Sicily, Italy

Giardini Naxos Sicily

Wherever we go in the world, there is always someone from our home town already there. It truly is a small world.

We had an easy ride of less than two hours on major highways from Siracusa to Giardini Naxos.That was the easy part. Finding our B&B we had booked was not easy. We religiously followed the GPS off the highway and followed the directions right along the seafront promenade to the other end of town. We stopped at train station and got a map of Giardini Naxos from the tourist office and were on our way again. The directions were definitely strange. We headed around the promontory where the funicular took tourists up the mountain to Taormina. The GPA said to keep going; right into the sea! We turned around and headed back to the train station, ignoring the alternate route back onto the major highway heading back to Siracusa. We stopped and were given the correct direction by an employee at the tourist office.  Boy, was the GPS ever wrong. Our B&B, ApartHotel Baia di Naxos (Naxos Bay), was at the opposite end of town near where we had exited the highway. Maybe GPS had misunderstood the name of the B&B Ray entered and thought we wanted to go into the bay. At any rate, we finally arrived at the right place and got our room.

I was tempted to join the few people sunning and swimming on the sandy beach, but the clouds were gathering and lunch beckoned. We found a recommended restaurant overlooking the harbour. The restaurant closes on Mondays during the off season but the waiter said there was lasagna ready if we wished to stay. We did and were amply fed.

Pat Marshall, who is joining us next week with her husband Bruce, emailed me a few days ago that her Globus Tour of southern Italy and Sicily was coming to visit Taormina on Monday, which was the day we arrived, and they were staying at the Hilton Hotel, just a two minute walk from our room. We walked over to find them there, waiting for their evening activity. We had a good chat and arranged to meet for dinner Wednesday.

We stopped at a bus stop on our way back to our room to check the schedule for buses heading for Taormina the next morning. A bus had just pulled in and the couple walking towards us were very familiar. It was Tom and Betty Morris, fellow travellers from Ottawa. They had flown to Venice five weeks before and had made their way through Italy, arriving in Sicily just the day before. We had not even realized they were in Italy. What a coincidence. We walked with them to see the beach, a must as they were leaving for Siracusa tomorrow. We will have to get together in Ottawa to exchange more impressions of Italy.