I left Taormina & Giardini-Naxos on Tuesday. I was a little sad to leave Taormina. It smelled of vanilla and cake.
My next stop was Catania. I had originally booked four nights there. I didn’t want to move constantly and I thought it would be a good city to use as a base for exploring other places. In particular, I had planned to visit Mt. Edna. Well one of my fellow students, Young-Ho (also known as Tex) had visited Sicily over Pasqua and told me to skip Catania. I tried to find out why I should skip it but he couldn’t really give me any information. Maybe it was a language barrier issue. Our Italian teacher was part of this conversation and she joined in saying it wasn’t that bad and would be good for a base to see Mt. Edna. So, I decided to adjust the plan slightly and changed my reservation to two days in Catania.
Pretty much from the moment I arrived in Catania, I wanted to leave. Tex was right. I realized once I was in Taormina that you could do trips to Mt. Edna from there too. The only reason you should visit Catania is if you are a big fan of St. Agatha. Other than that, it’s a pretty busy, crowded little city. I was thrilled that I would be at Mt. Edna my entire second day.
I headed up to Mt. Edna as part of a tour group that my B&B owner booked for me. He was great, by the way. He was very helpful and cute to boot. Anyway, it was an all day trip that included a hike, a visit to a cave, and viewing lava fields. The mountain is incredibly huge. I had no idea that it was so large and so close to these coastal towns. I was really surprised the first time I saw a glimpse of it when I was in Giardini-Naxos.
My tour group consisted of 6 of us plus our guide. There was Stefan from Germany, two French women, and two German women. I never caught their names. Outside of one small detail, the trip was really nice. The small detail was the overwhelming smell of celery & body order the moment the four women got into the car. I was so overwhelmed by the smell that I couldn’t help but cough. I opened my window and for the remainder of the trip, I had my nose out the window like a little dog. Is this why dog’s do this? Do we smell to them?
Besides the unpleasant order, which I deduced was coming from the German woman sitting behind me that unfortunately wore a sleeveless shirt, it was an interesting trip.
The trip could have been shorter but there’s a whole lack of organization issue here. After all the stops to pick everyone up, get lunch, and get coffee, we made it to our first stop, which was a view of the mountain. At this view is a little chapel with the Stations of the Cross set up outside of it. In one of the eruptions, the lava came all the way down to the mountain and through the wall of the chapel and…stopped. It was pretty crazy. Woo-woo.
Our second stop was to visit the ice caves. The caves were formed by previous eruptions, and then locals created holes in the ground above them to catch snow into the cave. They used it as a refrigerator before they existed.
Our next stop was to have a picnic lunch at the 1750m point. There’s also a little hut there that has souvenirs and a restaurant. Stefan, the German, is also a Geologist, which was very exciting although his English wasn’t so great and he couldn’t speak Italian. I would have liked to hear more from him. He went into the little souvenir shop and came out with two orange-sized rocks filled with crystals. The first one was a crazy electric blue color and the second was a beautiful pink. He was very excited about them because the price was so great. I was shocked by the color of the blue one. I’ve never seen blue crystals that color. I asked him where they were from, thinking that the store was selling crystals and rocks from all over the world. I’ve been to loads of rock shops (I know – dork) and they always carry rocks from around the world. He didn’t understand me (and I wasn’t understanding him). He kept saying, in his very think German accent, “magma”. We finally were able to communicate that they were from Mt. Edna! I went running for the shop, along with the other four ladies. The crystals were gorgeous and there was a beautiful green one in addition to the other two colors. I wanted to buy all three colors. I held a pink and blue one in each hand and then remembered I had to lug a suitcase for another three weeks. How wise is it to buy three rocks to add to my already heavy suitcase? Not very wise, rats. I bought the blue one since I had never seen that color before and I already have pink and green crystals. It’s a nice souvenir.
After the shop we went for a hike up a crater. The weather was fantastic all day. It was probably 24 Celsius and so it felt pretty warm even up on the mountain. When we got to the top edge of the crater, the wind was blowing like mad. I have no idea what the speed was but it felt strong enough to blow over a small child.
The last thing we saw was the location of the 2002 eruption. This was pretty incredible to see, maybe because it was so new. It was one enormous lava field.
It was an interesting experience and made me think that I should visit Mt. St. Helens when I go home. I’ve never been up there. I almost went when I was little but my brother-in-law and sister kept telling stories of Big Foot on the way up and I got really scared that Big Foot was going to get us so we turned around and went home.
I left Catania the next day, hooray! I took the bus to Siracusa (Syracuse), which is about an hour south along the coast. When I got here, I decided to stay at least two nights. It’s a great little spot. I’m staying in an area called Ortygia, which is so cute. I might stay here another two or three days. I met a girl from Vancouver, BC on Sunday night in Catania who is also coming here tomorrow. She’s rented a villa for three weeks and is traveling alone after having traveled with her boyfriend and his friend for the last couple of months. She invited me to join her. I might do this although I still need to connect with her here. It could be interesting and I wouldn’t mind staying here another couple of days. There are some great cities to explore nearby.
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