Once in Sicily, we rode the train from Messina to Taormina. The ride in was absolutely beautiful as the train snaked along right beside the Mediterranean. Just so you know, I didn’t do any editing to these photos—the colors you’re seeing are the colors I saw as the brilliant cobalt sky seemed to melt right into the sapphire waves.

Once off the train, we waited for a bus to take us from the station into town. It was standing room only on the bus again but we didn’t care; we were too busy having our minds blown by all the colors and textures of this extraordinary place.

That’s Mount Etna smoking in the far background—an active volcano!

 My travel buddy

We found a pizza place for lunch and I just think you need to know that Sicilians put potato on their pizza…which is just about the best thing that’s ever happened to me. My two favorite things—potato and pizza transformed into one thing—potato pizza…oh my gosh it made me ridiculously happy. I would show you a picture but I ate too fast for such things.

We were sort of lost by the time we made it to the pizza place but the man working there was very friendly and helpful and got us heading back in the right direction…which just so happened to be the opposite direction…and then we were on our way to the Greek amphitheater.

View from the ruins of the Greek amphitheater.

Those waves, those gorgeous blue waves. They kept speaking to us and since it was our last day on the Mediterranean side of Italy, we finally decided we absolutely had to get in the water.

We found a store and bought some swimwear and then asked around until we found a bus to take us back down to the train station. From there we took off on foot until we found a way down to the water. The beach was rocky and painful to walk on so we hurried into the waves and found out they were even more painful—so, so cold….like ice water. We stayed in long enough to get some pictures and say we had been in the Mediterranean and then we limped cold and wet back across the rocks…but we had a really good time and I collected lots of pretty rocks from the beach to take back home with me. After that, we had to hurry back to the station so we wouldn’t miss the train.

Once we got back to Messina, we found a shop and tried some scrumptious cannoli. We both already love cannoli and always get some at our favorite Italian pastry shop when we’re in Boston. But Sicily is the birthplace of cannoli so it didn’t seem right to leave without trying some…good choice, Kari Ann, good choice…it was so yummy, and flaky, and creamy, and yummy…and now I want to go back and get some more.

After Sicily we took one day off from Italy and went to Dubrovnik, Croatia {Former Yugoslavia}…I’ll tell you all about it in a day or two.

If you missed any of the earlier posts in this series about Europe, you can still read them here:

Barcelona, Spain

Marseilles, France

Florence & Pisa

Rome, Italy

Pompeii & the Amalfi Coast