Moving on

A quick post this morning before leaving Taormina for the next stage of my adventure. In just over half an hour, I'll be leaving to head off for Palermo. This is the only bit of travel on the journey that I didn't book in advance and I'm hoping it works out ok. I've been advised to take the bus as it's much faster than the train. I think in part that's because the train winds its way round the coast, and in part because they really are old and rickety here in Sicily. I thought perhaps one of the reasons they brought the Rome train across on the ferry was because it was a posh one and they didn't want to leave it on the island. But no, it was as rickety as the other ones here. I think the Italians, like me, just love the idea of putting passengers on a train and then putting the train on a boat. I confess it was partly that experience that persuaded me to train it all the way to Sicily!!

But back to now, I'm off to Palermo. City of grit, bad driving, baroque splendour, poverty, life and cannoli. I'm really not sure what to expect. As the guidebook says, like all big cities, you just need to have your wits about you. Don't look like a tourist - suits me down to the ground!

Interestingly, the guide book also says:

"Visiting here is thrilling for what the city has to offer, but, it can also be a challenge. Traffic is horrible as cars, trucks and buses clog the narrow streets, often coming to a standstill for hours. This has caused a yellow cloud of pollution to hang constantly over the city making air quality less than desirable, covering cars and buildings with dust"

And that's the guidebook - I hate to think what the critics say!! 

But there are also plenty of sights to see and experiences (hopefully good ones) to be had. And if all else fails, I can hop on a train and take a day out to visit one of the surrounding towns or villages. Being the main city in Sicily, Palermo is well connected to most other parts - although not, it would appear, the one I'm in now! Go figure. 

I'll check in later once I get there and let you know how it really is. And in the meantime, (Mum!) don't worry, I'll be careful. I survived Rome after all....

Rainy Days

They don't get me down.

It may have been raining. I may have walked, in what felt like 100% humidity, up a never ending flight of steps, but no, rainy days definitely don't get me down. Particularly not when I'm on holiday.

Today, to celebrate that the sun was not burning a hole in the pavement, I decided the time was right to take a trek to the neighbouring hilltop village and see what was there. Lured on by promises of a food festival, I put my best foot forward and started the walk.

 
Now, the words 'hilltop' and 'strenuous' should really have been a warning to me. As should the bemused looks from the locals I stopped to ask for directions. But no, on I headed - up and up, and...up! My only companions, apart from a rather mad Polish Canadian woman, were hundreds of ants - no doubt flooded out by last night's deluge. But on I went, past broken streetlamps and crumbled steps, half finished buildings and long abandoned gardens. I was starting to worry about what I would find at the top - and then I got there. And found...a confusing maze of streets leading to nowhere, or so it seemed.

Like all good hilltop towns, Castelmola is built to confuse, and it did. It took me a good 10 minutes to find my way - in what is really a very small place - to anything resembling a public open space. But when I got there, it was all worth it. Not for the view, which was absent. Well, not absent but suffering from an addition of cloud that meant you couldn't see it. But for the place itself. Everything I hoped for from an Italian hilltop settlement - nestled around its church and castle, winding streets and close built houses, it was idyllic.

And as if that - and the food festival - wasn't enough, what more could a girl ask for than to sit  supping her cappucino, eating her torte di mandorle and tasting her Vino delle mandorla (yup, it's Almond Town!) surrounded by penises! Not the idiot dunderhead kind either, the male genitalia kind. Everywhere you looked - and I mean Everywhere - there they were. Coat hooks, lampstands, beer taps, wall decorations, on the menu, on the napkin. Everywhere. Dicks, penises, wongas, knobs, john thomases - the works. All in honour of the fearsome stone minchia in the church next door - which, by the way, I looked very hard for but couldn't see.

Not even the complete soaking, or the slip on the way back down the hill leading to a jarred shoulder and a very bruised behind could put a dampener (so to speak) on it. It just goes to show, if you look hard enough, you can always find something to entertain yourself with. Ahem!

7 down, 9 to go

Ok, I've been travelling now for 7 days and still have just over a week to go. What have I done so far? Well....

• I've travelled by train, boat, bus and taxi - plus quite a bit of shanks pony if you include the sightseeing
• I've passed through 4 capital cities
• I've eaten far too much food
• I've seen some wonderful and amazing sights
• I've met some interesting people, a few of whom I could even understand..
• I've learnt more Italian - not hard since I didn't know much to start with
• I appear to have mastered eating on my own
• I am becoming an ever more confident solo traveller
• I've had so much fun

And now, what next? Well, I have one day left here in Taormina. It rained last night - nay, it absolutely poured down last night, complete with thunderstorms that lit up the night sky long after they'd passed across the water to Italy. The result is that it's much fresher today, so I think a walk up to the next village up in the hills is called for. From what I can make out, they're having some kind of harvest festival/celebration of local food today, so that seems like as good a reason as any.

Then tomorrow I'm off to Palermo - variously described as gritty, fiesty, real and full on. Hmm, not sure what to expect. But whatever it is, it will be an experience to add to the many wonderful ones I've already had this holiday.

Care to join me?

For every thing there is a season...

...and a time for every purpose under heaven.

It seems today, my time came to be one of the things I detest most in the travelling world - a group tourist. Yes, readers, today I joined an organised tour and saw the countryside from a coach. In my defence, we weren't obliged to wear stickers with a cutesy symbol and our names on. Nor was I required to follow a woman speaking into a microphone and carrying a gaudy plastic flower. But, nevertheless, I was on a group tour. There's simply no getting away from it.

The excuse I'd like to use is that there was no other way of getting where I wanted to go today without partaking of said sin. I'd like to say that, but sadly it's just not true. I could have managed it, just much less conveniently. So like an (i)sheep, I signed up, paid my fee and became a tourist for the day!!

And all in honour of visiting Europe's tallest and most active volcano - the awe-inspiring Mount Etna, or Mongibello as the locals apparently call it. It wasn't spouting flames or little bursts of magma, contrary to what the publicity photos might lead you to believe. But it was impressive all the same. Impressive in a surreal, other wordly kind of way. I was struck, as I travelled up in the cable car over what must be the world's most bizarre ski resort, that the lava flows looked just like black snow. It felt like I'd stumbled across a negative world, and then somehow landed on another planet, a black Mars perhaps.

Our trip took us from the Etna Terrace at 1900m by cable car up to 2500m, and then by moon-buggy style jeep up to 2900m just below the (live) summit. At 2900m, we got out and were taken for a walk up to and inside the 2002 eruption crater. Apparently, it's now completely safe since it's all burnt out (oh, how I know what that feels like!), but all the same it was a somewhat spooky experience. I had to keep telling myself that they do this everyday, and there's no way they would put a group of German and American tourists in harm's way for fear of being sued. And no, that's not an active magma chamber you feel rumbling beneath your feet, it's just your over active imagination!

But I'm glad I did it. Even being a sheep was worth it for the experience. Look, I even took a Me with xxx (fill in the blank) shot just to celebrate the fact!

And now, it's been a long day so just as soon as my photos finishing loading, I'm off to sleep and in the morning I'll work out what to do with my last day in Taormina. If it's not too hot - or too rainy - maybe a walk up into the hills behind the town? But if tonight's thunderstorms reappear, it will need to be something different.

What will it be? Tune in tomorrow to find out...

Si, sono sola

Shh, don't tell anyone, but I might just have cracked eating solo. At any rate, it's been much easier - so far - this holiday than it was in Spain. I seem to have mastered the ability to go into a restaurant of an evening and have a meal, by myself, without props or a safety net - or at least, without a book to bury myself in as defence against the awfulness that eating on your own can be.

Tonight, for example, as I sat at my table in the trattoria, under the stars, I felt perfectly comfortable. I didn't feel in the slightest bit out of sorts - well, perhaps only a little bit - but when I compared myself with the poor young mum at the next table dealing with in-laws, an Italian husband and a demanding toddler, I think I definitely came off better.


I think the trick is to be incredibly nosey - or at least that's what seems to work for me. I take an unhealthy interest in other tables' conversations. I know what they've ordered. I can tell what nationality they are. I use it as an opportunity to practise my foreign language comprehension skills. And if all else fails, I compose blog posts and restaurant reviews in my head. Most of all, I enjoy the food and the location and the experience.

It seems like a fantastic step forward from last year's trials and tribulations in Spain, and a million years from my ordeal in Bristol, when one evening it was all I could do not to burst into tears in the middle of the dining room. I'm not sure if it's that in Italy they look after their solo diners more carefully, or I'm just getting better at it. I don't remember this confidence last year, but then in Spain I did take advantage of the tapas style, which meant I didn't really have to brave the full on dining experience.

Here in Italy, or at least in Rome and in Sicily, they don't seem as embarrassed about their single guests as UK restaurants do. They don't try to hide you away for fear that you might put a bit of a downer on their other patrons.

In fact, here rather than me feeling uncomfortable it feels more like the waiters are on edge - taking extra trouble to make sure that the signora has a good evening, a little bit more attention perhaps. A small extra touch to make her smile.

Perhaps it's because, as with most places, the singleton's tables are not in the best location - well, not the best  if you're after an intimate dining experience or a romantic ambience. Solo tables are often near the kitchen, at the edge of the room but not hidden away here - quite the reverse, being near the serving stations means that you are more in the line of activity. Last night I was right by the dessert fridge. The night before I had a line of sight to the kitchen - and even got a cheery wave from the chef when I left.

No, I confess, I quite like it here. Although it could also have to do with those 'little extras' a number of the waiters have felt obliged/compelled to put my way - a refill on my wine here, a free aperitivo there, and even on my first night in Rome, a whole packed breakfast to take away and the offer a date the next night.

Needless to say, I didn't take up the offer of the date - but I did take the breakfast. Am I bad?

When in Sicily....

...eat cannoli! Oh well, if you insist.

As my regular reader will know, I made it to Sicily last night after a lengthy, not very luxurious but strangely deeply enjoyable train journey. With the whole boat on the train thing too. I'm here, the sun is shining, the sea is sparkling and life is good. Finally the neverending and overwhelming noise of Rome has been replaced by the much quieter and more sedate pace of life that is Taormina. Not that Taormina completely escapes the tourists since it's a popular stop for the cruise ships but there's nowhere near as many of them here and they seem somehow quieter, less in your face.

The other difference here is that, unlike Rome and other big cities, it doesn't take long to find areas with no or very few other people. In big cities, deserted streets and back lanes are not the friend of the solo traveller, but in small towns like this, they are a godsend. A place to escape the clamour, to drink in the atmosphere, to explore and savour, to discover and learn, to find the small, quiet details that really bring a place to life.

Taormina itself is a strange set of contradictions - a place of ostentatious wealth, with numerous designer shops filling the main drag down the Corso Umberto whilst in the back streets it's much more down at heel. Sicily, like much of the rest of southern Europe suffers from continuing poverty and deprivation. Unemployment is high and apparently there is still a significant brain drain of skilled young people from the island to mainland Italy in search of work that pays more than the local tourism and agricultural economies can do.

It's a mix of old and new too - with the Greek Amphitheatre and the many emerging modern apartment blocks in similar states of unfinished-ness, but for very different reasons. The otherwise idyllic view from my breakfast terrace here at my hotel is slightly spoilt by the building work that's going on and any view south from the town will include at least one crane with various lumps of concrete or bits of steel dangling from it.

Finally, Taormina is a mix of refined and wild, surf and turf, beach and mountain. The town is dominated by the smoking cone of Mount Etna, one of Italy's remaining active volcanoes - and my destination for tomorrow. Unfortunately I'd wanted to book the Saturday trip, leaving as it does at a slightly more respectable 8.30 am but the weather, I was advised, is due to be poor on Saturday - a quick check confirms that snow is forecast for the summit! - so instead I'm booked for tomorrow's 7.00am tour by way of some gorge or other, a train around the foot of Etna before heading on to the summit via cable car, bus, jeep and foot. Fingers crossed it lives up to my expectations!

I guess I'd better go and stock up on food now. It looks like being a long day as well as an early start, and I don't want to be hungry, do I?!

Trains, boats and automobiles

I am so in love. Arrived in Sicily this evening - 21 degrees at 8.30pm and walking distance to a fabulous open air terrace serving yummy food and ice cold Limoncello. What more could a girl ask for?

But I'm getting ahead of myself - and probably being a touch dramatic!

Ok, back to the start of the day. I left Rome this morning with mixed feelings. In many ways, I wasn't sorry to be leaving behind the noise, hustle and bustle, and the crowds. But I still had the sneaking suspicion that I had barely scraped the surface of the city, and maybe there was more to it than I'd discovered in my admittedly short visit. After all, I only really frequented the main tourist haunts, a bit like visiting Edinburgh and never straying off the Royal Mile. No wonder it felt busy and touristy. Maybe I just didn't let rome show it's best side.

To be fair, there were glimpses of it last night when I headed back towards the Pantheon area to find the restaurant recommended to me by my good friend, Deborah. As I blogged yesterday, unfortunately my eating habits and Italian fine restaurant opening times weren't aligned yesterday and it wasn't to be. But the walk there through early evening Rome was certainly a less frenetic experience than I had in Rome up to that point. There were still plenty of tourists around, even those infernal group tours, but they were definitely fewer and further (literally) between, and pleasantly intersperesed with 'real' people - on their way home from work, nipping out for an early evening aperitivo, browsing the shops. The sun was down, and so was the tourist clamour. The softer lights were easier on the eye, and on the buildings. The hot day had given way to a beautifully mild evening that allowed me to relax - or was it the Limoncello!

So leaving Rome Termini this morning wasn't quite as big a relief as I feared it might be when I first arrived in the infernal city. I didn't throw a coin in the fountain, but that doesn't mean I won't think about going back.

And then my train to Sicily arrived - hmmm! Not quite what I was expecting. When it said 'Intercity' on the ticket, I thought it would be another of the ultra modern high speed trains I've been using so far. Nope, it was a train that, let's say, would have made most of Network SouthWest's rolling stock look modern... But looks, it seems, can be deceiving. The train may have looked rickety but it ran completely to time for the entire 9 (count them!) hour trip. The facilities left quite a bit to be desired - very basic toilet, no buffet service - unless you count the man and his shopping trolley selling bottles of water. But it went, and it went to time. And that's often more than you can say for UK trains these days sadly.

Before long - ok, after about 3 hours - the noise and rush of Rome had been replaced by the sparkle of the sea and the warm glow of the golden sand as we whipped our way along the Italian Riviera, past Napoli and plenty of other stations I didn't quite catch the names of.

It really was a beautiful journey - and it was also very real. I thought I'd experienced the 'real' Italy on my train journeys so far. But no, this was something else. None of the hermetically sealed journeys you get on the Eurostar trains, this was full on Italy. For a start, it was a compartment train. All thrown in together there wasn't the anonymity you get from airline style seating. I shared my capsule with 3 Sicilian matriarchs - and while we couldn't speak each other's languages particularly well, we didn't let that get in the way, and they kept me entertained, protected and looked after the whole journey. While our language skills weren't good enough to hold down a conversation, they were good enough for the Sicilian Mamas to tell me I was staying in the wrong place (Taormina instead of Catania) and that my crochet style left a lot to be desired!

And finally, there was the experience I've been waiting for ever since i started researching this holiday - the whole train on a boat thing. We arrived at the end of Italy, they split the train, shunted it on to the ferry, the ferry set sail and there we were - on a train on a boat on the Mediterranean. How much better could it get...?

And then we arrived in Sicily - and food, warmth and Limoncello.

Sweet dreams. I'm certain to have them!