June 20/21

gio + many hours on the beach = great base tan

i love the beach. after a few months of supreme stress, a few hours of comatose-ness on the quasi sand quasi pebble beach was exactly what i needed. so...we did the same thing on the 20th.

initially we were supposed to go diving and snorkelling and i was all a go until i realized that i couldn't put the mask over my glasses. so, being the blind person that i am, it would be completely useless for me to even try. so the girls did what they had to do...which was go into the cold ionian sea around isola bella and i head to yet another beach chair where i soaked up the sun.



we opted for dinner at a restaurant highly recommended by our hotel and the food was quite good. i got to have my stuffed zucchini flowers (seriously, its my favorite thing) followed by a plate of pasta with sardines. seriously...sardines are so good in italy. not like the packed in oil and salt crap we get in calgary. but i digress...i was way too stuffed for dessert and went to order a disaronno...but they were out. how does that happen? so, i ended up having a tiramasu. mmmm

unbelievably i did not have a single gelato on this day, but i did have a mandorla granite. dear lord that was heavenly.

so after our evening walk, we went to bed because we were up early for a day trip to syracuse.



i will start by saying that you do not ever need to stay in syracusa...a day trip will suffice. that being said, i saw some real cool things. our first stop was on the ortygia island...



we stumbled upon temple of apollo which was pretty cool, dating back to 6th century AD. we then found the chiesa di san paolo....very old, very stoic, very beautiful. we also head to see the duomo and outside was the coolest sculpture EVER. i don't know how to describe it...you have to see it to believe it...it's a bearded man...jesus perhaps?...climbing his way out of the ground. totally cool. i really should have paid attention this trip to what i was seeing, but i'm sure some careful research will get me the titles i need....eventually. for now, pictures will have to suffice.



after a lovely lunch (and more granitas) we went to check out the teatro greco. we met a lovely guard who took photos for us (a rarity since one of us always had to take a picture). he also told us that the teatro was going to have a special concert that night with the syracusa orchestra performing famous pieces to an audience of 4000. how lovely.



we walked our way to the Latomia del Paradiso (Paradise Quarry) that had a tunnel of vegetation where we tried to get the perfect shot of us jumping up in the air. half an hour later and about 300 shots too, we made our way to the huge cave called the Ear of Dionysius (Orecchio di Dionisio) and it had some crazy acoustics where we practiced our pidgeon cooing and caw-cawing.



we made our way back to taormina to trocadero ristaurante where i noshed on some caprese salad and tortellini in brodo. and yes, we had some gelato...this time with tiramasu and nocciola. mmmmm. but back to bed as quick as possible. we had a long day of hiking etna to look forward to!