Local time: April 30, 2014
The fine weather continues. It was a beautiful day from this morning. First of all, we will visit the World Heritage Aeolian Islands. However, we have a full schedule after this, so we’ll just do a quick sightseeing in the morning and visit beautiful villages in Sicily in the afternoon.
As per the previous day’s research, we left the port town of Milazzo at 9:30am for Lipari Island, the base of the Aeolian Islands. It takes about 1 hour and 20 minutes by high-speed boat.
The tickets are safe and sound.
The guidebook (Chikyu no Arukikata) said it took 1 hour, but we stopped at Volcano Island on the way to Lipari, so it took 1 hour and 20 minutes including the stop. It may depend on the weather.
Even if we say sightseeing in the Aeolian Islands, we are only here in Lipari Island. Since there are not so many places to see, we decided that one or two hours would be OK.
I was worried about the port because of its bleakness. But the main street and the old port were very nice scenery with Sicilian atmosphere.
The cathedral was also nice.
Although it was a hectic sightseeing, we finished the sightseeing in a little over an hour as planned and returned to Milazzo by high-speed boat again.
We arrived at Milazzo at 13:30. We returned to the car parked on the road and resumed our tour of the beautiful village.
By the way, you have to buy a parking ticket in this town at a tobacco shop in town. I didn’t have a meter and I didn’t know what to do at first. I asked a policeman and he told me.
The tour of the beautiful villages resumed at 3 p.m. The first village of the day, Savoca, is about an hour away from Milazzo via Messina.
We traveled at high speed, but driving was very tight around Messina because of the swirling roads and heavy traffic.
Savoca is a beautiful small village in eastern Sicily. It is located on a hill away from the sea and you can see the Italian peninsula below. You can also see the tip of the peninsula.
Lovely church, small cafes, etc. It was a very tasteful village.
By the way, there are souvenirs and monuments of “The Godfather” and “Director Coppola” all over the city. It seems that Savoca was the location of the movie. I’ll have to watch the movie later and check it out.
Next, we went to Castelmola, a beautiful village on the outskirts of Taormina, one of the best sightseeing spots in Sicily, where we had decided to stay.
This is one of the most beautiful villages in the world, but it is located at the top of a precipitous cliff, which is one of the steepest parts of the village. Moreover, some of the roads are not on Google Maps, and the navigation system seemed to be very confused.
So, this is a beautiful village that you can find in the guidebooks, but to be honest, it was a disappointment. Because it is on the side of the main tourist attractions, perhaps because there are many tourists because of the easy access (although the road is steep), the town was rather frustrating so-called secular.
Even so, the view is supposed to be good, but there are only spots that reflect the bleak subjects of the hotels and houses that have been wasted and abandoned. This is not a good location.
Still, documenting these negative impressions is one of the best parts of visiting beautiful villages.
We left Castelmola and headed to Taormina where we stayed. But here is a trap. Anyway, the roads in Taormina are too complicated, and the navigation system of Google Maps is now confused and useless. In the end, I ignored the navigation system and arrived at the hotel on my own through the narrow and steep alleyways, while looking at Google Maps.
The hotel in Taormina, for the price, was not much of a facility.
We walked around Taormina in the evening and had dinner at a restaurant recommended by the hotel staff.
The food here was definitely good. The wine was good too. Sicilian wine of course.
The journey is going well.
（続く）
