Messina, Castelmola & Taormina on the Island of Siciliy, Italy

On Tuesday, November 1, we docked at the port of Messina on the island of Sicily.  Immediately we met up with the tour guide we had pre-arranged.  She escorted us to our bus and group which were parked a couple of blocks away.  We saw a few of the old buildings of Messina on our way up the coast to visit Castelmola and Taormina in the mountains.

The glimpses we had of the ocean and coastline were truly beautiful.  As we climbed up the narrow mountain roads, we were amazed that the local people could grow crops and trees on the steep mountainsides.  This area is famous for their many almond trees and apparently for their sweet almond wine.  About an hour out of Messina, we arrived at the picturesque mountain village of Castlemola.  It was said to have a panoramic view of the volcanic mountain, Mount Etna, and the valleys below.

It is a quaint village with narrow, cobblestone streets, a plaza, a church, shops and a mountaintop castle built by the Byzantines about 800 A.D.  After two years of fierce fighting, it was conquered by muslims in 902.  The Normans conquered the Muslims in 1078 a built a new castle incorporating the older walls.  The remains are what we saw.

This small Christian church was unusually plain and still used for worship by local residents today.

The views were true to the description but we only saw a glimpse of Mt. Etna before a few clouds surrounded the mountain top and prevented us from taking a clear photo.

We are on top of the Castle ruins at this point with Mt. Etna and the coast behind us.

Here is the Castle of Taormina.  We were not allowed access to it.  I believe they are working to renovate and preserve it.

It was a holiday that day and we loved seeing this little (I mean very short) couple slowly walking to church.  They were so devout and cute carefully walking down the narrow streets.  It would have been impossible to drive there from their home and shop, so they had no choice but to walk.

You can see that the streets were quite narrow.  Getting down the mountain back to Taormina took a lot of skill from our bus driver.  There was only room for one vehicle at a time, so when we met a truck coming up, our driver backed up the hill to a wider spot and the two vehicles pulled in their mirrors and managed to pass each other with inches to spare.  We cheered for our driver.  Whew!  Close call!

Castlemola is known for its almonds and almond wine.  This man was sitting in a garage type shop, cracking almonds with a hammer and selling little bags of almonds for about 2 Euro.  We bought a bag and enjoyed them very much.

Here is a postcard that shows Mt. Etna and Castelmola on a clear day.

Taormina, down below Castlemola,  is a much larger town with an old section and a newer, bustling section.  Many tourists visit this area so there is a lot of shopping, hotels, taxis, restaurants, etc.

Here is one of the old city gates.  We walked through with our guide all the way to the gate on the other side of the old city area.  Then we had free time to explore and walk around.

There were many old churches.  Since it was a holy day, we didn't go in most of them.  However, we did go in this one below that is supposed to be built over the pit where Stephen was stoned to death.  A fence surrounded the pit.  Steve took a photo of the pit.  See it to the right.

 These next seven photos were taken in Castelmola.  Sorry that they are out of order.

Now we are back to Taormina and the church built over the pit where Stephen was stoned to death.

We asked our guide for a restaurant recommendation.  We had a nice lunch of local pizza.  They don't have tipping there.  They charge a table fee of 2 euro per person in addition to the price of the food.

This shows the business district outside of the old city.  We enjoyed exploring the old area and didn't have time to walk around in this part of the town.

I purchased a personalized apron for my business associate, Wendy.  The seamstress did the writing in about 10 minutes.  It was fascinating to watch.

These were the garden areas of the city.  There were lots of stairs as everything is built on the hillside.

I am standing next to a pasta shop.  There were many, many kinds of pasta.

We also enjoyed looking at all their pastry shops.  We finally gave in and sampled the wares.  The almond pastries were superb.  The cannoli was disappointing to me.

Note the Taormina castle on the hillside in the background.

 The gelato was amazingly yummy.  Steve really loved the coconut and pistachio.  We enjoyed them often in Italy.

There was another castle on this point as we were driving back to Messina.

Here is the castle from the other side of the point.  Sicily was very beautiful and very mountainous beyond the coastline.  We really were amazed that they could grow crops on those hillsides.  They mostly grow almonds now instead of grapes.