Tassa and I took our first trip to Italy in October, staying from the 18th to the 27th. We were beginning to get a bit sick of the weather here in jolly old England and headed south to Sicily for some warmth and adventure. We flew into Catania on the eastern side of the island and stayed in an Airbnb in the town of Stazzo di Acireale, which was located right on the shore of the Ionian Sea. The Airbnb was very nice and only cost 887 pounds for nine nights. It was located halfway between Catania and Taormina and was also near the active volcano Mount Etna. I felt like it was a good value for the money, especially given the length of our stay but the area was a little lacking in restaurants and attractions. We had to drive to do anything.
Speaking of driving. I rented a car at the Catania airport for the whole week. Driving in Italy is next level stressful. The roads are barely big enough for one vehicle, much less two coming towards each other. Most of the streets are closely lined with brick walls or buildings, making the narrow streets even more difficult to navigate. On top of all that, Italian drivers are insane! I won’t even try to sugar coat that, they are freaking nuts. For example, stopping at intersections is voluntary. There is an understanding that only Italians know about as to who pulls over and lets who by or vice versa, which I was never privy to. We did it though. I’m not really sure in retrospect how but we did it. Every time I got into the car, I was glad that I got the extra insurance on my rental car, even though I didn’t end up needing it.
We flew in late Friday night and got our rental car and just drove to the Airbnb, which was about 45 minutes away from the airport. The next day, we drove into Catania. Catania is the largest city on the eastern side of Sicily. A good way to describe Catania is dense. Dense and busy. It felt like you were in a city built into an older city, built into an older city to infinity. Catania is an ancient place, founded in the 8th century BC and there are Ancient Greek and Roman sites. However, we didn’t explore very much. It was very overwhelming driving into Catania, finding a place to park, and just navigating around. We walked around for a while and had dinner at a nice restaurant. I also got a Catania football jersey. We did not venture back into the city for the rest of our trip.
The next day we explored around the Airbnb and drove up to Mount Etna. Mount Etna is the largest active volcano in Europe. It looms in the distance. A combination of clouds and smoke left it hidden most of the time, but we did manage to get a couple good pictures when it cleared up for literally a couple minutes. We attempted to drive up to the top and found out that the country roads are as stressful as the city streets. As we got higher and higher in elevation the weather turned worse. It was very desolate up there once you passed a certain point. As I was planning this trip, I figured we would do a lot of hiking; there are lots of trails, but a guide is recommended, and I think required to go to the actual top of the volcano. I also saw pictures of the giant mound spitting fire in the night sky, but we didn’t see that. We didn’t do any hiking up there either. It didn’t look like the safest thing to do once we saw it.
One interesting aspect of this trip was that Tassa had to work all week. We figured that the Airbnb would have good enough internet for her to work remotely but it didn’t really work out that great. The internet connection was not good and then due to a storm it went completely out. Our service wasn’t good enough for our hot spots either. Tassa was frustrated.
I drove up to Taormina on Tuesday, which was my birthday, to see the ancient Roman amphitheater. Taormina was awesome! It is a city built on top of mountain. You had to drive up this crazy winding road up to the town, which then was a maze of tightly wound streets and buildings that scaffolded up the mountain side. I toured the ancient ruins and thought the town was amazing. Tassa and I went back there later that evening for dinner and to celebrate my birthday. We ate at an amazing pizzeria called La Napoletana and had some very good beers. Italian beers really blew me away. I always try to drink locally and found Sicilian beers to be amazing. I didn’t have any expectations for beer in Italy, but I learned that Sicily has an old brewing tradition with lots of top-quality local beers that left me pleasantly surprised. At La Napoletana, I had a beer called Birra Viola Rossa Red Ale 6.6 and it was one of the best beers I’ve ever had.
The next day, we decided to go to a hotel in Taormina for the rest of the week. Even though we already paid for the Airbnb, Tassa really needed better internet. I had been a fan of using Booking.com but I will never use it again. I booked a room at the Taormina Palace Hotel through Booking.com from Wednesday through Saturday for around 550 euros, only because there was an option to pay 60 extra euros for high-speed internet. The hotel was very nice, no complaints there but the internet sucked. I went to the front desk and told them I paid for good internet and the lady told me she didn’t know anything about that and that all internet in the hotel was the same. I was pretty ticked about it. Tassa dealt with the aggravation. It wasn’t great but she did the best she could to work with slow internet, but I felt like I was completely ripped off. I contacted Booking.com and it was impossible to talk to a person. They sent me an email with a laundry list of steps I had to take in order to get my money back. I didn’t end up doing it all, but I vowed to never use Booking.com again, and I haven’t. Screw them.
I will say that even though it cost us a descent amount of money to stay in Taormina on top of having the Airbnb in Acireale, it was worth it. There were lots of shops, cafes, and restaurants within a short walking distance from the hotel. If you are thinking of going to Italy and staying in Sicily, I highly recommend staying in Taormina because you’ll get the whole experience in one cool place. It is a bit touristy but honestly, being touristy means there are things to do. Our Airbnb was not in a touristy area at all and there was nothing to do. The best part of Taormina was that there was another village higher up the mountain called Castelmola. There was an insane 4.5-mile trail that made a big loop from Taormina to Castelmola. It was almost straight up and then straight down, and the views on this hike were insane. While Tassa worked, I hiked the trail everyday and one day I hiked it twice, once by myself and then again with Tassa when she got off. Castelmola was a cool little village and paired with Taormina, I thought it was a nice introduction to Italy.
In Taormina, I also had my first real impression of Americans abroad. London is so big and there are so many people, plus so many tourists that everything sort of blends together. We have run into some Americans here and there, but we haven’t been around large groups of American tourists. Taormina is small. You wind your way up to a center point and there is a long street that contains most of the restaurants and sites. Of course, there are side streets and a lot to explore but there is a main street and a small overall area. Point is, you see people a lot more than you might in a huge city like London. I saw one American guy yell at a cab driver, and literally chase after the car yelling like an idiot. The cab took a tight turn, and the guy was standing on the corner. I have already mentioned that the streets are insanely narrow, and Taormina is even more congested because the streets wind up the side of a mountain and there isn’t any room for more streets. The cab did not get that close to the guy, and he could have moved, but instead he shouted at the driver with disgusting entitlement, like this was his home or something. It was very sad to see. I felt a bit ashamed being an American myself. Another time while we were sitting in a nice little café, there was a table of Americans who were embarrassingly loud and obnoxious. The waiter said something about a banana, and they kept laughing and talking loudly about the sexual insinuation of the banana. It wasn’t funny at all, but these stupid people acted like it was the funniest thing they ever heard in their lives. It went on and on. At one point, a lady (I think she was British by her accent) sitting next to us sort of looked at me with that look of annoyance, which implied “can you believe these people?” Tassa and I didn’t even want to talk and risk giving away that we were Americans too. All these people were older Americans obviously on big group tours. I can clearly see why people have their negative opinions about Americans.
The food in Taormina was amazing. We have always heard that the food in Italy is second to none. I thought it was hit or miss. A few places that we went to before going to Taormina were not that great. A restaurant sort of near our Airbnb was just ok. I had shark pasta, and it was just small chunks of dry shark meat on spaghetti. The worst meal that I have had since moving over here though was in the town of Nicolosi. This was our second day in Italy, and I wanted pizza. Nicolosi is a small town on the way up to Mt. Etna. We found a restaurant, but they only served pizza in the evening. They had a lot of different burgers for lunch instead. By the way, a burger over here is anything on a bun. For example, they call chicken sandwiches burgers. Well, we noticed that horse meat was served a lot in restaurants in Sicily. Maybe its Italy in general, I don’t know, but horse is definitely served in Sicily. Horse and donkey. I’m not kidding. We even saw a horse butcher shop. Plus, you had to Google translate everything on the menus, so it was difficult sometimes to know exactly what you were ordering. I ordered some crazy burger at this restaurant, and it was terrible. I hope to god it wasn’t horse. I honestly don’t know. I ate some of it, but I almost threw up because of the taste and the thought that it might be horse meat. However, in Taormina the food was so good. We had the best cannoli. We had amazing pizza. We also had carbonara for the first time in our lives. I have no idea why we never had this before but I’m glad because it was a total surprise and let me tell you the carbonara in Italy is insanely good. Another thing that I fell in love with is grappa. Grappa is brandy but a lot different from a French brandy, like cognac. It is simpler and a bit rougher but overall, more versatile and interesting. I may have said this before in another post, but here in Europe there is a craft and dedication to the quality of food and drink that in general doesn’t exist in America. Sure, you can get good stuff in America, but in Europe almost everything, from a cheap croissant at a bakery to an expensive dinner is just on another level. Except the eating of horse. I can’t deal with that.
This trip also marked a turning point for us over here and when we realized that the honeymoon was over, so to speak. I think we were a bit naïve to think that a sense of adventure and excitement would last continuously and indefinitely. It doesn’t. This trip was stressful. It felt like work in some respects, like we were traveling because that’s what we had to do. Now, don’t think that the fact that we got to spend a week in Sicily was in anyway a negative experience, it definitely wasn’t but it was the moment when we felt that something had changed. The internet situation was aggravating. The driving experience was stressful. Then to top it all off, on our flight home we had a situation that could have potentially made us miss our flight and been a huge hassle. Due to UK law, we can’t upload our passports and pre-check in online or on an app to get our boarding pass. We have to physically go to the airline desk in the airport to check in and get our boarding pass. Not a big deal on direct flights but on our return from Sicily we had a layover in Venice. This meant we had to get off the plane, exit the airport, go to the desk, go back through security, and find our gate. We only had an hour layover in Venice. There was a delay getting off the plane and we had to get on a shuttle bus that took us to the terminal where we would have been able to just go in and find our next flight’s gate, but we had to then exit and reenter the airport. We made it. It was stressful though. Also, at this point, we didn’t realize why this happening. We just thought that the app couldn’t scan our passports. The lady at the airline desk explained that it was because of the UK and that it isn’t possible to check in online. At least now we know and can schedule flights accordingly.
All in all, we had a good trip. I thought Italy was cool. I love traveling. That is what we came here to do. I think there was just a vibe we brought with us on this trip. We have been away from home for four months by this point, the newness is gone, and the excitement is a bit harder to come by. Traveling is also not easy. There are lots of things that can go wrong, and you really have to go with the flow. I think that we are actually very good at going with the flow and making the best of whatever happens on a vacation, but we aren’t really on vacation anymore. This is more or less our lives at the moment. That subtle shift in perspective creates an interesting mindset because your expectations change. Regardless, we are determined to go and see as much as possible and make the most of every experience! Arrivederci!
MeatSpace Adventures 
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