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As the Easter long weekend is slowly winding down to a close and our departure from Sicily is becoming more imminent, I’m struck by how little of Sicily we know after scratching its surface for two weeks. Sure, we’ve experienced a decent breadth of the island, but as always, there’s more to explore than we can possibly do in this timeframe. We’ve spent three relaxing days now in Taormina and so far have enjoyed just about every minute of it.

Just about? Well, in an effort to get out of the exceedingly tourist-packed city center (and this is April, folks. I can only imagine what it will look like during the peak season), we decided we wanted to see how close to the Grotta Azzurra (no, of course not the Capri one, but Taormina’s) we could get to the cliffs above said cave before the surrounding property owners would set the dogs on us. As per usual, we abdicated any inkling of independent thought and desire to navigate using our woefully underutilized brains and punched in a directional pin in Google maps and set off. It did not take long before the stalls, vendors and gawking tourists were replaced by the not so polished side of the city with poorly maintained buildings, roads and general manners by some choice individuals presumably hailing from the local population that saw some sort of sport in passing us with their car at a respectable clip with millimeter precision despite having ample room on the other side. “Thanks, love you too!” Almost as much as we loved Google for taking us on a Deliverence-like detour of Taormina’s crusty underbelly.

After descending down stairs that seemed to keep going just shy of forever, we finally made it out by the small bay that the aforementioned cave is located in. We never made it out very close to those cliffs because the bay itself became a worthy impromptu destination. In addition to the smooth pebble beach, this bay had something rather unusual; a protected park on a small island/peninsula that was just “islandy” enough that you probably wanted to take your shoes off before crossing over to it. That’s not the unusual part, though. No, the island is called Isola Bella and thanks to some mildly eccentric ownership, this island has a villa built into it. And when I say into it, I mean into it. With its 1960’s vibe (even though it may actually be older), it felt every bit the Bond super-villain mansion (Man with the Golden Gun comes closest, in my mind), complete with (long-rusted) hinged gates made up of rocks and boulders that probably blended completely with the surrounding walls back in the day. My only peeve was that the top area of the mansion was closed off. Nonetheless, I now have a new goal in life; I need one of these. Not want – need.

Back on the beach, we had to decide whether we would stick around for a beverage or the like, before braving the endless stairs in reverse. Because we (OK, I) reasoned that we would only have earned an alcoholic beverage after scaling said stairs, we settled for Granitas to compare them to the excellent ones we had had at Bam Bar in the densely touristy old town. I can report without a moment’s hesitation that the Bam Bar variety reigns supreme. The Coffee Granita I had can be described as something the abominable snowman would have left somewhere far behind his cave where he was sure not to tread. Because I’m surly, I finished it nonetheless.

After thoroughly and painfully banging my head on a cheerfully painted, but low hanging, I-beam in the washroom we started our ascent with my head still swimming from the smack. As we had spotted an interesting lookout above us during the descent, we decided to add to our step count by taking a detour on our way back up. Once at the lookout however, we recognized our surroundings enough that we could make our way back to familiar territory, cursing Google one last time for not pointing out this route – that not only was shorter but also infinitely more pleasant and less hazardous to our health. Moral of the story; if the path proposed looks dubious, do a quick scan using the satellite images as there may be a better path.

After exercising our behinds to the firmness of marble on the ubiquitous Taormina stairs, we’re off tomorrow to the flatter, and I think less travelled, lands of Reggio Calabria – right at the chiseled toe of the boot.

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