Taormina is a curious town in Sicily nestling halfway up a volcanic hillside not too far from Mount Etna although far enough these days apparently. Getting there is not straightforward simple because the geography doesn't want to make it easy. There's no large port here, so one again we drop anchor in the nearby bay, along side a Regent Seven Seas (the Navigator, essentially the same ship as us although probably different inside) and tender to the far side of the bay where a small harbour and marina have evolved.
It feels to far to walk all the way, so we succumb to the shuttle bus which takes us via a tortuous rout of twist, turns, tunnels and treacherous cliff-side roads almost up to the old town. Even then there's a seven story elevator up the this walled city's doorway, but we're too impatient to wait and head for the steps instead. It's a very popular tourist destination so even though the two visiting ships are small, there's a lot of tourism going on and the crowded main street is ram-packed at first, but starts to calm down as the tourists disperse. We progress along the street through squares and past churches until we arrive at the amazing Theatro Greco, which is actually Roman, being originally C3BC but massively rebuilt in C2AD, and pretty much unchanged since then, perhaps apart from the wiring! It is the second largest amphitheatre of its kind in EurAfrica at over 102m in diameter. We observe that during the summer it has an excellent scheule of performances.
After exploring the town we head upwards in the direction of Castelmola, a town some 500m above sea-level on the top of a hill. It's a struggle in the heat but actually only takes 50 minutes to ascend and the result is magnificent - the tiny town, it's castle and the views are worth the pain in getting here. A quick lunch are we're ready to return, via Taormina and thence beyond to the water's edge and a final 2 mile walk back along the bay to the small harbour where the ship has set up its tender landing, all told 7km in 85 minutes in the low thirty degree temperature isn't too bad!
We're back in good time to attend a champagne and caviar tour of the galley with Executive Chef Paul, who gives us a detailed explanation of how we are fed, such as a full 1/5 of the entire ship's company is dedicated to our bellies, including 52 chefs just to feed 450 guests! Good odds in my book!
Then we have the first of two shows today, the pre-dinner one being a ship's company production we've seen before, but the setting is lovely and we enjoy once again the professional singers and dancers on-board. Later we get to see a guest comedian/musician who's quite good but at times a little dodgy (and we have a wide tolerance of humour!)
In between the shows we manage to grab two aperitifs at the pool-side bar on eight before descending to the MDR for dinner, another test of the Thomas Keller franchise Seabourn has recently negotiated. It was 8 / 10 tonight, regulars might guess that was less than good enough for my demanding tastes!
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