Mount Etna, Wine, Taormina
Days 8 & 9: Mount Etna, Wine, and Taormina
Several months before we were due to leave for Europe, we heard there was an eruption of Mount Etna. Will this affect our tour, we wondered? Little did we know, Mount Etna is essentially erupting all the time. For the several days we were in view of it on the east side of the island, there was always a plume of smoke rising from the top. Alfio told us it's quite exciting when one can see sparks like fireworks. When one lives on a volcano, one learns to live with a volcano.
Everything about Mount Etna was a wow moment!
I think my favorite lunch was at Benanti Winery on the slopes of Mount Etna. Absolutely everything was beautiful - the scenery, the vineyards, the winery building, the grounds, the room in which our lunch was served, the delicious lunch, and the best wine we had in Sicily.
Members of our tour enjoying swapping travel stories with the proprietor of Benanti Winery.
After lunch I wandered around the property, discovering beautiful views at every turn, and another pouring/tasting room, more modern, with an amazing tile artwork covering the entire back wall. This was a special place, dripping not only with grape juice.
Oh, Taormina! Once a stop on the Grand Tour, still a resort worthy of the rich and famous, or those on a Rick Steves tour of Sicily. A lovely little village clinging to a cliff (you can take a funicular down to the beach), always within view of Mount Etna, there is not much to do here except luxuriate with an Aperol Spritz then head out for a passeggiata. Oh and you can do a bit of hiking up stairs for great views.
(Scroll left and right through the six images below, or click and scroll through larger versions).
We bought some sandwiches, took the funicular down to the beach, then walked out to the tiny island of Isola Bella across a narrow spit of land. In warmer weather this would be a great place for a swim.
