Up and Down, the East Coast: Day 40

Monday was filled with a lot of adventure!

We got up super early, took the train to Catania, and went on a tour of Mt. Etna with a tour group. It was quite exhilarating, but I was expecting to see a little more than we did. We drove up the mountain to the ski slopes where we saw the beautiful view of Catania you see in the pictures, then we stopped along a road to see the smoke coming from the very top of the volcano, and the new peak next to it that has formed. Then we got to go into a lava tube (that hasn’t been active for hundreds of years) and look around in the light of our headlamps. I took a few rocks from the tube to keep as a souvenir!  

Afterwards, we still had a good part of the afternoon, so we decided to be spontaneous and take the train to Taormina. I was hoping we would find a map near the train station, but instead we followed a sign pointing towards Taormina up the 200 meter hill along a winding road. After a good 40 minute hike, a cab stopped and drove us to our destination; the Greek Amphitheatre. Unfortunately, we were thirty minutes too late, so got cannoli’s and made our hike back down the winding road to the train station.  We weren’t able to see what we had come looking for, but we sure did see a great view from our climb!

The winding road we hiked up... yikes!

Observation of the Day: BE Spontaneous. This has been a goal of mine for a while now, and I think Rome and my other travels are really helping me to be more spontaneous and free-spirited!