Day 11: Trek Across Sicily to Agrigento

Thursday morning the 21st we woke up and got ready to leave Taormina.  We were sad to leave, since this had become one of our favorite parts of the trip.  We lingered over our Sicilian breakfast on the terrace before calling a cab to take us to the rental car company.  The only part of our trip we did not plan out before arriving in Italy was getting from Taromina to Palermo.   We had several options and after talking to the concierge in Palermo, we decided to rent a car and spend the day sightseeing.  Sicily has several sites with Greek ruins with the most popular being Agrigento which was about three hours southwest of Taormina.

View from our balcony

Of course being in Europe meant that it was much cheaper to rent a manual.  Since I have regularly driven a stick most of my driving life, I became the designated driver.  We rented a little European car, the Fiat Panda.  The car was easy to drive but I was white knuckled driving down the mountain on a little two lane road from Taormina.  Once we got on the highway I was able to relax a little and start enjoying our adventure.  And it was definitely an adventure.  The little rental office in the town square of Taormina did not have a GPS and our phones weren't set up for data so we were depending on paper maps and the Sicilian signage, which we quickly discovered stunk.

Side of the highway

Sicilian countryside

 After a few hours we reached the town of Agrigento but we were struggling to find the Valley of the Temples.  We decided to stop at a gas station to fill up on gas before trying again in a new direction.  The pumps were automatic and the husband put in a 50 euro bill to fill up the car.  The Panda took about 35 euros so he went in to get change from the attendant.  The guy finally managed to get across that the pumps were separate from his store and the guy in charge of gas didn't come in until 2.  At that point it was only 11.  The husband asked if we could go back to the station after we finished at the ruins since we were due nearly $20 in change, I laughed and said there was no way we'd ever find it again.  

The quick gas break seemed to help us reorient and we finally found the Valley.  We made our way through the ruins at the bottom of the hill, which was the corner of the Temple of Castor and Pollux.  From there we reached the a road running through the temples and stopped for a quick, greasy lunch that was mostly Sicilian street food.  At this point it was getting late in the day and I was worried about reaching Palermo before dark.

Ruins of the Temple of Castor and Pollux

We made our way through the Temple of Hercules and stopped to admire the Temple of Concordia which is one of the best preserved Greek temples.  At that point it was getting late and we decided to head back to the car instead of trekking to the Temple of Hera which we were able to see out in the distance.

Temple of Hercules

Temple of Concordia

Temple of Hera

Once back in the car we were turned around several times trying to find our road to Palermo.  It was stressful for both of us trying to find the signs and determine which way we wanted to go.  And then all the sudden, the husband yells, "There it is, stop!"  Yes, we had inadvertently found the gas station.  The husband marched out and found a guy with a money apron, who I can only assume was in the mob.  I could see in my rear view mirror that he was arguing with the guy, I could tell the guy was trying to get out of paying him but the husband came back with every penny of his change.  I still don't know how we ended up back there, I would've sworn it was miles from where we were.  

We set out again and finally found a road that hugs the western coast of Sicily.  I did not get to enjoy the sunset as much as my passenger did, but he did take some pictures for me to see later.  After the sun went down we had about another hour to Palermo through the mountains.  The roads were not as well lit as I would've liked, but that may have been for the best since I'm pretty sure we were hugging the side of the mountain and there wasn't much between us and a sheer drop down.  Eventually we found our way to Palermo and we realized we would not be able to return the car before the Hertz closed.  We had paid for the car for 24 hours and decided to just head to the hotel and return in the morning.

Sicilian sunset

In Palermo things got a lot worse before they got better.  The hotel we were staying in is a small boutique hotel and we passed it several times because the sign was small and we were stressed.  The drivers in Palermo make DC drivers look nice.  There were motorbikes weaving in and out of traffics and lanes would just end.  Once I stalled at a light because a motorbike startled me so badly that I lost the clutch, which of course set of a chorus of horns and cursing behind us.  I was mentally exhausted and near tears by the time we finally parked illegally outside the hotel.  The husband went in and found the owner who offered to park the car for us, which I gratefully accepted.

We checked into our super modern hotel room at the Palco Hotel with a view of the Opera House.  The owners were lovely people who went out of their way to make us feel welcome.  By the time we got settled in, it was late and we were ready for dinner.  The hotel owners recommended a restaurant in a little pedestrian alley a few block away.  The weather was nice enough that we could sit outside with our jackets and enjoy the musicians playing in the streets and the atmosphere.  The food was authentic Sicilian and there was no English on the menu so we ended up just selecting a few items and we enjoyed all of it.  We ordered house wine of course and after a few glasses and the food the stress of the drive melted away.

Antipasta

Squid

Honeymoon Day 10: Greek Theater and Giardini Naxos

The only thing that in Taormina that was a must see for me was the teatro greco, the ancient Greek theater.  A lot of the theater is brick so they think the Romans rebuilt on Greek foundations.  Either way I wanted to see it.  After a Sicilian breakfast on the terrace at the hotel, we headed to the town center on the shuttle and walked to the theater which is just outside of town.  It didn't take long to walk through the ruins but it was definitely worth the time and admission fee.

Sicilian ruins

Greek theater

View from the theater

After exploring the theater we wandered around the downtown area of Taormina before sitting down for lunch.  Over lunch we discussed what to do with our afternoon.  We had made reservations at the hotel for dinner, hotel Villa Ducale does not have an actual restaurant but for guests they offer dinners by their chef.  We decided to take a bus down to the beach since the day weather was warm.

Meats and cheeses

Penne for lunch

The bus terminal in Taormina is a short walk from the town center.  We asked the surly attendant at the ticket office and he suggested we go to Giardini Naxos, the buses ran about every hour.   Once we got on the bus our adventure started.  The bus was a city bus what went to another town and the beach was just a stop along the way.  There were only a few of us on the bus and the stop for the beach was not as obvious as we thought it would be.  In fact we never saw anything that looked like a beach.  After about 20 minutes I was getting worried that we were on the wrong bus.  An elderly woman at the front of the bus noticed we were on it and said something to the driver.  He stopped the bus and told us to turn right and we would find the beach.  I assumed we were a block or so from the beach.  We started walking through a neighborhood that was clearly not touristy or near the beach.   At this point it was getting close to 2pm, when shops start closing.  We found a small bakery where the guys there spoke very little English, but we finally communicated to them that we needed a taxi.  After about 20 minutes a very sketchy cab driver arrived at the bakery and offered to drive us back to Taormina but we convinced him to take us to the beach as originally planned.

Needless to say after all that we were grouchy and still unsure how we were going to get back.  I was starting to think we were going to have to shell out 100 euros for a ride up the mountain.  We finally were on the main street of Giardini Naxos and able to appreciate the view of the Ioanian Sea and Taormina from below.  Since Giardini Naxos is a beach town and it was November, there was not a lot open.  We stopped in dirty little beach front pub to get use the bathroom, get a beer and formulate our plan in that order.  The expat who owned the bar told us there were buses to Taromina that stopped along the main street but she didn't offer much more help then that.  We decided to walk along the beach for awhile before finding our way home.

View from the beach

The beach was surprisingly dirty

We waited awhile at a bus stop and miraculously a bus stopped that was headed where we needed to go.  This entire adventure was less then two hours but it was the most stressful part for me of the whole trip (other then the train ride on the Circumvensia.

Once we made it back up to Taormina unscathed I realized we were leaving in the morning and hadn't seen the main square of Piazza IX Aprile.  We did yet more shopping and bought some Christmas gifts before catching a cab to head back to the hotel.

View from the Piazza

Piazza IX Aprile

 We arrived back at the hotel in time for the hotel happy hour.  Every evening the hotel provides free appetizers to go with drinks.  We enjoyed our appetizers and drinks on the terrace before feasting on a homemade Sicilian dinner of seafood with fresh cannoli for dessert.  It was the perfect end to our two days in Taormina.

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

Honeymoon Day 8: Pompeii and Naples

We woke up Monday morning ready to move onto Sicily for our second week in Italy, but first we planned to head to Pompeii for the morning.  We packed up our room and headed to town to catch the Circumvesuviana for a 30 minute ride out to Pompeii.  It was much less stressful without our luggage.  The train was still crowded but not packed since it was late morning.  When we got off at the Pompeii stop we were approached by a lot of people offering tours but we made a right once we got off the train and headed to the entrance of Pompeii.  There are certified tour guides near the entrance and we almost went with one, he kept trying to add more people to keep the price down and the whole process was taking so long we decided to go on without him.  We ended up going with just the audioguides which worked for us, but I would recommend getting a tour guide if possible.

We headed into the entrance and up to a sort of town center where there were multiple alters to the gods and where some of the artifacts are housed.  We quickly realized that Pompeii was much larger then either one of us expected, which is what made me wish we had a tour guide.  I learned about Pompeii in school and read up on it before we went but I didn't really appreciate until we got there that it is truly a city and you can explore a lot of it.  I think I expected that we would only have access to a small portion of it.

View of Pompeii from the entrance

Artifacts dug up from the site

A lava cast of one of the victims

Alter to one of the gods

After we realized how large an area there was to cover, we pulled out a map and made a plan of what we wanted to try and see.  There is a cafeteria where you can get a decent lunch so we did that next before we did a couple hours of sightseeing.  There are several bath houses and brothels that can be toured as well as a theater.  We did a few times get turned around since roads would be blocked off for different reasons and we would have to work our way around.

Bathhouse 

Painting in the town's largest brothel

Looking down one of the city streets

Stairs to nowhere

Oven and mills used to grind wheat

 We spent about two hours walking around to different sites taking in as much as we could.  Our last stop before heading home was the amphitheater and forum.  We enjoyed walking around and fortunately had decent weather for it.  If you are nerds like we are I would recommend to anyone traveling to that part of the world to visit Pompeii.

Greek theater

Forum

By that point we needed to head back to Sorrento and get our luggage.  It had long been decided we would need to find a different way back to Naples then the Circumvesuviana.  An American couple we talked to had taken the ferry from Naples, we decided that made sense since we would need to get to the port anyways to catch our overnight ferry to Sicily.  We took a cab to grab our luggage from the hotel and then headed to the port.  We bought a ticket for the next ferry to Naples, they run pretty frequently even in the off-season and headed to a cafe at the port to wait.

The commuter ferry to Naples was large and comfortable, we were one of maybe 10 people on a ferry that could easily hold 150.  We were able to sit by the window and enjoy the bumpy ride to Naples.  When we arrived at the port we did have trouble finding our ferry.  We asked several people by showing them our tickets who tried to help but we ended up walking further then we needed to with all our luggage.  Eventually we found the office for the TTT ferry and checked in.  Since we had a couple of hours to kill we paid to leave our luggage with them and struck out to find pizza since we were in its birthplace.  I was a little nervous because we had a lot of our valuable items on us and I had read the worst part of Naples was of course by the port and it was dark.  We walked a few blocks and found a pizza place where we sat down for a Margherita pizza, which of course is known for being red, white and green like the Italian flag.  It was delicious, they don't mess around with their pizza in Naples.  

So good

After that we found some wine at a local store and headed back to the ship.  The overnight ferry was one of the parts of the trip that made me the most nervous.  We were decided to go to Italy I looked at our options and I thought the ferry made sense.  The cost of cabin was around $200 which was only slightly more then we were paying for hotel rooms most night so the overnight travel was almost a wash for us.  It took off around 9pm and landed in Cantania on the east coast of Sicily around 7 in the morning.  

When I started looking into our options though I found good reviews for the TTT ferry.  The English translation on the website had been shaky though and I was nervous even though I thought I had booked us an exterior cabin for two that we would have strange roommates or something else unexpected.  Flying from Naples to Sicily was another option but we wouldn't have saved the cost of a hotel room for Monday night and it probably would have taken more of our time since most of the ferry trip we were sleeping.  We got on the boat, which had a lot of people bringing cars on board since there is no bridge from Sicily to the mainland of Italy.  It became obvious quickly that we were probably the only Americans on board, if not the only native English speakers.  It very much had the feel of being off the beaten path, which made it an adventure!

We were the only ones in our room which was just like a small cruise ship cabin, with bunk beds and a small bathroom.  The ship was a bar and we also realized the cheaper tickets we had seen online literally bought people space on the boat and there were a lot of men camping out on bench seats.  

View of the cabin from my bunk

Slot machines in the bar

We sat in the bar for awhile before heading back to our cabin.  The ferry was not a bad way to travel to Sicily since we were able to get a good night sleep while traveling.

Honeymoon Day 7: Capri

When I heard that the island of Capri was where the Caprese salad was invented, I knew we had to go.  Capri is approximately 30 minutes by boat from Sorrento and the ferries are frequent from morning to early evening.  We made our way to the port after breakfast and bought our round trip tickets there for the next ferry to Capri.  Once we arrived at the main marina for Capri, we ignored the cabbies who were offering us rides and found the ticket office for funicular.  As an engineer, the funicular was a must see for me.  The funicular is two cars that counterbalance to use a minimal amount of energy to get people from the marina up to the main square or the Piazzetta in Capri.  At the ticket office we again bought day passes which we were able to use for the funicular plus to hop on and off the buses on the island.  Capri is only four square miles and the buses were fairly simple to figure out. 

View while coming into Marina Grande

Looking out from the Piazzetta in Capri

I had read some recommendations on how to spend the day in Capri and I decided that right away that we would get on the bus to go up to Anacapri.  Anacapri is a village about a half mile straight up the mountain, so the bus was definitely the way to go.  However the bus ride was even more terrifying then the one we experienced the day before.  The bus climbed straight up with almost no barrier and a lot of hair pin turns.  This bus was crowded so we weren't able to get any pictures to show how steep the drop was but I'm not sure I could convince the husband to do that again if we went back.

We explored the streets of Anacapri, popping into the shops and enjoying the scenery.  I had read that Anacapri was the best place to catch the bus to the Blue Grotto we wandered around until we find the bus station for Anacapri.  We also daydreamed about someday owning a place in Anacapri with a view of the sea.

Dream house

 I had been looking forward to taking a boat ride to the Blue Grotto but we soon learned that if the wind is up they will shut it down since the entrance to the grotto is so low.  Even though the weather was beautiful, it was also breezy so we unfortunately missed seeing the famous grotto.  There is also a chair lift that you can hop on in Anacapri and ride up the mountain, I was told if I wanted to go I'd be going alone so I passed.
 

Path we followed through Anacapri

After finishing our stroll through Anacapri we took the bus back down the mountain to Capri and decided it was time for lunch.  We found a beautiful restaurant overlooking the water and of course started with Caprese salad!  Since we were on an island I knew I wanted seafood so I ordered the daily special which was fresh sea bass.  It was expensive but worth every penny.

View from our lunch table

Caprese salad

Sea bass

Once we finished lunch we explored the town of Capri.  It's not that big and many of the stores were closed for the season but they were well out of our price range anyways.  There is no question that Capri caters to the wealthy.  Even though we were stuffed from lunch we decided to stop at a different restaurant and try the caprese torte cake which I was not impressed by.

Caprese torte

Since it was still early afternoon so we decided to take one more trip.  We headed back to the little bus station and got on the one headed to Marina Piccola.  The main attraction I had read about that part of the island is it has the best view of the Faraglioni which is a famous rock stack.  I wasn't sure what else to expect when we got there and we quickly discovered it was just a few restaurants, a church and the beach.  We decided to enjoy the weather and the view and sat outside at a small restaurant.  We weren't starving but I wasn't going to pass up a chance for another Caprese salad.  Our day in Capri was some of the best weather we had on the trip.  We had made a snap decision that morning to not bring jackets or heavy sweaters and we were glad we didn't.

Faraglioni

Caprese salad #2

It was barely 70 but people were sunbathing

We realized if we wanted to catch the next ferry out of Capri we needed to get moving, so we caught the next bus back to Capri and then took the funicular down to the port.  We caught the ferry and headed back to Sorrento enjoying the view of the sunset on the ride.

View out the front of the furnicular on the ride down

Sunset from the ferry