Capotaormia, the resort of resorts
In Hotel Capotaormina , the first floor is the top floor, approximately ground level. It is built into a cliff, working its way floor by floor down to the sea.

There are five other floors, each below the first floor. In other words, the fifth floor is five floors below the first floor. Under the "fifth" floor is a cave dynamited out of the rock. One part of this cave, which is enormous, includes "his" and "hers" bathroom and shower facilities and leads out to a seawater pool, deck, restaurant, and even the ocean herself. The other part of the cave leads to a private beach.

At about 450,000 lire per day (about $225), this was the most expensive hotel we stayed at. But oh, what a hotel! This was the only hotel to take an imprint of our credit card and to issue us a magnetic keycard also. It is very grand, with magnificent service, incredible food. We had a lunch there that is served every day buffet style (with a wood burning oven and chefs that will prepare hot food for you also if you wish) that was out of this world.

But access, that is the problem. Taormina is basically Corso Umberto, a long narrow street for pedestrians only, but it is high up and you have to get to it. You can take a 20,000 lire taxi ride, or you can drive (impractical, we left our car in the hotel parking lot the entire time), or you can walk from this hotel on a road with no sidewalk, with Piaggios and fast cars whizzing inches from you, about .7km to the tram. We chose this risky route, about a 15 minute walk that takes years off of your life in stress.

The tram ride is wonderful. It cost about 3000 lire and you get your own little car that affords a view of the beach far below, the ocean, the coastline, everything, and in 5 minutes you are up in Taormina.

Next time I go to Sicily, I may skip Taormina. It is the land of the beautiful people. Men take their best looking mistresses here. It is a shopping and eating mecca. Although it is not outrageously expensive, it is much more money than the rest of Sicily. We enjoyed Hotel Capotaormina and its caves and beach, but there is really not much of a good beach here.

Instead, I recommend you consider staying in Giardini-Naxos, a seaside community that is real, genuine, much less expensive, and has great beaches and seaside recreation and is only a stones throw from Taormina. Then you can save money and take the tram up to Taormina, but you don't need (or want) to stay in Taormina.

When you do visit Taormina, try the Baccanale restaurant (really good) or Mamma Rosa. It will set you back about 40,000 lire (Baccanale for fabulous seafood) or 15,000-30,000 lire (Mamma Rosa, depending on whether you order the pizza made in the wood burning oven or seafood or carne) with excellent service, terrific food, great attitude. Each is right off the main Corso Umberto road.

You can also buy stuff in Taormina without worrying that are being taken. We did see things a bit cheaper outside of Taormina, but not incredibly cheaper. Things like traditional Sicilian handmade puppets (albeit versions for tourists, versions that you can't use for your next puppet show but that look great in your living room and are handmade), pottery (Sicily is primarily known for its pottery), etc. It wasn't terribly expensive.

We went into some churches, had coffee at a bunch of bars, a great time had by all, but quickly boring. We were glad to come, and glad to leave for SIRICUSA.

We left and headed down south. We had the Ionian Sea on our left and the awesome shadow of Mount Etna on our right. Mount Etna is a real live volcano and you can see it all over Eastern Sicily as it is the highest mountain on the island. There are supposed to be many orange groves around it and a lot to see but we didn't go around Mt. Etna. You can see smoke coming out of it, almost a cartoon version of a big volcano. Very impressive.


Siricusa and Odysseus Ear
We drove to Siricusa, which entails driving south on the autostrada, past Catania, more south. This time I had gotten the hang of Sicilian and Italian driving and it was not nearly so stressful. We made landfall and found our hotel, the Helios.

I do not recommend this hotel. It was perched ghetto-style next to awful ugly blocks of flats, in ugly awful area of town.

In fact I do not recommend Siricusa. Siricusa (called Syracuse in English) has one attraction as far as I can see: Ortygia, a medieval island attached to Siricusa with a brief bridge. Siricusa is well known as the home of Archimedes. Ortygia was the island that created a natural harbor that made Siricusa the most famous and powerful of Western cities at one time (a time a long time ago to be sure.)

So you walk the narrow medieval streets and then you need to move on. There are a number of mountain towns in Sicily with medieval streets, and those other towns have more attraction than Siricusa (although they are not next to the water.)

Two other attractions to mention. We visited the great archeological museum downtown. It is a very…er…interesting architecture. It was practically empty. It is worth going to if you like to learn about geology and are interested in pottery shards, maps, stone- and bronze-age tools, etc., all from the area. It is close to the huge greek and roman ruins and the ticket can be used for the ruins as well.

When you approach the ruins you run into the usual clutter of souvineer stands. To your left is the roman theater ruins. Straight ahead you buy tickets and then enter the majority of the ruins. The greeks used this area to build an impressive Greek theater and as a rock quarry. You can see the marks and signs of their quarrying massive stones all along small rocky cliffs near the theater.

There is a cave called Odysseus' Ear that you don't want to miss. It was quarried out of the rock and was used variously as a prison. A Japanese-speaking tour operator sang a familiar sounding song but with Japanese lyrics. The sound carried most impressively throughout this cave, and everyone clapped at the end. The acoustics are very unusual. Outside next to the impressive theater is an ancient road and other ruins that are worth seeing.

The rest of Siricusa is nothing much at all, aside from a temple to Apollo ruins downtown. We had nothing to do at night, a surly hotel staff, and no restaurants, just the ugly bad Siricusa. After seeing the sights we were glad to move on.