Taormina: Too Beautiful to Believe

Monday, March 26, 2025

Taormina, Sicily

It's not the stairways that make Taormina beautiful, although this one is nice. For one thing, it's the views, like this one from our room's balcony right after we checked in:

Mamma Etna in her full glory!

That was last evening. Andrea gave us a quick orientation to the town and then we had a free evening to stroll around town and gawk at the mountain. A few shots from Sunday's meanderings:

Mamma is cooking. See the steam?

A giant cannolo in a colorful display.

The Godfather is popular here.

Very narrow stretto.

Someone's private little teatro di pupi next to their front door.

Monday morning

Before breakfast, we all spent some time admiring Mamma Etna from the rooftop.

The rooftop views we're actually beautiful in all directions.

While waiting to meet our guide for the morning in the piazza, we took some group shots.

Ladies of the tour: Keri,Trish, Terri, Bert, Shirley, Carole, Stephanie

Back: Ann, me!, Mary, Tammy, Kathi, Cindy, Alice, Jennifer

The boyz: Andrea, Paul, Rob, Dave, Andy, Pat, Gregg, Bob, Levon, and Michael.

Trish and Tom weren't there yet.

The princess pose.

I can't resist a good bike pic.

Female minotaurs - symbol of Taormina - surround Medusa's head.

Peeking through a door into Santa Caterina's.

Our local guide Franco showed us some of the town's byways. We all really liked him.

We stood under a carob tree from Africa. They were planted at markets because all of their seeds are the same size. Five seeds always equal one gram.

Time to check out the teatro antico (ancient theater). More ruins! You'd think it would be a Greek theater, but you'd be wrong.

It's actually a Roman theater, built in the Greek style.

But always the mountain is the most impressive part of the scenery.

Franco was telling us about an American painter who came to Taormina and painted what he saw. When he displayed his paintings in Europe, people didn't believe they depicted a real landscape. Too much fantasy, they said. Might have been Thomas Cole.

Our whole tour group by the Roman theater, with a clear view of Mamma Etna.

These bougainvillea are everywhere. I assumed they were native to the region but it turns out they're another import from South America.

This artist's balcony departed from the typical flowers. There are several stories surrounding the ceramic heads, a few that Franco shared with us.

These bricks and arches were once part of the main Roman aqueduct for Taormina. Then people built their houses on top.

After we energed back onto the main street full of cruise shippers, Andrea brought us to GelatoMania.

I got raspberry and clementine, and it looks like Mary's flavors were something caramel-ly, and a strawberry shortcake. Sicilians know how to do sweets, that's for sure!

Once our morning tour ended, we all split up to amuse ourselves for the afternoon. Mary and I decided to take the gondola down the mountain to Isola Bella to stick our toes into the Mediterranean Sea.