Finally Some Sleep In Italy
By Lothar. Filed in Italy |
Gabi is suffering from Italian beds, nighttime noise and resulting sleep deprivation. We are flying from Rome to Catania on October 9. Our Alitalia Airbus gets us safely to Sicily, even though the dirt in the cabin and the broken water faucet and condition of the bathroom are not exactly confidence builders!
We arrive at 9:45 in the morning and did not have any breakfast yet. We end up at a Burger King in a modern Catania Mall and have an early lunch. Mount Aetna is looming behind the mall, and I do not understand, why the Sicilians build a huge mall at the base of Europe’s most active volcano ( numerous small eruptions already this year).
Gabi has booked us a room at Hotel Crystal Sea in Forza d’Agro and the view from our room’s hilltop terrazza is “priceless” ( and yes, I am paying with Visa)! We overlook the Bay of Taormina and in the north can see the tip of the Italian boot and the Strait of Messina. Our first night here is unbelievably quiet. Hardly any guests in the hotel, and Gabi sleeps, for the first time here in Italy, through the night. We right away book 2 more nights and now have 3 days to rest, sleep and be lazy. There is not much to do here anyway. Except for visiting Greek and Roman ruins. Everything else is pretty much closed. The season ended last month, the hotel pool is closed and most beach chairs and umbrellas are packed up. Today is sunny and 24°C and we find a Bagno with 2 chairs and an umbrella for us at the Lido in Letoyanni.
The chairs cost 10 € now, and the life guard tells Gabi that it costs 30€ ($ 45) in the summer to sit here on the beach, with people lining up to grab a chair! We read, sleep on the empty beach, and even swim in the ocean. We do not understand, why there are only a dozen other people here now, compared to the crowds of the summer.
Did I mention, that the elevator in our hotel wakes us every morning and sounds like Mount Aetna rumbling?
Wednesday, October 26th 2011 at 9:11 pm |
Maxine