The warmth of the sun penetrates the clouds and fills me with a radiant languor. The view from our hotel room balcony is resplendent with Mediterranean sensuality - the shimmering sea, pungent pine and cyprus, shades of ocher rooftops and walls, punctuated by colorful flapping laundry. Mount Etna presides over the entire scene, now shrouded by clouds, then looming, snow capped over the rocky outcrops jutting across the landscape until they plunge into the coast.
Perched on the hillside between Taormina and the tiny hilltop town of Castelmola, I can observe the town's bustle from a bird's-eye view. A steady chiseling and pounding reaches my ears as men work at installing some new electrical lines on the façade of a stucco house. Cars purr up and down the winding street with the occasional whining of a moto.
Last night, just before dusk, Vladi and I climbed the steep footpath to Castelmola, a town built around a medieval fortress on a naturally fortified rock outcrop overlooking the bay of Taormina. Adjacent to Taormina is the resort of Giardini Naxos, once a sleepy fishing village, but reputedly the first Greek settlement in Sicily. The challenging climb was worth the effort when the path opened onto a tiled piazetta where men sat chatting on benches and narrow streets beckoned. We found the town's church and tiny municipal library on another charming square with a vista dropping straight to the sea. The door of the church was slightly ajar, and the light and voices from within announced that massa was in progress. On the door, a notice invited all parishoners to attend a special service welcoming the new Padre Tonini who was beginning his tenure on samedi il 24 di ottobre.
With darkness descending, we headed back the way we had come, but were sidetracked by an alluring display of local wines. One bottle of amber-colored liquid was labeled Mandorla. The shopkeeper insisted that the four stars on the label assured us of the best quality in all of Sicily. She invited us to step in and have a taste. Inside the shop, her elderly mother sat wrapped in a sweater and complained of the cold. She must have thought that we foreigners (gli stranieri) were crazy in our sandals, skirt, and shorts. The sweet golden wine tasted of almonds, and we bought the largest bottle available. Before heading down the steep, now dark path, we took one last flight of steps upward to the ruined walls of the castle overlooking the sea. I tried to imagine the long ago inhabitants keeping watch as approaching ships brought the menace and terror of a fresh wave of invaders. At any rate, those unwelcome guests would have faced a daunting challenge as they attempted to scale the rock cliffs.
At the hotel, we met up again with a family we had met at breakfast who curiously mirrored our own. The father was Polish, his wife American (from Texas!) and their two children, a daughter and son, were 17 and 15 respectively. They live in southwestern France where their children attend local schools. They moved permanently to France in 2001 because the father was disenchanted with American society, and wanted his children to grow up and be educated in a different environment. What amazed me was that neither he nor his wife knew French before they embarked on this new episode of their lives! He designs software and had done very well financially during his twenty years in Texas, and decided that he could live anywhere he chose. His wife now runs a gite (a vacation home rental) they created on their property in the rural Dordogne by converting an old stone barn into three independent vacation houses. She beamed as she told me that sometimes while she is enjoying a glass of wine with her visitors, she reminds herself incredulously,"This is my job!"
A taxi delivered us today at noon to the fin de siecle train station at Giardini Taormina. Ornate iron grillwork adorned the walls and tiled waiting rooms lined with intricately carved wooden benches were marked Sala d'atentto di prima classe and segonda classe. Our train made the brief journey to the port at Messina where we were loaded onto a ferry to cross the narrow straits to the toe of Italy. While on the ferry, we descended from our train compartment (shared with a kind-faced, one-armed gentleman of a certain age with a quick draw on his mobile phone...Pronto...Si, noi veddiamo questa tarde...) to go up on deck and watch our boat approaching the mainland.
We are now rattling along again at a good pace, following the coast on our way to Naples. The sea is calm, the sky a bit cloudy out the lefthand window. On the right, I glimpse another castle and hilltop town perched above us. If all goes well, we will arrive in Napoli by 7:00 pm and get a taxi to the Mola Beverello (quay) in time to catch the last ferry to Capri.
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