Today was one of the best days of the tour. It got off to a lazy start: we walked out in the streets a bit before breakfast, mostly because we wanted to see if Mount Etna was visible, but also for a chance to walk the streets when theyr're not jammed with tourists. In the morning when the streets are quiet and the shops are still shuttered, I feel like I can almost imagine what an extraordinary place it must have seemed when Oscar Wilde came here to visit a bit over a century ago.
In Hotel Victoria. This compares very favorably with our bike storage experience at the unnamed palazzo in Catania.
After breakfast, we biked over to the Greek Theater for a tour. This is probably the most important site in Taormina, and it really is spectacular to see, in its exceptional setting with Mount Etna looming large above it to the north.
The Greek Theater, Taormina. Built in the Hellenistic period by the ancient Greeks and then transformed and enlarged by the Romans. After the one in Siracusa, it is the largest ancient theater to have survived in Italy.
Finally, a bit after eleven we hit the road, bound for Savoca, a small mountain town east of Taormina. We leave town on SP10, the main route down to the coast. I avoided it yesterday, thinking it might be too busy for our slow ride up. There is no need to avoid it though - traffic isn't too bad, it sees plenty of bike traffic, and it is a brilliant ride up or down - a steady, relaxed grade of about four percent with spectacular views.
We followed the coast as far as Santa Teresa di Riva, enjoying the best miles along the coast that we've seen so far here in Sicily. The road was quiet, the coastline beautiful, the long view up the Ionian Sea to the Strait of Messina evocative. If we come back to Sicily some year down the road, I'd like to continue this ride on to the end of the island.
Descending to the sea from upper Taormina. Rachael has gotten bored with plodding along with me and decides to latch on with the fast boys.
We found a decent spot to enjoy our lunch, at Sant' Alessio Siculo. This morning's was the most beautiful stretch of beach riding we've enjoyed on the tour.
Looking east to the Strait of Messina, the narrow body of water that separates Sicily from mainland Italy. At the narrowest point the two are about two miles apart.
Leaving the coast, we turned toward Savoca, following a crazily contorted road up a ravine. We arrived in Savoca just as a wedding was wrapping up, with photographs in a fabulous setting on the plaza overlooking the valley and sea. I didn't know it when planning this trip, but Savoca is famous as the site where the wedding scene from The Godfather was filmed, so of course there must be weddings scheduled nearly round the clock here now. The town is a highlight of the Godfather Tour, which you can sign on with to visit the key spots in Sicily where it was filmed. On the plaza is a metal statue of Francis Ford Coppola at work.
On the plaza at Savoca: The Pyramid with Hooves, a sculpture by Nino Ucchino. The inscription: The immortal donkey: millennial hero of peasant civilization and cultures of the Mediterranean peoples, ot the East and of America.A comment by the great Portuguese writer Jose Saramago: After so many monuments dedicated to men who were donkeys, finally a monument to a donkey who was a true man.
Francis Ford Coppola is broadening his interests and has started filming cycle tourists. Before this though he filmed the Godfather series, and the sculpture is in tribute to him. Savoca is a stop on the Godfather Tour, because the famous wedding scene was filmed here.
The next twenty miles brought a string of scenic ridgetop villages, together with some rugged cycling. After continuing to climb up to Casalvecchio, we dropped a thousand feet or so into a ravine before li Bing about two thousand feet out the other side. When we finally began dropping to the sea again, the steep road dropped through a dizzying, seemingly endless series of switchbacks before finally leveling out a few hundred yards from the water. Altogether, this was a fabulous day of cycling, in a place unlike any other we've seen on the island so far.
Dropping back to the sea, through an endless series of crazy, steep switchbacks. Toward the end Rachael began complaining that she was feeling a bit dizzy from the constant change in direction.
To conclude one of the best riding days of the tour, we enjoyed definitely the best meal so far, at La Zagara. My dish of swordfish with olives, capers, cherry tomatoes and potatoes was delicious, but Rachael's serving of grilled fish au gratin with pistachios and almonds was really amazing.
