Castiglione di Sicilia to Taormina

April 14, 2023

This was originally thought to be a fairly easy day. Less than 30 km of riding with 300 metres of climbing, sadly all at the end. I hadn’t looked closely to see how steep that climb at the end would be, thinking it would be like the approach to other Sicilian hilltop towns. Oops!

In any case, after we learned about the Giro di Sicilia from Dave Mathers, we discovered that the final stage would be passing by quite close to Castiglione di Sicilia today, the day we would be leaving and for which we had only a short ride planned. We could go and watch the racers zoom by!

We stuffed ourselves at the breakfast buffet, checked out of our room, and left our bags at the hotel. We took some warm layers with us, what had sufficed on Etna, and backtracked our course from yesterday to SS 120. The racers would travel southeast along SS 120 to Linguaglossa, where they would make the turn to climb Etna North.

Where to park ourselves? There was nothing here, despite the intersection having a name on the map, Cerro, perhaps a (former) village we couldn’t see. In any case, we had well over an hour to wait and Linguaglossa was only 4 km further. We finally settled in the sunny piazza by the church, right on SS 120, the main road through town. It was sunny for a little while, then the cold wind came up and the sun kept disappearing behind clouds. A long, chilly wait.

We left our bikes locked in front of this pasticceria, where we each had one more pastry and Al had another coffee.

While we were enjoying our snack, police officer came to the café to ask if anyone had a car still parked in the street. They couldn’t find the driver of this one and it got towed.

Not the race. We still had over an hour to wait.

A closer look at the main window on the front of the church.

Finally! A few photos from the race.

Team cars lined up, waiting to take the sharp right onto the road to the climb

Once the race had passed, we left our warm layers on, got back on our bikes, and set off to return to Hotel Federico II to collect our bags and carry on to Taormina.

On our previous pass through Linguaglossa, I’d seen what looked like a rail trail showing on my Garmin map screen and a little searching on RWGPS and Trailforks showed that there was indeed something there. It had been a stiff climb over the ridge yesterday, and today there was the pent-up traffic, so we decided to give it a go.

I can report that the Strada Costa between Linguaglossa and Castiglione di Sicilia is quite passable. In fact, it seemed like a lot of money had been spent on converting this rail line to a cycling route, but none at all on its upkeep. There were lights in the longer tunnels, but they weren’t functioning, so it would have been good to have our front lights with us. We didn’t, so Al put one of his taillights on the front of his bike and we rode slowly and close together through.

The surface had been nicely finished, with basalt pavers across most of the width and a smooth red concrete path on one side. No ties or ballast in sight.

Approaching the first tunnel. The surface continues through the tunnels.

And out the other end. This was the first of many tunnels.

This tunnel had a challenging exit. Al rode through the puddle; I used the stones to carefully walk.

The finished surface was buried in places. This is just after the tunnel pictured above.

Looking back at one of the last tunnels; don’t go too fast!

There was a nice detour around the washout.

The final train tunnel was barricaded and a new roadway had been built around the ridge, along with this new galleria. As noted, a lot of money had been spent on this rail-trail conversion.

The trail turned into a bumpy road as we approached Castiglione di Sicilia, but it wasn’t far until we popped out on SP 7i, the same road that we had left on, near the cemetery above town. We zoomed down and pedalled up to the hotel, got our bags, and zoomed down to the Alcantara valley.

The Fiume Alcantara, from the bridge just below Castiglione di Sicilia

It was a delightful downhill ride on a hood road, but then most such rides are delightful. We found ourselves at Gole Alcantara and decided to pay the 1.50€ each to take the stairs down. The stairs used to be free, apparently, but the fee wasn’t bad and the stairs are well maintained.

We have canyons and swimming holes at home, but they aren’t cut through basalt formations like these!

The beach didn’t have many takers today but I expect it’s very crowded on a hot summer day.

After climbing back up the 282 steps (I think that’s what we were told) back to our bikes, we continued zooming down the hill until I realized I’d missed a turn. Luckily not by much! Our route took us onto a narrower road with a bit of up and mostly down, through the heavily-perfumed air of flowering citrus groves. Lovely!

It had to end, though, as we arrived at the built-up coast. We had a short ride along the water and then we hit the wall. It was a very steep road up to Taormina. When we realized how far we had yet to go and what time we were to meet our host, I sent Al ahead. By the time I arrived, Giuseppe had shown Al around the apartment and all that remained was for Giuseppe to photograph my passport.

The apartment, La Nina, is very nice and has a washing machine, the first one we’ve had since Licata. We soon had a load going sec when it was done and hung up, we went for a tasty, tourist-priced dinner. We went back to individual pastas with a shared second course and accompaniment this time.

Pasta alla Norma. The cheese is salted ricotta. Mmm… The mixed grilled fish and grilled vegetables were good but not photogenic.

We each had our own tartufo for dessert because somebody didn’t want to share.

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Today's ride: 46 km (29 miles)
Total: 1,179 km (732 miles)

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