Taormina, Sicily, Italy April 24, 2017

The port for Taormina is Naxos and this was our first port where we anchored and used tenders to get ashore.  This process always takes longer as they call you to the tenders by your tour number and it takes a bit of time to get everyone on board the tenders.  Our tour was by bus to Taormina, an ancient hilltop city.  The weather was bight and warm so the city was packed with people, both tourists and locals. We noticed that there was a lot of painting , cleaning, repairs, etc going on and were informed by our tour guide that the up coming G7 meeting was being held in Taormina.  We also saw many official looking men is suits walking around with clip boards and gesturing a lot!  One can only imagine what a security nightmare it will be with all the narrow streets and alley ways.  There are many high end shops in addition to the usual tourist shops, lots of cafes and small restaurants.  We walked with our guide through the main part of the wider street that goes all the way to the Greco-Roman theater.  It was quite a climb up the uneven stone steps to the top of the theater, but the view was very nice.  We passed on walking down to the stage area and left the tour to walk back through the town to find a cafe.  We ended up eating gelato!  We met up with the tour and went back to our bus for the ride back down to Naxos so we could go back on the ship before afternoon tea and trivia. I can't even describe how difficult it was for our driver to get the (full size) bus out of the parking garage.  Wish I had pictures.  The opening to exit was barely wider than the bus and the driver had to negotiate between support poles to even get to the exit, it was amazing that he never hit anything.

Mt Etna was smoking a bit

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Our ship from top of hill at Taormina

Greco Roman theater is still used for performances