Hello from Sicily – Goodbye Taormina – Hello Milazzo!

My last day in Taormina had started: I woke up at daybreak to pack my suitcase since later today I would be relocating from Taormina to the city of Milazzo. I enjoyed my final breakfast on the gorgeous terrace of Hotel Villa Nettuno, the place that had been my home for the last seven nights. Pictures of yesterday’s hike up Mount Etna flashed to my mind. The view over the Ionian Sea continued to fascinate me and I hope that one day I will make it back to beautiful Taormina.

My last day of classes had started and our strict yet witty language teacher Carlo continued to teach us the intricacies of Italian pronouns and adverbial phrases of time and place. His colleague Simona took over at 11:40 for our communications exercise and we started to listen to a recording of a real-life Italian call-in show where a person called into a radio station to talk to two psychiatrists to discuss fears and phobias.

Each equipped with headsets, we listened to the recording twice and recounted what we had understood. Then we embarked on an unscripted discussion of our own fears and phobias. In addition, Simona had prepared cardboard cards with questions. Each one of us got to pick from the stack of cards and we got to choose who we were going to ask the question we had picked. This provided another great opportunity to talk and apply our Italian language skills. An animated philosophical discussion ensued and everyone had a chance to express their thoughts and feelings.

After taking pictures with my class mates and our teachers, I dropped by the office to say goodbye to Alessandro and his team. The entire crew at the Babilonia Language School had been extremely helpful over the past week of my stay, I had indeed picked up my Italian skills (and was officially at Intermediate level now), and I had thoroughly enjoyed all our various excursions: from our hike to Castelmola Friday a week ago, to our archeological and cultural excursion to Siracusa, to our walking tour of Taormina, my glimpses at Babilonia’s cooking and pottery decorating classes, our hiking excursion to Mount Etna and various dinners and social events, the last seven days had been packed full of exciting activities and opportunities for learning and forging new friendships.

I sincerely thanked Alessandro and his team and hoped to come back some time in the future. Together with two of my new-found friends, Jill from the UK, and Connie from Switzerland we went for a little walk and decided to have lunch at a local restaurant called Panoramic Bella Blu which is located on Via Pirandello right next to the cable car station that connects hill-top Taormina with beach-front Mazzaro. We enjoyed a nice late lunch with a stunning view over the Mediterranean, and about an hour later I had to say goodbye. I had double-checked at the bus station when my bus would come to take me to the railway station at Taormina – Giardini Naxos so I would be able to make the trek to my next destination: Milazzo.

Before departing I went back to Hotel Villa Nettuno to quickly download my photos and take a few more shots of the beautiful garden that is part of the Sciglio family’s estate. At the top of the garden is the so-called “Tempietto” (“little temple”), a temple-shaped lookout point with benches and a sweeping view over the Ionian Sea and part of Taormina. I took a few quick photos with Vincenzo Sciglio, the patriarch of the family, and two of my German Babilonia co-students and at 5:30 pm I sadly said goodbye. Vincenzo promised that when I come here next time he will take me to the family’s country retreat where they make home-made wine. He said he produces the grape juice for the wine by stomping on the grapes with his bare feet. Well, next time I come to Taormina I definitely want to see that.

Although my departure was a little sad, my next adventure was already waiting: tomorrow I would embark on a one-week sailing trip around the gorgeous Eolian Islands with a different language school called Laboratorio Linguistico, based in Milazzo.

After a 10 minute bus ride, I arrived at the Taormina - Giardini Naxos train station and had to wait for about 45 minutes before my train showed up. The commuter train that arrived was a beautiful sleek and modern train and I grabbed a seat in the corner. A few rambunctious teenagers were playing loud music, singing and ribbing each other. Obviously teenagers will be teenagers, no matter where you go….

A local gentleman sat down across from me and introduced himself: Giorgio works as a security guard at Taormina’s Greek Theatre and enjoys his job. He told me about his family: his wife stays at home with their three children while he is the sole income earner. His job gives him sufficient income to look after his family and he said he keeps his expenses low. The family only has one car and he still drives around all year on his 30 year old Vespa. Giorgio also commented that a few years ago Trenitalia, the Italian government-owned railway system, invested in new commuter trains. Giorgio smiled when he said that the remainder of the rolling stock is pretty much “museum quality”.

He also mentioned that the strange spring weather that we had been having (a fair amount of rain, fog, overcast skies), is rather unusual. Normally at this time of year the weather is clear and sunny. He summed up his feelings by saying that for the last three years or so the climate has been strange. A side effect of global warming maybe?

After Giorgio left about a half hour into the train ride I had a chance to reflect on the 8 days that I had already passed in Italy, and the new adventures that were still to come. I was starting to feel a bit apprehensive about the sailing trip that was supposed to start tomorrow. I was wondering about sea-sickness, the small confined space on a sailboat and I was praying to God that I was going to have good shipmates. On a small sailboat even one really strange character can make the trip unpleasant for the rest of the group.

Another part of me was really looking forward to the experience, and my anticipation was growing. After changing trains in Messina I arrived just shortly after 9 pm at my destination for today: Milazzo, headquarters of the Laboratorio Linguistico Language School, and the embarkation point for my sailing trip tomorrow.

Francesca, the wife of the school’s co-owner, graciously came by to pick me up from the train station and took me to my home for the night: a fully equipped 5-bedroom apartment right above the school’s offices. Francesca took me into my room which I was going to share for one night with my new travel partner: Claudia, a Lufthansa flight attendant from Germany, was also going to go on the sailing trip with me tomorrow.

While Claudia was sleeping I headed out for a very late dinner. It was already about 10:30 pm before I found a local restaurant two streets over. I had a delicious Insalata Cappriciosa and at a price of 3 Euros the salad was less than half the going rate of the restaurants in Taormina which had charged about 7 or 8 Euros for a salad. I realized very quickly that tourists in Taormina are paying a premium rate for everything and that Milazzo was definitely more affordable terrain. Back at the apartment I downloaded my photos and briefly met two of the other teachers at Laboratorio Linguistico: Jean-Claude from Ireland, who teaches English at the school, and Francesco (Franco) Pozza, an Italian teacher and co-owner of the school. I found out that we would be gathering outside the school tomorrow morning at 9:30 am to meet Francesco Di Santi, the other co-owner of Laboratorio Linguistico, and our skipper for the week.

I felt into bed exhausted, wondering what the next week was going to hold. I was excited – looking forward to my first sailing trip.