September 26, 2010: Just Another Lazy Sunday

After taking day trips for the last three days, we took a day off and went back to the beach at Isola Bella. Instead of taking the funicular down the hill, we took the stairs. On the way down, we saw part of a Greek necropolis and stopped at a great lookout for some pictures. After the amazing clouds yesterday, the sky was clear today and we had pretty good views of Mt. Etna.

We got a spot on the beach and relaxed and went swimming in the beautiful water. We're not exactly sure how we're going to ever go swimming where the water isn't crystal clear and you can watch the fish swimming below you. We're also not sure how the day can pass so quickly when you're laying on the beach (especially compared to how much we did yesterday). It is the ultimate sense of relaxation.

Late in the afternoon the water currents must have shifted because our friends the jellyfish were back. One woman on the beach was stung three times, and that was pretty much the end of our time in the water. Once the sun started to disappear behind the hills we packed up and went to climb the steps back to our apartment. Before starting our climb, we stopped to get a granite - this time we diverged from our typical lemon, orange, or strawberry choices, and tried a prickly-pear (fico d'india) flavored granite. There are prickly-pear growning just about everywhere you look around here, so we decided to try a local flavor. I think we decided it wasn't horrible, but we wouldn't order it again. It tasted oddly like iced-tea.

The climb back up the hill wasn't nearly as bad as we thought it would be, and on the way we ran into to older women who were lost. Turns out one of them had a son who went to Berkeley for a graduate degree in Engineering. Small world, eh? For our last night in Taormina we had dinner out and of course, some gelato. We walked through the town since the weather was perfect.

Back at the ranch we played some cards and packed up - tomorrow we leave for Palermo.

Gelato Gusti per il Giorno:

Mike - Mandorla e Don Vito (vanilla, raspberry and chocolate)

Aviva - Menthe e Caffe

To see some pictures of our last day in Taormina, click here.