lot of balance and grace... neither of which I have.  Announcements were being made over the intercom in Italian, which was no help to us so we just went out to deck and enjoyed the views of Mt. Etna before coming into port at Catania.  The husband had arranged through the hotel for a car to meet us at the ferry.  It was a little pricey but worth it in the end.  While driving out we saw the walk from the ferry to the bus station would have been at least half a mile, if we had even found it right away.  We were both a little crabby from the early morning so not having to navigate our way with all our luggage probably saved us from a fight.

Shades of blue

We arrived at our hotel halfway up a mountain and we were stunned by the views.  We stayed at Villa Ducale which is an old Sicilian villa converted into luxury boutique hotel.  It's above the town but there hotel has a shuttle service that runs several times a day and there is a bus that stops close to it.  The manager greeted us with glasses of prosecco and antipasta on the terrace while we waited for our room to be cleaned.  The wind was whipping through the terrace that morning but the view was breathtaking.

The room was ready pretty quickly and we were pleasantly surprised with the complimentary prosecco and roses.  The hotel and staff were amazing, it was definitely the nicest hotel of our trip.

Roses and prosecco in our sitting area

View from our balcony

By then it was lunch time and it was a gorgeous day, so we decided to take the trail down to the town center.  The trail started at a monastery and at each switchback had a station of the cross, I never would've known that but the husband went to Catholic school.

View from the top

View of the water

Stations of the Cross

Taormina is a resort town so it is full of shops and restaurants.  We quickly found a restaurant off the main road on a side street and had a delicious lunch of swordfish pasta and gnocchi.

View of the mountain during lunch

Swordfish pasta

 We headed back to the hotel and decided to take advantage of the bottle of prosseco, the views and the hot tub.  We spent the afternoon relaxing and enjoying the beautiful weather.  In the evening we asked the wonderful staff at the hotel to recommend a dinner location.  We took the shuttle down to town and of course had the first reservation of the night so we had the full attention of the waiter.  We had a full Italian dinner with an antipasta of fish, seafood pasta, carbonara and lamb.  The atmosphere of the restaurant, the delicious food and the staff made it one of our favorite meals of the whole trip.  It was the perfect end to one of the most relaxing days of our trip.

Fish antipasta

Spaghetti carbonara

Spaghetti with clams

Lamb in a lemon sauce