Exploring Sicily

We sailed from Malta and had a good sailing towards Siracusa, Sicily. Since we have been there before I will not show you any photos from there.

It was the worlds waffel day, so of course we had to make waffels. We invited Marco and Juju from 9-2-5, we met them earlier in Blue Lagoon, Comino Island.

Jummy!

From Siracusa we sailed north to Aci Trezza where we found a spot in the fishing harbour. We felt really welcomed there and it was quiet to stay there for a night. We didn`t pay anything.

The next day we sailed further north to Naxos/Taormina. We anchored in the bay of Naxos with an amazing view towards Taormina.

Taormina lies on a hill at 200 masl and is one of the most known tourist destination in Sicily. We anchored in the bay to the left in the photo. We took the bus from there to Taormina, it was easy and cheap.

Taormina is a really beautiful town and it was full of tourists.

Old buildings and a lot of history.

And a lot of steps!

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Our plan was to hike up to the village you can see on the top of the hill, Castelmola, and then further on to the mountain behind the village, Monte Venere. Here is different ways to walk up the hill, but we wanted to take the stairs up there.

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This is the beginning…

Very soon we had the view towards the vulcano Etna.

Castelmola on the top

It was nice to walk up the stairs, but it was hard!

Still some steps left…

The view from the hill.

And a lot of flowers. It is so beautiful now!

The view back to Taormina.

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A little bit flat before uphill again.

Taormina behind the flowers.

Taormina lies beautiful in the hill.

On the top of the other hill you will find a castle and a church.

On the other side of Castelmola, down to the sea.

Finally at the square in Castelmola. The village is built around the ruins of a Roman castle. The square is a mosaic of white lava stones.

The restaurant at the square had “Norwegian pizza” on their menu.. with salmon… do we use salmon on pizza?? Not..

As I wrote earlier, we had a plan to hike up to Monte Venere, but when we arrived at Castelmola we saw the fog lying at the top of the next hill, and of course up to the mountain. Walking in the fog in a steep place you don`t know is not for me! So we decided to walk back and rather take the hill with the castle instead.

We don`t know what this is, is it something about easter?

Inside a church.

A American couple wanted to take a photo of us. This is in the valley between Castelmola and the castle on the next hill. We had to go down before going up again.

View back to Castelmola.

From the castle you will find a stair down to Taormina. The castle was not open. You can take the stairs up to the castle but you can`t go through the gate. So check that before going up there.

On the way down the stairs you will find a monument in each turn.

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So beautiful decorated!

Back in Taormina we had pizza for lunch.

We walked through this amazing public park, it is free and open for everyone.

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The villa was originally inhabited by Lady Florence Trevelyan, a Scottish noblewoman who left her country after having a relationship with the heir to the English throne, Edward VII. Arriving in Taormina in 1884, Lady Trevelyan married Mayor Prof. Salvatore Cacciola.

“Paradise bird flower”

A lot of amazing buildings in the park.

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From the public park we decided to walk back to our anchorage. Since Taormina lies at 200 masl, it was many steps to walk down to the trainstation. The roads here is not made for walking, but we manage to walk back to the bay anyway.

A car for me!!

A video from Taormina:

From Taormina we sailed through the Messina straight. We had good sailing wind almost the whole way and it was easy to sail through the straight. When we came through the straight we had a plan to sail to Scilla, on the mainland of Italy. But here it was soooo windy. The wind came over the mountain and it was hard to anchor. First we tried to anchor in front of this beautiful village, but it was hard to find a spot with sand. We really wanted to go ashore here, but it was not possible.

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The fog lies on the top of the hill.

We anchored in front of this bridge. We had a good night of sleep, and sailed further on the next morning.

I want to buy a new stove to the boat. But Astor don`t want to use money for that, so he had to bake rolls to show me that we don`t need a new stove… They were very good! So no new stove at the moment…

In the next post we sail further north to the Aolean islands with many vulcanos.