Taormina...FINALLY!!

I flew into Catania, which is about 40min south of Taormina in Sicily, early afternoon on Sunday 19th. I then had a transfer from the airport which had been prearranged and was dropped directly to the end of my new street.



The reason I was dropped at the end of my street was that the street is a long flight of stairs...

Then...to get to the house that I am living at, from the street (or flight of stairs), I go in an iron gate...


Up some more stairs...


And some more...


And more still...


And then into the gate on the terrace...


And my room is the first door on the right. So my room, which is kind of a Granny Flat downstairs from the rest of the house, is entered directly off the terrace. This terrace has a great view which is one of the first things I noticed.


Now, this is not an easy route and everyone that I have witnessed return to here is puffing and panting...And you need to remember that the first time I was doing this with a VERY full travel pack and day pack!! Plus it took me a while to work out which house I was going to and ended up climbing up and down all of the stairs a few times!!


And this is my little world in Taormina, mio piccolo mondo...my room!!


Taormina, as a later found out, is a town full of cats and I have heard many reasons for this but here are the two that live at the house. The little black one is called Negro I think but I like to call him “Cat”, which is fairly obvious in English, but in Italian cat is gatto and cheeky or naughty is cattivo and this gatto is very cattivo and thus...cat!!

So Cat likes to come into my room and be mischevious and climb things and play with things and I let him...he even curled up on my lap one night whilst I was doing my homework. But the way he repayed me, I discovered in the morning...I now have a trail of red dots down my arms...fleas!!

Cat gets inside love NO MORE!!

But, Taormina is beautiful!!
It is a quaint little town which sits on a hill and so all the streets are very narrow and reasonably steep. It is quite a touristy town and so the main street that runs east-west is full of souvenire, high fashion (trust the Italians), restaurants and gelatarias!!

Halfway along the main street is a big open piazza which looks out to the Gulf of Naxos in the Ionian Sea. It is a great view and this was one of my first impressions of Taormina when I went out for a walk in the town once I was unpacked and settled on my first day.


My walk to school every morning only takes 10 minutes and I am living quite out of town compared to most.



The walk is really nice, down through some of the windy, narrow streets that lead to the lower parts of town.



My school is in a nice old building on 4 storeys. It also has a terrace on the top floor which you can sit out on before or after class and have an espresso of cappuccino made by the in house barista from the local bistro. Through this bistro we can also order delivered lunch for discount.



Classes start at 9:30am, run for 4 hours and then finish at 1:30pm. We have 2 hours of grammar and then 2 hours of communication and talking. It is VERY challenging but constantly being surrounded by it does help but also makes it VERY tiring!!


This is the terrace at school...look at that view!!

Taormina also has a cable car that goes down to the beach which I went on for the first time the other day as it was sunny and warm and I headed down there for a late lunch and a possible swim which never eventuated.

And...the food...which Im sure you all knew I would have to write about!! haha

So the house I am living at is owned by Signora Pino and her two sons, 15 and 11, live there with her...oh and the 2 cats and 2 budgies.
Signora Pino puts breakfast out for me every morning before school which normally consists of bread of some description (but usually very fresh), butter, jam, honey and nutella, tea and now that I asked for it once, an apple also.

She also cooks me dinner every night which has always been very nice and different each time. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of any of this food because I think they would all think I was bonkers...which I kind of am when it comes to food!! Haha

Often there will be a main pasta dish of some sort and then there will be a meat whether it be chicken or veal or squid and another side dish like marinated eggplant. There is always salad and always bread too, so there is no way that I am going to go hungry!!

Often it is just me and her sitting down for dinner, but when they are home the boys too.

I have met some really nice people at school and there is also a constant turn-over of students as most only come for a week or 2. The school also organises activities for most afternoons of the week and also outings for the weekends. This Saturday we are doing a day trip to Noto and the Nature Reserve of Vendicari right near the southern most point of Sicily. I will report back in my next post.

I think that is enough for now. I will give you more details about Taormina as I learn it’s secrets myself.

Ci vediamo
Jo xox


This is me working on by blog on my laptop up on the terrace at school.

Roma

After an uneventful journey from HK to London, some time at Heathrow and then London to Rome, I finally arrived at my accom at 11:30pm Rome time which was something like 5:30am my body clock time and was feeling on another planet!!

When I woke and could assess my surroundings a little better I was in not a hostel but an ex-convent with all women (mostly older) that was very clean, comfortable and quiet. It wasn’t your normal hostel experience but it was an experience!! It was in a good part of the city that was a walkable distance to everything.

After pulling myself together with a proper shower, breakfast and a proper coffee!!, and despite the drizzle, I dragged myself out to see some sights on the way to getting a mobile phone for my stay in Italy.

I saw Piazza Navona with the big central fountain covered up for restoration work and then the Pantheon. Who puts a McDonalds in one of the beautiful old shop fronts next to the Pantheon...they get into every nook and cranny, it’s disgusting!!!

Then with a late lunch of ‘una salume e provolone pizza’ (not the pizza we know but flat pizza bread used to make a sandwich) and a drink, I sat by Trevi Fountain and took it and all that was happening around me in. There were lots and lots of tourists and I think they were more interesting than the fountain...haha!!



Eventually I made it to the main shopping street which I had been sent in the direction of when I had asked where best to find a mobile phone shop. After wandering for a long time through many streets of very flash looking shops and stumbling upon a few other sights like the Spanish Steps, I found the Vodafone shop. After much waiting in line and attempting a little Italian, I now have a “telefonino” as the Italians call them but it is VERY confusing when Vodafone sends me automatic messages in Italian!! haha

So for those of you who want to text message, or even call me I guess but it will cost you lots, my phone number for you is +39 3405 670 465.
And I actually have a cool phone now rather than the little piece of hopeless plastic I had at home in Melbourne.

Day 2 was a day for the Vatican City. I decided to follow a tour outlined in my Lonely Planet which was great. I started at some castle...still not sure whose...ha!! Im sure many of you who have already been to Rome are yelling at your computer screens the answer right now!

I then walked up Via della Conciliazione, along with all the other tourists, to Piazza San Pietro. WOW...what a space!! Even more confronting with the queue to get into St Peter’s Basilica running almost around the complete perimeter!!


Once again, the other tourists in the line and around me were (for most of the time) more interesting than the buildings themselves. Well considering I was there, but thankfully moving steadily, for an hour, I had time to study those in front of me in the line...Im still not sure what possessed the guy in front of me to think he had a good haircut because he definitely thought he was pretty cool!!


Yep, a blonde curly mullet that was super short on the sides!!

And then once inside the basilica and looking around, I started to wonder if I was being followed by blonde mullets...or is it the flavour of the month in other countries?!?


But what an amazing building and space St Peter’s Basilica is. So much marble and sculpture and gold and fantastic paintings...oh, and MORE tourists!!
Oh, and by the way, of course I am not counted as a tourist!! Haha

After equal time to that queuing in there, I felt overwhelmed and knew it was time to leave. My book walking tour then directed me to a great local eatery where I feasted on antipasti misti served by the owner, with a beer of course.



And my great victory for the day was then talking in broken Italian and a little English to the 2 local men sitting at the table next to me about a variety of things. The way that got started was them offering to take the above photo for me.

With VERY full belly, I headed to the Vatican Museums to find that the Sistine Chapel (what I wanted to see most) was closed and so I figured even though the rest were open better to come back when I return to Rome.


So plan B was to head to the Colosseum. I caught the train there and once there I ended up getting roped into paying extra to do an English speaking tour but at the same time jumping the queue to get in. In the end this was a great idea as we also got a free tour of Palatine Hill with a great tour guide.


The most amusing and annoying thing about the few hours I had with this tour group was the older American couple with their grown son, all seen here in this photo with their matching orange Yves Saint Laurent Polo T-shirts!! I guess they had dressed this way so that they didn’t lose each other in a crowd, but let me tell you there was no risk of that!!

My lowest part of the day was being given a €50 fine for being on the bus with no ticket!! No matter how many tears I shed or how much I played the poor innocent Aussie girl who couldn’t understand Italian, they wouldn’t give. But I honestly didn’t know...but to cut a long story short, I paid it there and then and then a nice German man from my tour who was also on the bus with me and his family and had been let off, gave me €15 as they had been so lucky!!

Dinner that night was a quiet one by myself at a local restaurant.


I had a fantastic plate of Spaghetti con frutti di mare and a half cask of wine and salad...oh and this is only a ‘Primi Piatti’ serve (€7), or a first course serve when traditionally after this Italians have a meat course , followed be dessert!!

After my final night in my convent hostel I headed to the airport for my flight to Sicily. One last thing in Rome that caught my eye and was a classic Italian touch, to be showey and have only the best...


The regular waiting chairs were made of leather!!

Ci vediamo
Jo xox

Taormina e prima...

Ciao a tutti da Taormina in Sicilia!!

No, don’t worry, Im not going to write this entire blog in Italiano...I wish!! Haha
Yes, I did make it here to my final destination (for now), but before I tell you all about my new home and getting here, we should start at the beginning...

Hong Kong

Well what can I say... Humid, busy, crowded, different, impressive, crazy, tiring, never ending...I could go on and on, as it does as a city!!

I arrived at a very civilised hour on Monday afternoon and wound my way through busy streets and freeways on the bus to find my hostel which was like a small oasis tucked away up high from the action of the city, but a small one at that. This seems to be the case for the rest of the residences in this crowded city also...up high and packed in like sardines. Every square centimetre of this city is being used in one way or the other, or maybe even in ten ways.

I was staying on level 11 of the second building along on the right side of the road. This is the main East-West road on Hong Kong island that the trams run along...and no, I didn’t know that Hong Kong had trams either until I got there. They are double-decker too!!

The night before I flew out of Melbourne my beautiful new laptop wasn’t being so beautiful and decided to stop connecting to wireless internet, so I spent 5 hours of my first day in HK on the phone in my hostel, to a guy in the HK HP computer call centre.


Here I am sitting on my bottom bunk at the hostel looking very unimpressed whilst attempting to complete the fix that my friend at the call centre, David Wong, gave me.

When I finally made it out that afternoon to have a look around, I caught “Peak Tram” up the steep grade of the main hill in HK to “The Peak” funnily enough!! haha. There were great views of the city from up there.

By now, you might have noticed that all of my photos of HK are in black and white and yes there is a reason for this. I decided that since there is so much action, colour and chaos in HK that black and white photos would simplify all that was captured... just the visual communicator in me I guess.

I then headed to a night market and of course despite already having a VERY full pack and still needing to get to Italy, I was persuaded to buy a few things...yes, they twisted my arm!! Haha

I had dinner at a small restaurant here that was well and truelly spilling out onto the streets of the market and was a buzz with market goers stopping for food. I was plonked on the end of a long communal table and had a great view of all that everyone else was eating.

Day 2 I was excited by a full day of sightseeing after my limited day out the day before. Whilst on the plane there I had been reading the Cathay Pacific mag and it talked about “cafes” that are well known and loved by locals and what they are know for. One that served chicken pies (Gai Pai) that regularly sell out as soon as they are out of the oven at 12pm, caught my eye. So I went on an adventure looking for it and obtained one of these pies for myself.

It was a very interesting experience, to say the least. It was about the size of a Christmas fruit mince pie and was still hot from the oven. The filling was just like a regular chicken pie with bits of chicken and a sort of gravy, BUT it was surrounded by a very short, sweet, buttery pastry that was quite thick...VERY interesting!! This kind of sweet and savoury combo seemed to be very common.

After this short fuel stop I headed to the fantastic HK Park on a whim and found a magnificent space with a Tai Chi garden (with tower within that had great views across the park), free Conservatory and enclosed aviary, lakes with turtles and Olympic amphitheatre. Generally it was a very nice and well designed space.


Next stop, the gold fish market...yes they have a street with nearly all shops basically dedicated soley to gold fish and keeping them. I guess they are easy pets for the tightly packed HK residents.

There were lots and lots of walls like these with fish in bags...poor fishies!! L

Then another market, The Ladies Market before heading back to the hostel for a break and to pack my bags for an extremely early get away to the airport the next morning for my long haul to Rome via London for 4 hours.


Dinner was a quick bowl of fish ball and sliced pork congee, a plate of chinese broccoli and oyster sauce and an iced tea at Congee Wonderland (I hadn’t tried congee before and so was intreagued by it) before going to see the evening lightshow on the city buildings from the edge of the bay. I only caught the end of the light show and then headed back to bed.


I was then up at 3:45am the next day to get a cab and then the night bus to get to the airport for my 7:35am flight to London and then onto Rome.

Jo xox