5/1 We left Agrigento this morning and drove to Taormina. Actually, our hotel was in Giardini Naxos, down along the water and the first Greek community in all of Sicily. It was overcast, light rain day but not bad.

Arrived at lunch time – well imagine that! We checked into our hotel and the clerk/owner gave us a card for a local restaurant down by the lungomare, the seashore.

The restaurant turned out to be very cute and the food was delicious. Of course I had my linguini with mussels and clams and Jim had spaghetti pomodoro. Both were meraviglioso – marvelous, wonderful.

Then they brought out the grilled fish which was very good too.

With our bellies full, we headed up to the center of Taormina by taxi; no real sidewalks and way too much of a climb.

Once there, we were amazed at the number of tourists, holy cow, and only April! There were steps, hills, shops, restaurants, churches – you name it – it was there. The streets were filled with people just walking, checking out the shops and eating!

We walked around for a couple of hours and took a taxi back to our hotel. The hotel was located on the road that took us to Calabria, so it was convenient. There is a round church down along the seashore which seems to be dedicated to the fisherman and being saved by the barca, or boat above the altar.

When I looked out our window from the hotel, what should I see but train tracks! I laughed and said to Jim – not sure how much sleep we are going to get tonight! He looked out the window and shook his head – how did we manage this one? Turned out it wasn’t too bad. Only had a few trains during the night – no whistles and not too loud but we did hear them. The trains were quieter than the other folks staying at the hotel. The walls were rather thin and you could hear anyone who was talking, closing a door, taking a shower – we did manage to get some sleep before heading to Calabria on Monday morning.

All of this just adds to the memories we are collecting along the way on this otherwise fantastic trip.