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.