Camillo and I live in the vacation wonderland of the world. From the Christ to the Sugar Loaf, from the laying on the beach and playing in the surf to hiking in the forests that run through Rio and rock climbing, From eating Churrasco to drinking caiprinhas in the open air, you can’t beat this city for a great vacation. But within my definition of a great vacation are several elements missing in Rio. Primarily a vacation needs to take you away from your routine and give you a long break from what you know and are familiar with. That means that for me I need to go anyplace other than someplace in Brasil to really have a vacation.
Camillo and I talked several times this week about which vacation place, outside of Brasil, has been our best vacation. This was a VERY hard choice. We have been so many places, eaten to much great food, seen such beauty that to say ‘that’ is number one – for both of us – took some real negotiations. Since 2007 when I started writing for ‘Flowers’ I have shown you our vacations virtually as they have happened. Not only did I have to look through my digital archives looking at those I’ve already shown you, trying to make the choice, but also the 14 albums from my 35 mm days. I can tell you I really enjoyed reviewing all the photos.
Maybe the win for Taormina was because this city was a first visit for both of us; in 2002 – not so long ago – we flew from Houston to Rome to Sicily and spent a week or so in Taormina, across a valley from Etna and flowing to the edge of the sea, this little city is beautiful. Taormina has romance, adventure, Greek and Roman ruins, texture and color to make you and your camera happy; it is small enough that you can walk from one side to the other holding hands, and large enough to have a variety of hotels and restaurants to meet your budget. We dubbed it the city of balconies.
I got my first digital camera for Christmas of 2002, too late to give you digital photos of Taormina. I spent the better part of yesterday scanning about 1/2 of my photos of the trip into the computer. I don’t think this gives you really good photos but good enough for you to get the idea. At the end of this post will be several slide shows if you want to see more.
Villa Romana, in the mid-central part of Sicily. The tour takes you through hills full of lemon trees. The villa was discovered by a farmer turning over a new field. It was once a vacation home for a Roman General out of north Africa. All the wall and floors were decorated with detailed mosaic …. During restoration each area was painstakingly cleaned, sorted and re-laid. An art not lost
Another tour took us up onto the sides of The Etna – still hot from the last eruption, we were
instructed not to leave the designated trail…. to make his point the tour guide threw a piece of paper onto the lava stone and it caught on fire….. we were careful where we put our feet.
