Category: Ports of Call (Page 17 of 41)

Lisandra and Andre were kind enough to invite us on a road trip as they had rented a car, but we were so exhausted from the passage we knew we either wouldn’t get up in time, or wouldn’t be good company. Based on their report afterwards over drinks in the cockpit, we knew we needed to go see some of these places inland. We cheated and took a bus tour, so we didn’t have to focus on the driving.

Our first stop was the Lekursi Castle, which overlooks the Sarande harbor. Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire built the castle in 1537 to defend against the Venetians, and was abandoned in the late 1800’s. It’s now home to a restaurant (that unfortunately gets horrible reviews) and concerts.

After a quick tour of the castle, we moved on to the Mesopotam Monastary, home to an 11th century church built on the remains of a second century BC orthodox monastery. Our guide pointed out how lucky they are to have a building like this, as during the communist regime most of these buildings were razed. All of the Christian iconography was destroyed here, but the building was used to house livestock. The building survived and is now a UNESCO site.

After the monastary, we headed to Albania’s must see Blue Eye. I’m glad we experienced it, but never again, thank you very much.

We arrived late morning and you have to walk under the broiling sun for 40 minutes to reach the spring (we should have rented scooters).

It’s absolutely beautiful but completely overrun by tourists. Who cannot read.

Albania is overlooked by most cruisers rushing from Croatia to Greece, but what a fun, if surreal place. The harbor was full of boats from non-Schengen or non-EU countries that need to reset passport or VAT clocks. So it was us and several Aussies, Kiwis, and South Africans! Shawn and Lyn from s/v Yaama kindly helped us with our dinghy (plug was jammed), and later invited us onboard for drinks (where we watched our boat swing much much much too close to them – we upped anchor and moved), along with Lisandra and Andre from s/v Lilikoi.

Sarande is a charming beach side town by day. It’s flooded by Italians and Albanians looking for an inexpensive summer holiday, and it does not disappoint. The food is tasty and low cost (our lunch on day one fed us leftovers for dinner for two nights). The markets are full of local vegetables, honey (we bought orange honey, yum) and raki, which is a white lightening type of grain alcohol to avoid.

And then comes evening.

We had read reviews of the local pirate boats, but had no idea what they were talking about. From 9:30-11:00 each night, five, totally lit up pirate ships (two complete with Davy Jones on the back), circle the harbor, and are absolutely throbbing with techno music. They pass within a few feet of any anchored boat. A lot of people hate them, but we were quite fascinated and would come into the cockpit to witness the parade each night. Quite unique!

Albania is also a place of mixed messages and aggravation. We were told the water on the docks was not potable and began buying plastic jugs of drinking water only to find out that the dock water is just fine. We were told they could refill our propane tanks only to be denied after we had lugged the tank ashore. Laundry is very expensive (service only, no self serve), so I’ve been doing most of it by hand on the boat. The dinghy dock is crammed full of new police jet skis, and you need to walk through customs every time you come in ( they wave you by at least). But it’s still such a cool place.

The weather can be pretty funky in the 284 miles between Sicily and Albania, with winds shifting every few hours. (We opted not to stop along the boot of Italy based on the distance it would add). The first day was unexpectedly lovely with several hours of beautiful sailing with light winds and no seas. Even if it meant shifting from close hauled (N winds) to close hauled (E winds) to beam reach (SE winds) to broad reach (S winds) to wing-on-wing (SW winds), there were lots of sea turtles passing us that made for a great distraction.

The second day involved way too much motoring, but we had expected it. And then came the Ionian Sea. We knew the winds were going to pipe and the seas would get choppy and she did not disappoint. Unfortunately we tore the main as we were putting a reef in the main, but the sail held despite the 20-25 knot winds. We considered stopping in the Ionian Islands north of Corfu, but the katabatic wind gusts into the high 20’s at midnight had us moving on. Just past the islands the wind and sea calmed, and we motored into Sarande, Albania just after dawn.

We had cleared out of Italy, both personally and boat-wise, but the weather wasn’t cooperating yet for us to make the 300 mile passage to Albania. So we decided to explore some more of Siracusa. First we headed out to the catacombs of San Giovanni. The enormous labyrinth of tunnels was carved into the limestone rock originally as Greek cisterns, but later used as Roman catacombs, and even as air raid shelters during WWII. Sadly, all the bones have been looted over the years (who steals bones?), and all that is left are the cutouts in the walls and bits of decoration here and there.

After the catacomb tour, we headed over to the church of Santa Lucia, where you could view the original Caravaggio painting of Saint Lucy’s death and martyrdom hanging behind the altar (much too dark – rumor has it he was in a hurry, needed money, and that was that). To get to that church though, we had to walk past the ugliest sight of Siracusa, the Basilica of the Madonna delle Lacrime – it looks like an upside down ice cream cone and ruins the skyline.

We also made it out to the other edge of town and finally visited the Maniace Castle. Constructed 1232-1240 to protect the city from invaders. Over the centuries it was a fortress, a prison, a castle, you name it. It’s got a great view of both the inner harbor as well as the Ionian Sea.

Since we were in town for several days and not rushing to catch our next weather window, we finally met some fellow cruisers. Bill and Laurie from s/v Toodle-oo, and Stefan and Anne from s/v Mokendeist. We all got together on one of the local little beaches for an evening of BBQ and bocce ball.

And with that, it was finally time to say goodbye to Italy, and move on for the season.

You simply cannot go wrong in a fresh air market in Italy,

You’re always going to find fresh local produce, sea food, and other local products. In the case of Sicily, it’ll be swordfish (we saw two huge ones iced down in various stages of dressing). It’ll be all the dried candied fruit (that I don’t care for). And it’ll be the capers, the olives, the sun dried tomatoes, the pistachios, and the oregano.

It’s amazing how similar it is to Morocco, which then again isn’t so surprising given their influence here over the centuries.

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!