Month: August 2023 (Page 2 of 2)

Siracusa marks a bit of an end for us this season. We’re not done cruising, but we need to leave Schengen territory (only allowed 90 days in an 180 day period in much of Europe) and Siracusa is our last stop. It’s also the last place we’ll visit in Italy. And what an end! We’re in a huge, calm bay at anchor, overlooking a city that was once considered the center of the western world. The skyline is spectacular, showing centuries of architecture all melded together, with the odd mega yacht (and plenty of mini-mega wannabes) along the way.

Our last night in Taormina was a sleepless one, with forecasted thunderstorms, and wild winds from unexpected directions. Multiple boats dragged in the anchorage, and though we didn’t, I was up most of the night watching the activity. The forecast the next morning wasn’t great for leaving (either no wind or winds against us) but the same forecast wasn’t great for staying either. Even worse, some of the models were completely and wildly different, with 30 knots predicted down in our destination! We held our breaths and left and had the most wonderful sail instead (most of the forecasts turned out to be dead wrong).

Siracusa is one of the biggest cities in Sicily, has a major bay, and sees a lot of boat traffic coming and going from most of the eastern Mediterranean. You have to call the Guardia Costiera (the Italian Coast Guard) upon entering the harbor. They get the details of your boat and then assign you a location to anchor by latitude and longitude. The great thing about this is that you anchor approximately 100 feet from any other boat, and combined with the thick mud of the harbor, the risks are low of hitting another boat should you drag or shift position (and we constantly shift position with the changing winds). Genius solution of the Coast Guard!

Unlike the rest of Italy that we’ve seen, there’s an easy place to leave your dinghy (the rings to tie off are huge!), and laundry and provisioning is easy to do. The only downside is that given the drought here we can’t get potable water at the docks. We have enough in our tanks to get by till Albania, and we can get non-potable water at the dock on a daily basis which will be fine for dish washing and showers till we leave.

Laundry was my first priority. We had visited so many remote-ish islands over the last few weeks without facilities, that our dirty laundry had really piled up. I did four loads over two days while Trip sorted out formalities with the authorities (figuring out how to check our boat in, as well as looking for the passport office where we will need to clear out).

We found a little place for lunch where I sampled traditional Sicilian pasta with sun dried tomatoes, capers, anchovies, pistachios, and bread crumbs, while Trip went for gnocchi in a pumpkin sauce with grilled fennel sausage. Then we simply wandered through the streets of this amazing town.

We mis-timed the castle/fortress at the edge of town, but we’re able to visit the Duomo, an ancient Catholic Church built on top of an ancient Greek temple. It’s hard to wrap your head around staring at the exterior, which is ornate and baroque, to the interior, which is massive and has basic Doric columns from the temple to Athena. Of course the building is a UNESCO world heritage site (actually I think the entire town is a world heritage site). And of course they were setting up for a wedding (Italy. Summer. Church)

We also had a chance to visit the Greek Theatre, Roman Amphitheatre, and quarry remains in the new town. The Greek theatre is the largest in Sicily, and is still in use today.

Just steps away is the Roman Amphitheatre, the home of many a gladiator fight.

But in my opinion, the most fascinating part of this park is the grottos left from the quarries, worked in by many a prisoner over the centuries.

We also had a very sobering sight in the harbor. The sailboat Astral of the NGO Open Arms was at the dock. Open Arms works with local authorities to perform rescues of migrants crossing from Africa. The boat was part of a complex rescue off the coast of the Sicilian island Lampedusa over the weekend with at least two dead and many missing at sea. Conditions were horrible, as a mistral (fierce northwestern wind) was blowing down from France creating dangerous weather. Over 2,000 migrants have made the trip in these conditions, showing the increasing desperation to flee.

I had mixed emotions about coming to Taormina, thanks to the HBO hit “White Lotus 2”. The background of the series made me drool at the beauty of the location, but I dreaded the number of Americans that would overrun the place. Little did I have to worry…

The anchorage is huge. We wove our way through the mini-mega-yachts (my new term for boats 80-150 feet in length) and easily found a place to drop the anchor. Trip dove immediately and confirmed we were set in all sand. We sat and admired the town nestled in the cliffs above us. Then we got hungry and decided to go ashore for dinner.

Bringing the dinghy ashore is the hardest part of this anchorage (and everywhere in Italy, it seems). We found the back corner of a concrete wall loaded to the gills with tour and fishing boats where one of the locals said we could tie off. We were actually in Naxos at this point, the next town over. Everything here was at the water’s edge, so we decided to walk along town. We did a lot of people watching over a beer at a local cafe, and then dinner at another local restaurant that included a huge jug of wine and involtini (rolls) of local swordfish.

My goal was to see the Greek theatre and the guides recommended getting there early to avoid the crowds, so the next morning we got up early and took the bus through some hair-raising switchback turns up into Taormina. We opted to pay for a guided tour of the theatre which turned out great due to the guide we got. He had a healthy sense of humor and did a wonderful job explaining the history of the Greeks, Romans, and Moors in this area.

Naxos (where we had dinner the previous night), was the oldest Greek colony in Sicily, dating back to 734 BC, but was destroyed when they picked the losing side (the Athenians) in trying to take over Siracusa just 50 miles south. The locals fled to Mount Taurus and founded Taormina in 403 BC (the village of Castelmola was set even higher in one of the six hills that provided land-based protection from invaders).

The theatre was built sometime in the third century, BC. Even today, it is considered one of the most beautiful Greek theatres in the world, combining man’s work with nature (the views are breathtaking). The Romans later adapted the theatre to their own purposes, added three stories of marble columns. Centuries passed, everything fell to disrepair, marble was taken and moved elsewhere in Taormina, but the theatre remained. Today, preservationists have chosen not to try and rebuild, but to preserve it as is. The theatre is still used for performances, which I would have loved to have seen, but we didn’t have a chance.

Having gotten up early, we had skipped breakfast, and were lucky enough to find a fully stocked cafe at the theatre. Sitting with breathtaking views overlooking the water, we sat and enjoyed lemon granita (a Sicilian slush of sorts), coffee and arancini for breakfast.

Taormina is a cute town, but very touristy and catering to the wealthy. It always has been. Throughout history the town has drawn crowds with money that like to live the good life. It became part of the Grand Tour for wealthy Europeans in the 19th century, and later saw such famous Americans as Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Ava Gardner, Cary Grant, and of course Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The White Lotus is simply the latest version of wealth and fame making its way to the city. The hotel where the series was filmed, formerly a convent, is now owned by the Four Seasons and rooms currently start at $3,750 a night! (We tried visiting for a drink, but the entire place is closed off to the public except the courtyard where Jennifer Coolidge perched so awkwardly on that Vespa.)

From Taormina we took another bus further up to Castelmola, a small charming village perched even higher in the hills. We visited the castle on top of the hill, and wandered the streets.

We stopped at Cafe Turrisi for a drink, ogled all the naked statues and paintings, and learned that the founder of the restaurant and cafe was instrumental in making Castelmola and Taormina a safe and welcoming place for the gay community when homophobia was still rampant in the world.

We had lunch sampling local tuna and different grilled meets at a small restaurant overlooking Mount Etna. Then it was time to make our way back down.

We picked Scilla as an anchorage before passing through the Straits of Messina, which need to be timed because of current. It was a rolly night, but the city view was beautiful and I wish we had had time to go ashore.

The next morning we were lucky enough to see one of the swordfishing boats heading out. The high lookout on these boats is necessary as swordfish are normally spotted sleeping on the surface of the water!

I don’t know why people fear the Straits of Messina. It’s a busy passage with lots of ferries to and from the mainland, cargo ships and mega yachts taking the short cut to Greece, but it’s wide and easy to navigate. It’s nothing compare to New York harbor or the Cape Cod Canal!

Another day, another motor sail. At least we were able to anchor just behind the expensive mooring balls (€100/night!) close to the beach. There were no dinghy docks around (sigh, Italy), so we hauled the dinghy up the rocky black sand beach. We wandered through town – a very, very, chill laid back place.

And then it was time to climb Stromboli. The path was much easier than Vulcano – the trail was solid, there was a nice breeze, and there was lots of vegetation to provide shade.

Whereas climbing Vulcano was like hiking a lunar moonscape, Stromboli had all sorts of interesting flora and fauna.

And the requisite seismological equipment. The town square had a daily briefing which listed the conditions as “moderate”, so we knew it was safe to hike and we hoped we would be treated to some (not too much!) volcanic activity.

About half way up, we heard a big ‘poof’ (a louder version of a whale surfacing next to you on the boat) – it was the volcano releasing gases!

And then we were there. You can only get to 400 meters from the rim of the volcano, but we were still treated to a show. First came the hot rock slides, dropping all the way down the side of the island into the sea, kicking up ash clouds everywhere and crashing into the sea with a boiling splash. And then came the eruptions.

Our poor little phones can’t get the quality of photos and videos that we wanted to capture, so we gave up after a while and just enjoyed the periodic explosions of lava jetting into the air and flowing down the side. What an experience – the day before my birthday, no less! That’s two years in a row now that I’ve been able to celebrate in an extinct volcano (last year in Sao Miguel) or on an active one!

Lipari was only a few miles from Vulcano, but we decided to use it as a rest day between Vulcano and Stromboli. The anchorage was busy, but we knew it would clear out at the end of the day when all the little boats go home.

Unfortunately just then, 10 boats from the same charter company came flying into the anchorage. Luckily they all headed to one end, and actually kept to themselves and were quiet for the night, so we were able to relax and enjoy the evening. I am certain that this quiet was also appreciated by Atila- a hermit who built a ramshackle house on the beach and has lived there for over twenty years.

All the wind of the previous week had died down, leaving us to motor sail from Cefalu to the Aeolian Islands. With limited time remaining in Italy (Schengen), we decided to skip the western-most islands in this chain and head straight for Vulcano. The island is an active volcano, and you could see the fumeroles smoking around the crater at dusk from the boat in the anchorage.

The town of Vulcano is tiny and filled with sulfuric mud baths (closed for the season), a few stunningly beautiful black sand beaches, and a bunch of small shops and restaurants. But the highlight is the climb to the top of the crater. As we wandered past one of the many pizzerias, Trip waved and said “hi” to the head pizza maker, already furiously churning out pizza in front of a smoking, blasting, hot pizza oven. The man waved Trip over and handed him a loaf of pane cunzato, the Sicilian loafs used to make sandwiches. It was quite tasty and fortified us as we walked. That same pizzeria would later sell us the beautiful commemorative Messina beer glasses that I couldn’t resist.

But back to the volcano. It’s unpatrolled and done at one’s own risk. Because there is no shade and the sun is blistering in the summer, the trail is closed from 10:30 AM to 4:00 PM every day, and stoplights (with cameras) are at the trailhead to remind those of the rules.

The hike is nothing more than a series of switchbacks. It’s not particularly easy at the beginning, as you’re climbing through ash and sand and gravel. It’s one step up with a partial slide back. There’s seismological equipment stationed all around to measure the activity of the volcano as well.

We had brought a fair amount of water, but were shocked to see the numbers of people hiking with no water at all. I also had to laugh at the stereotypes in the hiking crowd: the Italian women hiking in dresses, the French women hiking in fashionable big floppy sun hats, the Germans with children too young to remember such a strenuous hike.

Of course the views at the top were absolutely stunning and completely worth it.

The one bad thing about where we had anchored was that it was in a lot of boulders (Trip says I exaggerate and that they were large rocks at most). We decided to re-anchor when other boats left to make for a more comfortable night’s rest (chain sliding along rocks creates a grinding noise) and to make it easier to leave in the morning, Trip dove to clear as much chain as he could before we upped anchor. A big motor boat came by, thinking we were definitely stuck, and had their lines out with offers to help free us – so kind! I reassured them that we were not stuck and they waved and moved on. I was crushed to have to also wave on the local fishermen selling their catch straight from the boat, but we had no time to stop. Luckily it was a straightforward thing to up anchor and reset.