Day 1: Messina, Sicily to Taormina, Sicily
I awoke to voices and laughter and it wasn’t us so…
You’ve heard of ocean and garden view BUT have you heard of buffet view.
Looked good, smelled good so we toodled on down to join the cappuccino party and discuss going to Sicily.
I had mixed emotions about our Sicilian adventure.
I proposed an alternative drive up the heel of the boot towards Bari instead of going to Sicily.
Yes I was chickening out.
My romantic visions were not in sync with everything I was hearing/reading about Sicily and it made me edgy.
Move towards that which freaks you out.
Or something like that…
We were RIGHT there at the ferry though!
Decision was made.
We continued south.
Messina Ferry Town
Our first stop in Sicily was a longer drive than we wanted to do from the ferry drop town of Messina but there was a good reason for that.
I imagined cute cafes in old villages with men playing cards, drinking wine etc.
What we got was NOT that.
We rolled off the ferry and right into chaos.
Everyone was mad and yelling at well, everyone.
Ok it’s a ferry town so maybe this is normal?
Or, maybe it’s rush hour?
Whatever the reason, we got straight out of there after driving around in circles for 15 minutes and getting the hairy eyeball and a mouthful of what I’m sure was ‘welcome to Sicily’ from our fellow drivers.
Stressful!
Bye Bye Messina
The other places we came across were not set up for visitors at all or just closed.
No hotels on booking sites or google maps?
Where the hell were we?
Alas I held my tongue and Stevo kept driving and I kept googling.
I mean what good does that do anyways since we both made the decision to keep going ‘Told Me So’ was sitting squarely in my lap as well.
The Way to Taormina
Somehow we got lucky and caught a grocery store just about to close and managed to wrangle together a very lovely trunk lunch.
We’re actually quite good at these.
And it was a sunny day at the beach so why not.
Taormina was our next stop. It appeared to be open for business with restaurants and accommodations and hopefully friendly faces?
We went right up a very steep cliff road to what looked like the main road to scope out the lay of the land.
The sign said:
We tried to go in anyways as we saw other cars (cabs) doing it.
Bad idea.
Not only did we get yelled at by pedestrians and vehicles, we couldn’t back out easily due to traffic on the steep road.
All the meditation and yoga in the world could not have got me through this unscathed.
So the only traffic that was allowed was for tour buses and taxis.
NOTED!
By this time we are EXHAUSTED.
We followed the rules and went back down the cliff road to the parking garage.
Bye bye car for awhile – maybe take two days here to decompress.
Get on the free tram back up to the town.
We were so excited.
I had located a cool B & B and we went straight there.
It overlooked the gateway to Taormina’s pedestrian street.
It had a cute balcony and a bed.
We were happy and asleep in 5 min.
If you want a great place to stay with an amazing host and rooftop breakfast go here!
Our host was so friendly!Everything was adorable.
We signed the book 🙂
Booking accommodations on the fly is a double edged sword.
We got this place cause there was a last minute cancellation yay!
We could only stay 1 night boo 😦
Win some. Lose some.
Next post we’ll check out the picture perfect town of Taormina, Sicily.
See that post here:
knot anchored 
One thought