First Day in Taormina

The overnight flight to Europe is never ideal, but I did manage to get some sleep. A little more legroom is worth the price, as we missed out in upgrading.

We landed in Rome, found the VIP lounge, and settled in for a few hours to catch up on e-mails before boarding our flight to Catania in Sicily.

All went smoothly, and I loved watching the islands we passed, including Stromboli (with its own private cloud), Mt. Etna’s sister volcano. Around Mt. Etna we flew, passing over craggy mountains, along the west side with all the farm land and groves, and finally turning into the wind to land in Catania.

Getting our rental cars usually presents some challenges. Indeed, one of the cars was too small, but eventually, we got it straightened out, made sure the Garmins were up and running with the European maps (had to turn off the US ones to make it work), plugged in Waze (an app for smart phones), and drove up the familiar, coastal highway to Taormina.

We did a little unpacking, as the rooms in our boutique hotel are charming, but not spacious. We don’t care, as we spend little time in our room anyway. We have two doors opening out onto our balcony with a couple of chairs and a table. Life is good.

We were tired but eager to get out and walk. We walked down the hill a little bit from our hotel turned right, and went down some steps. Italy in general has a lot of churches and chapels, and I poked my head in this one, as the light was subtle but inviting.

We wanted to eat at our favorite restaurant, Osteria Nero d’Avola, run by Turi Siligato (check the YouTube link below for a video we did on Tutti Turi Tour). He moved the restaurant two years ago and we wanted to make sure we could find it easily.

Once found, we headed back up to Corso Umberto, the main street that goes from gate to gate in this medieval city. We have a place we love to sit and drink some excellent house wine.

The same artist was there, surrounded by some very young future artists. The old men sat across by the church. I recognized some of them from our previous visits here. Lined up under a colorful art sign, I had to photograph them.

First there were five.

More came, and there were eight, plus one lone woman!

Meanwhile, I had been chatting and joking with them, and there was something wrong with this picture, as I told them. Eight signori all together here. One signora off to the left. I got the gentleman to make a place for la signora in the middle.

Then some more ladies came. One was full of beans and had me photograph her with one of the gentlemen. He may have been a former lover, I wasn’t sure, but there was some playfulness in her voice as I was trying to understand what she was saying in rapid Italian.

And being a good Italian man, he was not going to lose the opportunity afforded him.

Behind me, a young woman saw what I was doing and took advantage of the situation, as any photographer should do. Arnie said she got the shot with her iPhone of everyone else along the wall leaning out to see and enjoy what I was photographing!

It was time to pay our bill and head down for dinner.

Turi was there, saw us out of the corner of his eye, and came out to greet us. It was lovely to be recognized after three years and all the customers he has served in the interim.

We had no reservations, but Turi and his partner Pietro said that for old friends, we didn’t have to worry.

We had a wonderful dinner (Swordfish was the catch of the day) and a lovely bottle of wine recommend by Turi. In his old location, we never ordered wine. Turi would come to our table and suggest this or that and would then come around pouring appropriate wine into our glasses. Again, check out the YouTube video. Since we had never ordered wine here, we explained to Pietro our problem, and that we would need Turi’s input once again. We had a delicious Rosso made on Mt. Etna. The hardscrabble, lava soil of the mountain is perfect for grapes.

After dinner, I slipped into the kitchen and grabbed a couple of photos. And yes, that is Turi at the stove with his sou-chef.

Tomorrow will see us back at Turi’s to enjoy some wine with him and Pietro, a childhood buddy and now partner, so we can arrange for our group to come and to also pick their brains of wineries to visit. Same ones as last time or new ones? We don’t yet know.

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