Tag: Taormina

After a little over a month of blogging about this trip, my Sicily series is over. Today I’ll be taking you through my final day there. It was simple, but it was one of my favorites.

Instead of eating breakfast at the hotel, many of us waited until we got to Taormina to have some cannoli instead. That cannolo was the best I’ve ever had. They put the cream in the shell right in front of you so it doesn’t get soggy, and it’s topped with sweet almond pieces and powdered sugar. It was the flakiest, crunchiest, and most incredible dessert. If you ever find yourself in Taormina, be sure to hit up Roberto’s for a once-in-a-lifetime cannolo. Oh, what I would do to eat one right now! PS: Their torrone is crazy delicious, too.

This was outside the little bakery. Our tour guide, Nicole, translated a couple of them for us, and some are really funny.

A really cool staircase guarded by a face.

The only thing we had planned for this day was to visit a pottery shop called Made in Sicily. One of the owners told us about their products and how everything in the store is hand painted.

This woman did a demo in front of us. It blows my mind how much time is put into these.

I bought a couple things there for friends and family and a little owl for myself.

After the mini tour, we had about three hours to shop and get any last minute gifts to bring back home. My grandpa, uncle, aunt, and I got lunch, and then my aunt and I went on the hunt for the perfect scarf. Everyone I passed by on the street there always had the most elegant and beautiful scarves, so I couldn’t leave Sicily without getting one! I ended up buying two. They make me sad/happy when I wear them!

This was a cute display in one of the shops we went to.

I loved window shopping and going into all the designer shops. It was so fun admiring all of the beautiful clothes and other items with my aunt!

Ugh, and I wanted that sweater so bad! The store was closed, though 😦 I would have bought it in a heartbeat.

And now, my friends, I present to you… the last gelato. *sobs*

This is ginger and chocolate. See, I told you I only ever got chocolate! But, hey, at least I was adventurous with the opposite flavor! Ginger was actually really nice and unexpectedly good!

While it’s definitely a bit of a touristy area, Taormina is a really fun little town. There’s so much to look at, do, and eat there, and I had a blast roaming around that day.

Later in the afternoon, our group met up and we rode back down the hill to Letojanni. There had been a storm brewing all day, so my friends and I went down to the beach to watch the waves. These were the biggest and craziest waves I have seen. It’s almost as if Sicily was having a temper tantrum that we were about to leave…I sure was! 😉

These photos aren’t the greatest, so I posted a quick video on Youtube for you to watch if you’re interested. Here’s the link. 

This one is the biggest of them all! I have a video of it, but all you can hear is my friends and me yelling, so I took a screenshot of it instead:

We hung out at the hotel after it began raining before we headed to dinner. The restaurant we went to was only a few minutes from the hotel, so we all braced ourselves for the rainstorm and made the treck.

For dinner, we each had a small pizza to ourselves. The weirdest thing happened at this restaurant, too: We were each handed our pizzas, but they weren’t cut into slices! So, we had to use our little butter knives and cut them ourselves. It was quite strange, and everyone was curious as to why they weren’t pre-cut. Despite that, it was so fun sitting down with our whole group on our final day in paradise, even if we were all in a pre-grieving state about leaving.

After dinner, my friends and I hung out for a few hours before bed, packing up our suitcases while singing songs and drinking Coca Cola. Then, when 11pm struck (our curfew), we said goodnight and headed to bed.

The next morning, the storm had calmed down and the ocean was still again.

We went down to breakfast and loaded our luggage onto the bus. And now for the fun part: the crazy traffic! It was supposed to be only about an hour to the airport from our hotel, but it took us way longer than expected because of the inexplicable traffic jam the entire way there. We all thought we’d miss our flight, but, thankfully, we made it! We even had some time to spare in the airport gift shops.

Our first flight to Germany was about two hours. Taking off from Sicily was so different from landing there ten days prior; my mindset was completely fresh and new. When we arrived, I was nervous and scared to be in a new country, and I didn’t know anyone too well in our group, either. I was a completely different person on the flight home, though: I had both new friends and new experiences under my belt, and I felt ready to conquer the world.

Hi, Mount Etna!

And thus, our journey back home began.

I arrived home at around 11pm-ish. I didn’t sleep on the flight back (instead, I watched 3.5 movies: A Star is Born, which is my new favorite movie; Bohemian Rhapsody, which I’d seen before but wanted to rewatch; Beautiful Boy; and half of Mamma Mia 2). Lufthansa has the best movie selections ever!

When I got home, I showered and went to bed immediately. I had school the next day (ugh) and had to wake up at 6:30. Sigh. Back to reality!

Well, that’s all! I hope you’ve enjoyed this series. It’s taken a while for me to get it up, so thanks for sticking with me and continuing to read. Sicily was the first place I’ve visited outside of the country. I think it will always hold a special place in my heart, not only because I’m 1/4 Sicilian myself, but because it was the first major travel experience I’ve had. I also got to go with my grandpa, aunt, and uncle, which was just the best. I hope to return someday and explore other areas of this special place.

I also have some exciting news: I will be going back to Italy in just a couple weeks! This time I’m going to a small town called Narni in the region of Umbria. I won a scholarship to go study the Italian language and culture for two weeks in July. I am so grateful for my Italian teacher for giving me this opportunity and for my Arizona aunt & uncle for helping with plane fare. I can’t believe I get to go back! I’m a bit nervous, but I cannot wait to share it all on here. I’ll post updates soon!

As always, thanks for following along.

Our last hotel was in a small town on the ocean called Letojanni. It was near the hillside town of Taormina, which was a really cool place we spent two days shopping in and exploring.

Here is one of the views from our balcony at the final hotel. We spent a lot of time here, organizing shells and rocks and looking down into the hotel restaurant kitchen! Our whole group was on the same floor, and once we checked in, we all said hi and waved to each other from our windows/balconies.

Here’s the other side, looking right out to the ocean.

Outside of the hotel.

We headed up to Taormina that day for a guided tour. Our first stop (and basically the highlight of the tour) was the ancient Greek theater. Here’s a view on our way up. That’s Mount Etna (Sicily’s active volcano) in the background!

And this is the Greek theater. It was really cool, and apparently, they still have shows and concerts here once in a while!

It wasn’t too crowded, either, which was nice!

I love this one. I’ll be honest: I didn’t expect there to be as many cacti and palm trees as there were! I was pleasantly surprised once we arrived. It reminded me a bit of Arizona! 😀

I had never seen an ocean (in person) of that shade of blue before.

A really cool mosaic in the center of Taormina. It’s a bit of a tourist trap in some parts, and there are a lot of stores, but I love how there are still so many historic elements that are preserved despite the modernization.

OK, this photo looks kind of gross, but this was one of my favorite dishes! It’s gnocchi with a pistachio-pesto sauce. My mouth is watering just thinking about it again.

An adorable turquoise door outside of the restaurant.

We didn’t get a chance to swim in the pools at the other hotels, and since there wasn’t one at this hotel, a few of us wanted to go swimming in the ocean. The water was freezing when we got there, though, so I was hesitant to even go up to my knees. But I convinced myself to just do it so I can say I swam in the Mediterranean Sea! It warmed up after a while and was so lovely.

This picture is kind of haunting, but look how clear and beautiful the water looks!

Oh, but I wish I had water shoes that day! Those rocks were very very painful.

Here’s proof that I swam in the Mediterranian Sea. It was so calm that day; I had never seen anything like it!

I love this photo so much. Everything about it is just so pretty. I remember everything so vividly from this trip. Looking through photos makes me feel like I’m reliving it!

After swimming, my friends and I decided to order pizza on the dock next to the ocean. I was freezing from the twenty-minute swim (it really was that cold!), so I got some hot chocolate, too. Surprisingly, this was the first pizza I had the whole trip! One is Four Cheese and the other is Margherita.

And, of course, what’s a meal without gelato for dessert? This is pistachio with a chocolate cone.

Cute purple chairs and tables we admired while eating our gelato.

Some of the beach treasures I found! I gave some away to one of my friends but kept a few special ones for myself.

Here’s one last photo to wrap things up. There’s so much going on: the hillside houses, the trees, the VOLCANO in the background. So cool. I just can’t believe I got to see this view in person.

Tomorrow (I hope), I will share photos from our trip to Mount Etna! A presto.