The train to Taormina

Taormina, Sicily’s resort town, sits with regality on the cliff tops overlooking the emerald Ionian Sea.  It’s 45 minutes or so from Catania, by way of a local train on which, I could quite easily believe, we are the only paying customers. On arrival, it is advised that you catch a bus up to the town, and the reason for this becomes almost instantly clear.  The road ascends, clings to the cliff edge, and takes countless hairpin bends, up-and-round, up-and-round, as we climb higher and higher above the water.  The driver, clearly not one for passenger comfort, throws the bus all over the place, swerving here-and-there to avoid on-coming traffic, and with each glance out the window, the crash barriers protecting us from the cliff edge look flimsier and flimsier.

The regional train to Taormina

The ancient Greeks also saw the worth in visiting Taormina, building as they did a stunning theatre in the seventh century BC.  The Teatro Greco, arguably the most well-known archaeological site on Sicily, has the wow factor on two levels – it is both beautifully preserved and stunningly positioned, with views out to sea and also up to Etna creating, I suppose, a never-ending show of nature.  The theatre in its current form has been largely remodelled by the Romans (perhaps in the second century AD), and it’s so easy to visualise the throngs cheering, clapping, laughing and drinking.  There are throngs on our visit too – ubiquitous international tour parties, of which French is today’s primary flavour, being led around the site and being spoken at about the importance of this particular arch, or that special wall.  Maybe they’ve learned more than us, but for me, the theatre is a place for fun, for exploration, somewhere to work out for yourself what happened when.  Anyway, we’ve spotted something fascinating that most people probably haven’t even noticed – wildflowers, poking out of gaps in the stone, that somehow make the place feel both more archaic, but also more alive.  Only the appearance of a rain shower, rolling in black from the hills, gives us cause for worry, but we make the best of it and shelter under ancient arches, marvelling about how it suddenly feels like Britain.

Taormina's ancient theatre - still used for modern performances

Wildflowers grow between the stone terraces

Taormina is a lovely town –lively, pretty, interesting and historic.  Down from the theatre, the narrow main street, Corso Umberto, offers numerous restaurants, a few tacky souvenir shops, but also some real gems, including a couple of particularly colourful shops selling locally-made ceramics.  The street gives way to the picturesque Piazza IX Aprile, paved black-and-white like a giant chessboard, and said to be “the balcony of Taormina” because of its breathtaking view over the coast.  The street is also home to Taormina’s Duomo, a simple little cathedral more reminiscent of a parish church, but with a light and airy interior.  We take lunch in a restaurant on Corso Umberto, a window table with the same commanding view over the Ionian, without a doubt the finest view I have ever seen from the dinner table.  Down on the sea, a luxury five-masted yacht, surely the property of a multi-millionaire, drifts leisurely by, confirming this corner as one of the wealthiest parts of the island.

Piazza IX Aprile

Lunchtime in Taormina

For the afternoon, we stroll around the city’s main green space, Giardini della Villa Comunale, with its tropical vegetation, interesting war memorial, and quirky structures (that would look more at home in the Jungle Book), whilst gelato melts onto our hands and drips onto the paving in the increasingly humid air.  Sensing the need to cool off, we head with rapidity to the town’s cable car, which takes us down the cliff and drops us onto a picture-postcard beach for a paddle.  Neither of us are beach people, but it’s the perfect antidote to the scorching heat and, flip-flops at the ready (I hate them, but this area is known for spiky sea urchins), we wander into the waves.  I like the Ionian Sea, not just because we’ve paddled in it, or because of its crystal, fish-abundant waters, but also because I cannot think of a more historic sea anywhere in the world.  It teems with life, but it also teems with the past – you can feel it on the waves, a sense of the cataclysmic coming-together of the Greek and Roman worlds of old.

Giardini della Villa Comunale

The beautiful Ionian Sea at Taormina

Etna Excursions

Morning in Sicily's volcanic city, and we are out on the pavements early.  There's a cool freshness to the air, and although the sun is already shining bright, it's as if Catania's atmosphere has been thrown in the icebox.  Today we escape the city; today we become more intrepid; today we explore Etna National Park, in the company of Go Etna tour guides, Francesco and Davido.

Our drive up to the national park, in the company jeep, is via Giardini Naxos, a nearby resort, to pick up our other travelling companions, a couple from Vienna.  Davido doesn't speak any English, but along the way we chat with Francesco about our trip, Etna, and our lives.  Where do we live?  Why did we choose Catania?  Are we married?  Why not?  Francesco is Sicily-born, but moved to Germany aged just four when his father found work in Dusseldorf and Cologne.  Making a conscious decision to return to his roots several years later, he took the job as an Etna guide when the company was founded by a businessman from Hamburg.  His past means that, despite being a son of Sicily, his German is better than his Italian and, whilst he tells us that we will be his "English translators" for the day, in truth his English is almost flawless too.

Our jeep

The spirit on our drive up the volcano is jovial and exciting, despite the fact that we are pulled over by the Carabinieri for tourist papers and documents to be examined.  These are Italy's military police, a step above the run-of-the-mill state police, and with a reputation to match.  Machine guns in hand, they speak with our guides, whilst everybody in the jeep sits, plays the dumb foreigner, and tries very hard not to look suspicious.  Five minutes later, there is laugher as we drive away and, having cleared whatever security arrangements were required, we breathe-easy once again.

The Etna scenery is not to be missed, and if anybody here makes it to Eastern Sicily, I strongly recommend you take an excursion up here.  The land, black from volcanic activity, holds a greater variety of life than you would think, and plants, in a testament to the strength of nature, grow out of a seemingly dead landscape in abundance.  Under our feet, a gravelly, crumbly covering of lava rock suggests the park is bone-dry, but less than an inch underneath, the soil is moist and rich.  This has enabled plant life to establish itself here, whilst water access for animals is harder, and the park supports no creature larger than a fox.

Etna National Park

Plant life on Etna

We make many stops along the course of the day, and Francesco is very keen to point out old and new lava flows, and the vast variety of plant life.  At one stop, equipping us with flashlights and helmets, we are taken down into a lava cave, created by a previous eruption.  It is now hot in the open air, but inside the cave the mercury drops to freezing, our breath clearly visible in the chill.  In days gone by, the locals used these caves to store ice, picked from further up the mountain, and it comes as no surprise to learn that one of Italy's finest exports, gelato, has its origins in this very region.

In the lava cave

Back outside, we are taken to part of the Etna park called Monti Sartorius, named after a German scientist who created the first geological map of Etna.  A steep walk ensues and we scrabble up a crumbly volcanic cone, 1,667 metres above sea level, whilst the wind gets violent around us, and the stench of sulphur makes it difficult to breathe.  Twice I nearly get blown from my feet, and with little to hold onto except Lizzie, it's a frighteningly exhilarating experience.  At the summit, two craters, both dormant, but not extinct - as Francesco points out, nobody knows exactly where the next eruption will be up here, and with 150 separate networks of underground lava tunnels running in the park, it could occur anywhere.

In Monti Sartorius

Volcanic cone, Monti Sartorius

Our fascinating hike over, we are driven to a traditional Sicilian farmstead - an agriturismo - for lunch. An experience I don't ever expect we'll have again, the six of us sit around a little table in a little hall, enjoying an antipasto starter, a second course of long macaroni and delicious fennel risotto, and a third course of meat and salad (we never worked out quite which meat it was, but it came served under an aubergine slice, covered in a tomato sauce and cheese), all washed down with a glass of Etna Rossa wine.  Francesco knows the owners of the farm, and they are proud that everything they serve is grown, or reared, on-site.  After lunch, we have some time to look around, to see the long field of vines, the fine view of the mountains, and the beauty of silence.  I'm not entirely sure where we are, but it's way out in the wilderness, far away from the city smells or the noise of traffic, and probably as close as we'll ever get to that sun-baked, unchanging Sicilian lifestyle so beautifully portrayed in The Godfather films.  The farmstead also has a little shop selling produce, and from here we buy a jar of local honey, and I try the local liqueur, Etna Fire, which at 70% alcohol, leaves me gasping for breath, and everybody else in fits of laughter.  Not to be perturbed, our Austrian friend then goes and buys a bottle of it for his 92-year-old mother - "You know what will happen," Francesco says, and makes the sign of the cross, to even greater laughter.

Enjoying traditional Sicilian food

Vines at the agriturismo

After lunch, we travel through the hills, looking down on remote towns like Linguaglossa (so called because its layout resembles the shape of a tongue), and eventually arrive at the Alcantara River, which forms some impressive waterfalls, fast-flowing and dangerous.  The Alcantara rises to the northwest of Etna, and flows around its north face, eventually meeting the Ionian Sea at Giardini Naxos.  Up here, it has carved through rocks with such smooth grace, resembling a fibreglass film set, almost too perfect to be natural.  Further down the river, at a safer location, Lizzie and I eschew our shoes and socks, and go for a paddle.  The river here is absolutely teeming with life - there are thousands of tadpoles, abundant fish, and water-skaters that flit all across the water's surface.  In the shadow of the hill town called Castiglione di Sicilia, it's a refreshing fun, memorable end to our excursion.

Paddling in the Alcantara

Castiglione di Sicilia

After the fresh air and natural beauty of Etna, the busy, ugly city of Catania comes as something of a shock.  Entering the city in rush hour, we are treated to more chaotic traffic scenes, but Davido picks through them with a cool, calm head and, after some time, we are dropped back at our hotel, exhausted. Exhausted, but thrilled, for I think I've understood something about Sicilian identity today - they feel about this volcano, and indeed its surroundings, rather like we Devonians feel about Dartmoor, with the same love, fear, respect, and deep-rooted attachment.  It's this attachment that brought Francesco back here from Germany, and despite its menacing presence over Catania, it is everything to the identity of the city.  I get that, I like it, and I respect Sicilians for it.

Etna at sunset

Catania Part II

All the guidebooks about Sicily devote at least a paragraph to Catania’s pescheria, or fish market, which lies just around the corner from the Duomo.  It’s an awesome experience, that’s for sure, to enter so suddenly such a dark and unusual place, for underneath the dank railway arches and stripy canopies is a world absolutely teeming with activity.  If you want to bag a denison of the deep, this must be one of the greatest places to do it, for caught straight off the Catanian coast is every type of edible sea creature, from baskets of crabs to huge swordfish, sliced thickly and to order.  The market also offers fantastic displays of fruit and vegetables, as well as cups of snails (apparently a popular dish in Sicily.)  Surely the busiest part of the city, locals and tourists alike mingle in the narrows, haggling with stallholders, and jostling to make way for the frequent scooters and motorbikes that slip, wasp-like, through the crowds.  An intense, real, unsanitised life pervades here, and I think the pescheria may be the best embodiment of the city.

Catania's fish market

If you’re able to escape the fish market (and we do, albeit with a punnet of unfortunately sour nectarines), you could almost walk straight in to Castello Ursino.  The fortification was built in the 1200s as a royal castle of Emperor Frederick II, the King of Sicily, to show the population who was boss, and during the devastating earthquake of 1693, the castle was one of the few buildings to remain standing.  Its position is somewhat unusual, being the centrepiece of a fairly attractive piazza, but this does not tell the whole story.  Castello Ursino once looked out over a cliff onto the sea, but following a series of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, it now sits nearly a mile inland.  Inside, the dark museum gives a hint at a once-miserable lifestyle, the prison / torture tower a particular low point.

Castello Ursino

Catania is actually a very interesting city, if you pick-and-choose your areas, and the United Nations agree – the city centre makes up part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto (essentially a collection of Baroque town centres across the Southeast corner of the island.)  To see the whole city centre on foot in a day is just about possible, but to get a better overview (and because we are both dead-on-our-feet) we hunt down a rather touristy alternative and climb aboard the bright red sight-seeing road train which, for five euros, gives you a 45-minute overview of the city.  It’s also an exhilarating way to experience Catanian traffic at its best – that is, lawless – and it soon becomes apparent that the horn on Sicilian models are attached simultaneously to both accelerator and brake.  I find Sicilian drivers curious – they drive too fast, they don’t indicate, they beep incessantly, but there’s never any trace of anger, aggression or urgency in their faces.  In fact, far more people stop to let you cross a road here than would ever do in London, Birmingham or Bristol.  The roads of Catania are chaotic – frighteningly so – but it tends to work in a way it wouldn’t back home, because Catanians drive with a lackadaisical, give-a-shrug attitude that this part of the world is renowned for.  It’s that same attitude which ensures the busses never run on time, trains simply don’t turn up, and street signs are unreliable, but if you can shift your mind-set to their way of thinking, you’d fit in quite nicely.  There’s only one small problem with that – I can’t.

The oh-so-touristy road train

Back in the evening, we take it easy on the hotel’s roof terrace, commanding views over the surrounding roof tops.  The roof terrace is a great place to be – we have all the sounds of the city, a beautiful view looking as far as the coast, but nobody in Catania has any idea we are here.  Up above, swifts are amassed here in their hundreds, their calls filling the air all evening long, giving us a free show of nature in the very centre of this black old city, whilst in the distance, tomorrow’s destination reminds us, with a pale waft of smoke, who’s really in charge around here.

Our hotel roof terrace at night

Catania Part I

That feeling again.  That rare, exuberant feeling.  The one where you step out, once again, onto the streets of a foreign city.  That foreign city smell (it's different to how cities smell at home), the signs that make no sense, the moment you almost forget to look the opposite way when you cross the road.  Fume-belching, ramshackle busses, battered old cars in faded carnival colours, graffiti over every wall ("Mafia = Merda"), illegal street sellers, beggars, stray dogs, all playing out their lives under an indomitable Mediterranean sun.  It's intriguing travel heaven, it's sweaty travel hell, and it's name is Catania.

Catania, Sicily's second city, enjoys a well-located life on the island's east coast, in the looming shadow of Mount Etna, Europe's largest active volcano.  They say Catanians love the volcano - it protects them, it defines them, but it also punishes them, most notably in March 1669, where the lava flow reached the city, broke through the defenses, and caused massive damage (24 years later, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake would finish the job.) The resulting reconstruction saw the city centre built in the Baroque style, and the local population made extensive use of black volcanic rock, which gives Catania a smouldering, weary, melancholy feel.  Nonetheless, it's our base for the week, and we arrive with all the usual excitement, our feet itching to get out and see what we can find.

Etna smokes, Catania trembles

Up the city's main street, Via Etnea, Lizzie and I grab a gelato, do some window browsing, and head for the shade of Giardino Bellini, the city's premier gardens, named in honour of the composer, Vicenzo Bellini, who was born in the city in 1801.  The well-planted, lovely park is obviously a popular choice with residents, for it is a busy place, and who can blame them - the park represents a green oasis, nestled into a sea of lava rock, a perfect place to rest awhile, to gather one's thoughts, and to watch the world go by.

Grabbing a gelato or two on Via Etnea

Giardino Bellini

The next morning, and we have a lot to tick off our list.  We're staying in Catania all week, but with all our other plans, we only really have a day or so to get under the skin of the city.  We make a short detour to the church of San Nicolo, built following the 1669 eruption of Etna, and designed to be the biggest church in Sicily.  This ambition was achieved, but at such great cost that the project was bankrupt before the interior could be furnished.  Alas, what is left is an enormous, impressive, empty space - probably the biggest empty space in Sicily - but one which is almost a sad experience, and a warning to those looking to be the biggest and the best.  As is always the case, it's what's inside that matters most.

The empty space inside San Nicolo

Leaving San Nicolo behind, it's a short stroll to the city's Roman theatre.  Not being the types to pass up the opportunity to look at some ancient ruins, we are almost too eager to enter, and as some of the first guests of the day, our twenty-euro note is accepted with scorn and derision.  Chaos ensues in the ticket booth, but they eventually scrape together the last of their change, send us on our way, and we are soon picking through stone tiers, and looking down on an ancient stage which, over the centuries, has become submerged by a natural underground stream.  Stray cats prowl in the rows, one pounces on a butterfly but misses, and we stroll around the site, which we have virtually to ourselves.  All around, old palazzos and apartments overlook the ancient structure (which actually has its origins in Greek rather than Roman culture - the Romans rebuilt here) and for the archaeology graduate, it's hard to imagine a better view.

Catania's Roman Theatre

Catania's centre is delightfully compact, so it's a five-minute stroll into the very heart of the city, which is symbolically punctuated by the Duomo.  Catania Cathedral, dedicated to Saint Agatha, is a cool retreat against the increasing strength of the sun.  Inside the surprisingly light interior, there are the usual shrines to Mary, but nowhere near as ornate or wealthy as some that I have seen in Italy, and elsewhere on the Continent.  Out on the Piazza del Duomo, the cathedral's exterior stands dominant and eternal, whilst in the centre of the square, the crowds admire a lava sculpture of an elephant carrying an obelisk on its back. Probably a prehistoric sculpture, the elephant is synonymous with the city, and can be found on the Catania's coat of arms, and on the badge of the local football team.  The sculpture itself is impossible not to like, with its playful shape and jolly grin, and may be my favourite piece of the city.

Catania's beautiful Duomo

The city's iconic elephant

Gone to Sicily!