Timeless Sicily

Four days is not enough time to see Sicily. A week wouldn't have sufficed either. Two weeks might have been a good start but it would probably fall short. I am going to guess you need a minimum of one month to do this island justice and I suspect I am way undershooting the mark. 

Point being, we only had four days. Four wonderful sun-filled days that left me wanting more. I mean, I always want more, that's just how I am wired. I have never left a place and thought to myself "Yeah, I've had about enough of this". There is always more to see but Sicily brings it to a whole other level.

 On our first day, we flew into Catania, Sicily's second largest city, joined by my friend, Kevin, who was as keen as I was to hit the ground running. We checked into the perfectly situated Ostello degli Elefanti and discussed hopping on the first bus to Siracusa for a walk free walking tour.  The woman at the hostel, who could easily make a living as the top Sicilian Celine Dion look-a-like, put the kibosh on the idea. Her exact words were "Oh, you're one of those.", said in a less than complimentary tone. She suggested we instead settle in and spend the day getting to know Catania and go on a tour to Mt Etna to watch the sunset.

This seemed reasonable enough, Catania has plenty of churches, squares, parks, ruins and gelato stands to keep someone busy and sated for days. 

The view from our hostel.

The view from our hostel if you turn your head to the left.

Cathedral of St. Agatha

The Piazza del Duomo, Catania's principle square and our next door neighbor

Ruins of an ancient Roman Ampitheater

Villa Bellini Gardens: flowers are replanted daily in order to show the correct date

Time flew by and soon we had to run back to the hostel to meet our guide who would take us up to Mt. Etna, the second most active volcano in the world.  (The first is in the big island of Hawaii). I had researched this tour and it sounded fantastic. An easy walk to a lookout point where we could watch flowing lava as the sun set followed by a visit to some lava tubes and a traditional dinner.

None of my research mentioned anything about the smell of burning electrical wires, but I am not that familiar with volcanic areas so maybe what we were smelling as we drove to the top was normal. Kevin, however, had lived in Hawaii and used to fly scenic flights over volcano #1 so he was not so easily fooled. The van was overheating. Badly. He brought this to the attention of the guide, who was also the driver. What he was not, as he would repeatedly inform us, was a mechanic. His solution was to just keep going. The van's solution: to say"fuck that" and leave us on the side road. Kevin opened the hood and saw that there was next to no water in the radiator. It was decided that we would go for a walk, check out the volcano and let the engine cool off a bit.

The landscape was eerie and cool so the plan seemed like a good one.

That is until we got to an overlook where the guide pointed into foggy nothingness and it dawned on us that we had reached the Etna lookout point. The weather was such that there was no way we would see the giant volcano itself, much less its lava.  Instead, we hiked up and down the numerous bottonieras, or button holes, which are secondary eruptions encircling Etna. We had gone from easy walk and lava to trudging up and down rock and ash while hoping for a working vehicle.

In the end, the group contributed all our water bottles to fill the radiator with enough water to get us down the hill to the restaurant (after skipping the lava tubes altogether) where we could get more water. Suffice it to say Etna was a bust. Lesson learned, when it comes to Etna tours, it's best check on the weather and the quality of the driver's mechanical skills beforehand.

But the next day more than made up for it. We awoke early and took a bus to Taormina. Set up on a hill with magnificent views, it is arguably more scenic than Catania.

Because of this, it also much more touristy, which we experienced firsthand on our visit to the very crowded Ancient Greek Theater of Taormina.

Considering that construction on this baby began in the third century BCE, the amphitheater is in remarkably good shape and is still used for concerts. I happened to be wearing a Pearl Jam tank top and was informed that Eddie Vedder has performed at this amphitheater twice. The lists of things I would not do for the chance to have been there is disturbingly short.

During its time as a Greek theater, it was used to put on plays and musical performances. Once the Romans arrived and revamped it as their own, it became more of a sporting venue with more violent productions (read: Gladiators and Man vs Lion type-stuff).

To walk around Taormina is to be in perpetual awe of how lovely it is. Everywhere you look, there is a picture perfect spot to admire.

San Giuseppe

One thing we had been advised to do was to stop at Bam Bar for a granita, a Sicilian cross between a sorbet and a slushy.  I can whole-heartedly pass along this recommendation. The granitas are made fresh from whatever fruits are available that day and make the perfect pitstop for a hot day's journey.

Cooled off and refreshed from the combination of granita and prosecco, we decided to head to the beach.  Isola Bella, a small island also known as the Pearl of the Ionian Sea, can be reached by foot. That is assuming those feet are clad in water shoes because I can attest to the fact that those rocks that sit where sand should be are way tough to walk on.

It is for this reason that you have a line of vendors hawking 5€ slippers lined up all along the beach.
I stumbled over to the first one I found and donned my new footwear as I waded out to a waiting tour boat.

Our boat tour took us into a blue grotto, past impressive rock formations and along the scenic shoreline. All of this while jamming out to Pitbull. Dale!!

If I ever run for office, be assured that floating ice cream stands at all beaches will be a central part of my platform.

After the tour, we did the rocky walk over to the island itself, which is now a protected park with a small museum where the previous owner's home once stood.

Had we had more time, I'll bet the nightlife in Taormina is pretty good but we'll never know since we had to catch the bus back to Catania for another pre-dawn alarm the next day.

We were getting up early in order to do another day trip, this time to Siracusa, our intended destination from day one.  From the hostel balcony, we couldn't help but notice that there was an addition to our usual view. There is in the distance, clear as can be, there was Mt Etna! Had we gone to Siracusa when we had planned and done the Etna tour on day three, it would have been a totally different experience. Damn you, faux Celine. Damn you, tight schedule that did not allow us to try again.

Siracusa is home to one of the largest Ancient Greek Theater's in the world (larger than Taormina's). It is located within the Archeological Park of Neapolis, which is a massive complex best explored with a guide (either the live or audio variety).

In addition to the theater itself, you can explore the Ear of Dionysius. The story is that acoustics in this cave were so good that Dionysius used it to jail his prisoners so that he could eavesdrop on what they were saying about him.  If the prisoners were anything like me, I'll bet he heard "Look up, is that a bat?" and "No, for real, I think I just saw bats"  For the record, I'm still pretty sure I saw some bat like movements up on the ceiling.

On the opposite side of the road from the Greek theater, ear cave and a limestone quarry, there are also Roman ruins to be explored.

The exploration of the archeological park easily took half the day. With our remaining time, we set off to see the historical center of Siracusa, the small island of Ortygia. Since it was mid-day and roughly 1000 degrees, a lot of the businesses were closed and reopening after 5pm.

Piazza Archimedes

The Cathedral of Siracusa is built on the site of the 5th century BCE Greek Temple of Athena

We eventually found an outdoor cafe where to have a late lunch before doing the now familiar run to catch the last bus to Catania.

That night, after yet another fantastic meal, we walked past the little sight-seeing "train" (it looks like a train but is more like a souped up open trolley) that circles the city. They were blaring music and encouraging people to join in. Since our hostel was right on the main square, where the train boarded, we were getting to know the ticket touts. We were kind of on the fence between going to a bar for a late night drink or doing the train. The tout resolved this dilemma easily by pointing out the closest mini-mart and holding the train for us while Kevin ran to get us drinks. It was time for the party train.

The next and final morning, I woke up early because it just seemed like the thing to do.  We had the better part of the afternoon before we had to catch our return flight so I started the day with some light souvenir shopping.

Bracelets made out of lava stone are understandably a big thing so instead of buying one from the main souvenir stores, I went straight to the bracelet making source.

There was still so so much to see but so little time. We managed to squeeze in one last pasta dish and an audio-guided tour of San Benedetto, the most impressive baroque church on all of Via del Crociferi (aka the street with all the pretty churches) before having to head back to the airport.

Four days had flown past. I so wanted more time. I thought back to the group of four girls from Rome who were on our doomed Mt Etna tour. They had been in Sicily for three weeks and had only covered the northern part of the island. The Berti of the group, who prided herself on having done all the research and making sure that no moment was ill-spent, lamented that they only had a few more days and so much left to cover. She was already planning a return trip to tackle the southern half, knowing that no matter how much time she allotted, it would still not be enough.

So back to the original question, how much time is enough to see Sicily? Who the hell knows. All I can say for certain is that with flights from Amsterdam being as cheap as they are, I intend to keep returning until I have the answer.