Day 10 • Giardini Naxos, Castlemola, Taormina

We had a terrible night's sleep. The street was noisy with cat fights and loud people passing. My one complaint about the hotel were the lack of windows. Instead there are wooden shutters and while charming to look at, quite useless for sound proofing especially that we were on the ground floor. And although there is a lack of a view, the roof terrace made up for that. We checked out and headed to the car.

We stopped at the seaside resort town of Giardini Naxos, a Greek colony from 750BC. It was a ghost town. Very few places were open. The beach chairs, all perfectly lined in rows, were vacant.

we like to travel off season

fishing boats at giardini naxos

We walked along the Ionian Sea for a restaurant recommended by our guidebook called Angelina's. I forgot the book in the car but I remembered the name and that it is on the boardwalk. It said the pasta with clams is the thing to get so I was sold. We walked the whole length of the beach and it turned out to be the very last restaurant.


I got the house special, spaghetti with clams and Ken got the spaghetti with mixed seafood. The staff was just finishing cleaning up after a party of about 50 kids. Their buses pulling out of the parking lot, we then we had the place to ourselves with a view of the sea and huge portions of delicious pasta - heaven!

the house special pasta with clams

also special - the pasta with seafood

Only 15 minutes away from our next destination, Castelmola. Yet again we had another stressful parking experience as this village is tiny and on top of a mountain. We left the car in an obviously illegal space that attracted a lot of attention, checked in to the Villa Regina, and got parking information from the front desk. We basically wound up leaving the car on the shoulder of a hairpin turn. The room was huge and the views from the room were out of this world!!

view from the terrace

We chose Castelmola as a base for seeing Taormina and views, although it is a charming village in its own right. We walked down to Taormina. The hotel website says Taormina is reached "fairly quickly" by foot. In actuality it was a scenic 45 minute downhill hike essentially through people's backyards. You don't think downhill is taxing but it is! We felt the burn.

the walk down to taormina

scenic walk

The town is a posh and over-touristy for our taste but the view from the famous 3rd century BC Greek amphitheatere is stupendous. It is still used for performances today. Our visibility wasn't great as it was high noon and a bit humid.

it must be incredible to see a performance in this space!

ken takes a cat nap

After soaking in the view we walked through the town but not for long because it was unappealing to us. We saw the same group of school kids from Giardini Naxos. Exhausted and dreading the walk back UP to the village, I had just read about a bus in the Michelin guide. Right at that moment, I looked up and saw a bus with "Castlemola" on front so we ran to catch up with it. It was the last bus of the day! The walk would have been beautiful but agonizing after a long day.

wine, cheese, and the view

We had wine and the Ragusano cheese on our balcony and watched the sunset. The view was really amazing. After the last light, we headed out onto the town for dinner. The village was very quiet at night and not much was open. We found one and had it to ourselves - Trattoria Il Vicolo. The food was excellent! Ken got a risotto with potatoes mussels, saffron, and peperoncino and I had a tomato soup then swordfish messinese (capers, olives, tomatoes). After dinner, it was still early but nothing was open so we took the wine we bought earlier with two glasses and sat at a vista of Mount Etna and the lights of Taormina.

At this point, the hydrocortisone cream isn't doing much and the rash on my hands is getting worse...