Lovely Taormina

Originally, Rah Rah and I had thought about touring Italy by train. Rome, Florence, Venice... However, the more I thought about being gone for 12 days, the amount luggage and personal belongings we would be traveling with and the sheer idea of dragging all our belongings across Italy made me cringe.

Cruising it was!

We arrived in Civitavecchia's Port around 1:00 and really had no problems getting on board our ship.

Rah Rah and I decided if we were going to cruise, we were upgrading that stateroom to the "Superior Ocean View" with a balcony.

It really was a very spacious room. 

Our first stop was Sicily.

The largest island in the Mediterranean, Sicily's most prominent landmark is Mount Etna. Mount Etna is the tallest active volcano in Europe and one of the most active in the world.

We booked a guided land excursion for three of our four ports. In Sicily, we took a bus to Taormina. Taormina is a small town on the east coast of the island of Sicily. The village of Taormina is perched on a cliff overlooking the Ionian sea. 

It is a quaint little town. The streets are narrow and every window had these cute little flower boxes.

Taormina is popular for a few archeological landmarks.
The Duomo which dates to the 13th century.

And the Ancient Theater which is one of the most celebrated ruins in Sicily, on account both of its remarkable preservation and its beautiful location.

The original structure was of Roman architecture. This is evident by the triangle shaped bricks used in construction. From the outside, one would never know that the bricks were actually triangles. Very cool to learn.

Later, Greek modifications were made. Most notably, building a wall behind the 'stage' and closing off the view of the sea. Apparently, the Greeks wanted all eyes on them.

That big missing section in the middle was due to the the invasion and bombings by the Berbers and Arabs in 902.

 The views from the theater were amazing.

After visiting the theater, we had about 30 minutes of free time for shopping before meeting back up with our group and retuning to the bus. 

I really wanted some refreshing gelato and as we were making our way to the little shop I took a step and realized - Huston we have a problem!

With less than ten minutes to spare before meeting out group, my favorite flip-flop BROKE! I calmly said to Rah Rah, "Ummm we have a bit of a situation..." and I showed her the casualty dangling off my foot. We both laughed and then immediately realized we had only a few minutes to track down a replacement pair. 

Off we went scouring the shops. Unfortunately, Taormina is a resort type town with a lot of high end shops. There was no way I was forking over $100 for a pair of sandals. But we were getting desperate. All of a sudden I spotted a pair of shower sandals in an underwear store and in I went. 10 euro for a pair of cheap looking, bright pink, flip-flops and we were on our way!

My beloved FloJos... 

We considered a burial at sea.

But opted for the trash instead.

The end of an era.

I found a good pair of new flip flops on the ship to take me through the rest of the trip. Lord knows I needed a comfortable pair for walking with my broken toe - which was actually holding up quite well half way through our big vacation.

A great day with a hint of adventure.

And an elephant in the room.