Catania, Sicily

We missed the 5:15AM viewing of Mt. Etna before pulling up to the pier in Catania. As it turns out, I am glad we didn't set the alarm though because you can see Mt. Etna from just about every vantage point around the city. We took a bus tour this morning from the port to a little village called Taromina (about an hour drive from the port by bus). The village was originally built by the Greeks in the 3rd century BC, and was later completely ronovated by the Romans. At the end of the village is the remains of famous Greco-Roman Theatre built of stone. We took many pictures here and listened to the stories of how Greek Tragedies were performed here. The Romans turned the amphitheatre into an arena and built facilities for wild animals (you could sort of fill in the blanks as to why there were wild animals). The Romans it seems, had sort of a sick sense of entertainment! I have been trying beers from each of the countries visited. So far I like them all!

The bus tour guide was really great....she spoke of Palermo, Messina, Catania, etc. Just listening to her made me want to watch the movie Patton again as it seems so much of the movie centered around the island of Sicily. We were told that Sicily is the largest island in the Meditteranean and has three points (sort of an upside down triangle). What I did find surprising is that Mt. Etna is actually an active volcano and erupted just last May 13th, 2008. One can easily see the steam coming out of the crater all day. I am pretty convinced that the view of Mt. Etna is the same standard desktop background image you can choose using Windows XP. They told us that it takes a clear day to allow us to even see the peek but we saw that mountain top all day.

We drove by a cemetery where soldiers of World War II were buried, it was a grim reminder that the movie Patton.... was much more than a movie.

On to Naples.....