Giardini-Naxos and Taormina (Italy Post #3)

It took almost a full day to travel from Naples down to Giardini-Naxos. Carson attempted to sleep the time away, but I loved looking out the windows, watching the scenery change into a dry, cacti covered landscape with limestone cliffs lining the coast. Our train is one of the few passenger trains in the world to actually board a ferry, to cross the Strait of Messina. We arrived in Giardini just after 4pm on October 8th and walked about 15 minutes to our Air BnB.

We had a balcony overlooking the ocean and we were greeted with a faint salty scent and the sound of waves. The apartment had all amenities too, meaning we could do our laundry and even cook for ourselves if we wanted to. For something like $50 per night, Carson and I could hardly belive it. The balconies bordering ours remained empty for our entire stay as well, an added bonus of traveling to a summer destination in October.

And what a destination it was! The beautiful Mediterranean Sea was right beside the main road, sporting a view of giant cruise ships and boats. It seemed like a facade lay over the town, attractive to people here on holiday, Western travellers and affluent Italians. A fair number of restaurants plastered their menus on large signs at the front of their stores, in both Italian and English, which we didn't see anywhere in Napoli. The steets even sported lines for parking spots, where in Naples, anywhere you could squeeze your car into was a parking spot. American flags, extra seating, "burgeria's", and Italian's who switched to English as soon as they saw you walk up; all courtesy of being a coastal Sycilian destination for cruise ships and tour busses.

I write almost as a hypocrite, having traveled here as tourists ourselves, but even after just a few days in Napoli, we could see and feel the difference between the two places. The people, the restaurants, the service, and the cost of some items. It became more difficult to actually enjoy the culture and history of a place when it was intertwined with a web of tourism.

Regardless, Taormina and Giardini Naxos were both beautiful, interesting cities. We found out there was an archeological site at the other end of the bay and spent some time there. Turns out they had uncovered an ancient Greek city settlement, representing the earliest Greek colonialism in Sicily from ~750BC.

In the grounds surrounding the museum, broken pottery pieces littered the ground. Visitors were allowed to walk through the remains of the town, the old archeological site itself. Some pieces of the Ampules still had designs and paint on them. Over 2000 year old paint, outlasting the civilization that created them.

The most ironic thing about the museum was that one of their buildings was actually an old, 300 year old fort. And since it wasn't Greek (and not nearly as old), they refinished the inside and used it to house old relics and ship anchors from early Greek colonization. As if to say "Ya this buildings kinda old, but check out these really cool 2500 year old anchors and pots"

The town above Giardini-Naxos is Taormina. And by above, I mean straight up into the cliffs surrounding the coastal town. Naxos was destroyed after the Greeks lost a bunch of wars and the people there were enslaved or forced into exile. The exiled people moved into the hills and founded Taormina.

A gondola carries people from the middle of town down to the beaches of a small cove. Here, a small sand bar connects Isola Bella to the coast, a protected natural area. It was quite cool to see, but very, very busy with people.

We spent some time in the hills looking at an ancient Greek theater too. It was perched on a hilltop and looked over the Giardini coastline. The theater is still in use today, with a normal stage, lighting, and updated seating set up.

Knowing we were going to see more ancient Roman and Greek structures (hint, hint) in the future, Carson and I still found ourselves in awe. This thing was ancient! And was still in use! We will never have anything as historically interesting in Canada lol.

Staying in Giardini, Carson and I were quite lazy and ate many pastries from a little shop about a block away from our apartment. We spent 4 days here, with a tour booked for Mount Etna, the largest volcano in Europe. On the 3rd day however, we got a message that the tour had been canceled due to rain and wind. Bummer.

The weather on the first few days gorgeous: sunny, 25⁰C with a gentle breeze from the ocean. Crystal clear waters greeted us on the beach. It was my first time swimming in an ocean, and Carson somehow convinced me that I had to taste it, even though I'm sure it would have happened by accident anyways. My reaction was to be expected, it's a salty sea...

Once we discovered there were fish swimming along the coast (duh), Carson and I went on a hunt for some swimming goggles. Once we got back to the beaches, we were in awe! There were so many fish as soon as you walked into the water. They were all fairly small, but very colorful and patterned, with bright blues, yellows, purples and silver. I could have stayed there all day looking for new fish and could have stayed for longer if I had a way to get photos and videos of them. We even spotted a few crabs running around.

At night, we ate a couple meals out at restaurants down the main street. Most places don't open until about 7:30pm here, a late dinner. Seafood was the primary option for food and being a vegetarian, it was difficult for me to find a meal I could eat, so Carson also cooked a few pasta dishes at the apartment too. Delicious.

Carson was always the one who would scour Google for any menu that offered non-seafood options for me and discovered a hilarious trait of Italian store owners. Any bad review on Google had a response, a hilarious response. It often began with "Reported to Google" and went along the lines of "Your opinion is wrong, my restaurant is amazing". There were some funny ones, even on AirBnB too! Someone mentioned that the air-conditioning didn't work in an apartment so it was too hot in the place and the owner replied with "You're an idiot and didn't tell me the unit wasn't working, I would have fixed it". Many, many restaurants responded to bad comments in a similar fashion.

While eating our dinner on the balcony one night, we spotted a small boat floating in the shallows with a bright lamp pointing into the water. After watching them for a while, Carson declared that they were spear fishing! The light attracted the fish and a man with an open barrel would stare into the water, giving him a clear picture of below. Once he found a fish, he would grab a long spear from inside the boat and stab into the ocean, pulling out a fish from the other end. It was an interesting, though a tedious process to watch.

Our time in Giardini-Naxos came to an end on the morning of October 11th when we left before daylight to catch a train farther south. We didn't end up eating half as many Gelatos as we should have, but we have a few more weeks in this beautiful country to catch up 😉

Syracuse (Siracusa), Sicily was our next destination. Our next apartment was on the small island of Ortigia and was full of Baroque architecture, ruins, and cathedrals to visit. We're only there for 24 hours, so I'll be busy writing on our long train ride back up to Naples.

Thanks to everyone who takes the time to check out my posts! Subscribe to keep up to date on my travels; I'm thankful for all my readers. All questions are welcome, Ciao!