Taormina

Our final group excursion with our students has just completed. We took a short flight to Sicily to spend three days in the seaside village of Taormina.

Educationally, we wanted the students to see another, very nearby island in order to compare cultures. Sicily and Malta have shared a great deal of common history. In fact, for several centuries Malta was considered part of Sicily. Until the 20th century, most educated Maltese spoke Italian (many still do, thanks to Italian TV broadcasts), and Italian was the official language of the Maltese legal system up until World War II. But today, Malta is one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe, while Sicily has been known for poverty. What were the crucial differences?

View from Taormina

We left our flat at 4 a.m. to take the early morning "red eye" Air Malta flight to Catania. It's only a 120 mile trip, so the flight doesn't take long. It was a longer wait in the airport for our bus to Taormina. We arrived too early to check into our hotel, but dumped our bags and set off to see some sights. The view of the Mediterranean across to the Italian mainland, about 25 miles away, is spectacular!

Castello Saraceno at the top, Chapel of the Madonna of the Rock below the cloud on the left.

We walked around the village, enjoying the views and the architecture, visiting the Duomo (cathedral) and some smaller churches. Then we started climbing... and climbing... and climbing our way up the Salita Castello path toward a ruin called "Castello Saraceno" or "Castle of the Saracens" (although the present ruins date from the Norman period in the 11th-14th centuries, after the Arab "Saracens" were gone).

Mary and Maddie making the climb

The castle ruins are permanently closed, so most of us stopped well below the summit at a little chapel called, "Santuario Madonna della Rocca" or "Santuary of the Madonna of the Rock." The view was amazing. The little chapel, not so much.

Outside of Santuario Madonna della Rocca

The chapel is a cave that  has been used as a place of worship, probably since Roman times. On the wall above the altar is a smudge of paint behind some glass. Some people see an icon of the Virgin and Child in it. There are legends of apparitions here, as well. Clearly some were moved by it.

On the way down, Meggie leads our whole group on the narrow steps.

After our climb down, we enjoyed some excellent Sicilian pizza together, then went back to the hotel to check in. Most of the students headed for the beach, but discovered that stinging jellyfish didn't make for good swimming. Mary and I spent some relaxing time reading.

Italian mainland on the horizon

On Sunday we had arranged for a guy named Mario to take us hiking on Mt. Etna, one of Europe's largest and most active volcanoes. Mario's pals, Sergio and Luigio, showed up instead (turns out that Mario isn't just a guy, but a fairly large company). The group split between two vans and off we went.

One of the many small caldera on the side of Mt. Etna. Those red dots are people.

Etna was a longer drive than I had expected, but the scenery was great. Some smaller craters and lava flows had left their marks, and the look down over Catania and the rest of Sicily's northeastern coast was spectacular.

Grabbing some photos while enduring the cold wind on Mt. Etna

One of the vans had transmission trouble on the steep incline, which caused a glitch in the schedule. It meant a little more time in the hiking zone while another vehicle was being brought. No complaints about that...

Taking in the view from 6000 feet.

Until we got to the hiking zone! Not only is this a barren place where recent lava flow means almost no vegetation, but the wind at 6000 feet was icy and blasting at nearly 50 mph! Mary and I went down into one of the caldera to get out of the wind. Some students climbed higher, but most of us huddled in one of the restaurants for warmth.

Barely visible far in the background is the cable gondola to the top.

To go higher than this point on Etna, one has to take a gondola, and then 4-wheel drive vehicles will take folks around the main caldera at the top (for a price). But it is much too dangerous up there to go wandering around. And it takes at least two hours to make that trip, so we stayed at 6000 feet.

Entrance to one of the lava caves opened by construction of the roadway.

On the way down we visited a couple of lava caves. These are places where gases trapped in the lava flow make huge bubbles. They often aren't discovered until road-building or other construction happens to open them up.

Piazza at Castlemola

At at park in a village on the side of the volcano we stopped to enjoy a picnic lunch, and also a chance to taste some Etna wine, cheese, and honey. Then we hit the road back toward Taormina.

Looking back at Mt. Etna from the castle ruins at Castlemola

We stopped on the way back at Castlemola, a village higher up the mountain, above Taormina. There are ruins of another Norman-era castle here, with spectacular views looking down on the castle and chapel we had climbed up to the day before. The village was a quaint place with narrow, winding streets.

A sporty little Bug at Castlemola

The day was long, but a fascinating look at how the volcano and the sea have shaped this place and its culture.

Monday was a free day. We did some shopping and looked at a few more churches and interesting buildings, visited some Greek ruins, enjoyed gelato, and a good lunch. We read our books by the hotel pool for awhile until it was time to catch the bus to the airport and make our way back to Malta.