SICILY: TAORMINA

 March 16, 2024

We took a 5:30 AM cab to the Naples Airport for our flight to Catania, Sicily, aboard an EasyJet plane, our first for that airline. We not only had to pay for our carry-on bags, but there was truly NO legroom. It was probably the tightest seating we've ever had. (Reminder to self: Say "no" to EasyJet in the future.) Luckily, the flight was just 50 minutes long. 

We picked up our rental car from Alamo--a VW Golf that was much too small for the four of us and our carry-ons, but we had no choice but to make do. One of our first sightings was Mount Etna. One of the tallest and most active volcanoes in Europe, it was impossible to miss. It's current height (subject to change in the next eruption) is 11,104 feet. In 2021, Etna had so many eruptions that its height actually increased by 100 feet! I read that it is two-and-a-half times taller than Pompeii, which really surprises me.  It has a hiking trail and was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013, but this was about as close as we got to it.

Our first destination was a viewpoint at the top of a very narrow, very steep, very windy road, but we were compensated for our discomfort by views of the Ionian Sea, the section of the Mediterranean Sea that basically lies between Italy and Greece.

We pulled off in a place where our car would (hopefully) not be hit so we could admire the scenery and some old stairs.

We noted that the climate and vegetation reminded us of Southern California, but perhaps a little more lush.

ITALY: POMPEII

 March 15, 2024

One of the reasons we started our trip in Naples was because we wanted to visit the ancient city of Pompeii, the legendary city covered by ash for centuries before being discovered. To get to Pompeii from Naples, we took a train ride of about 40 minutes. 

We were hoping to find a place to eat between the Pompeii station and the ruins. No problem. There was a line-up of five or six restaurants along the road that led to the main entry gate for the ruins. We chose a place with friendly staff, and (ironically, as this was a major tourist area) I had one of the better meals of the trip: gnocchi with cheese sauce and a wonderful pizza I shared with Bob.

We met up with our guide Dario, an archaeologist who gives tours of the site, and began a three-hour walk through what used to be a wealthy town of somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 people before it was buried in 13 to 20 feet of volcanic ash by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

The ruins were discovered in the late 16th century, but excavation didn't begin until 1750, over 150 years later. In 1763, during the excavations, an inscription was found that identified the site as Pompeii.

Our initial impression on walking in was already WOW!  The UNESCO article on this site and its companion site Herculaneum (which my sister and BIL visited on the day they arrived before we got there) notes, "Pompeii and Herculaneum are the only Roman cities ruins preserved in such an exceptional way and have no parallels in integrity and extent in the world. [They] provide a full picture of Roman life from the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD through the urban, architectural, decorative and daily life aspects that have been preserved."

ITALY: NAPLES - DANTE PIAZZA, MARADONA, STREET ART, THE CHAPEL OF SANSEVERO, CHRISTMAS ALLEY, AND THE CHURCH OF SOULS IN PURGATORY

March 15, 2024

After a decent night of sleep, we met Chris and Stan for a mediocre breakfast in the hotel at 7:00 AM. We had 9:00 tickets for our first destination, and we had to figure out how to get there.

The streets are very narrow, and we were quite impressed by the parking job of the car below. We were also very glad we didn't have a car that we had to park. The ice cream visual on the right was tempting, but we couldn't be late for our first appointment.

This is the University Institute of Mediation. At first I thought that was "Meditation," and that those four guys holding up the balcony were deep in thought. 

It turns out they need someone to negotiate their release.