Italian weekend away on an active Volcano.

August.

19th to the 22nd.

Giarre resides along the coast of Sicily not 20 minutes from Catania, lying amongst numerous towns all blending into one another. The area is famous for its nearby tourist port, where luxury yachts port and resupply, which piqued my interest when I learned one of Dolce & Gabbana’s yachts also pulls up here. Meeting Jacob’s family was enjoyable and with true Italian hospitality, they made sure we were well looked after and fed till we couldn’t manage another morsel of food. One of the family’s home’s was way up on Mt Etna itself and we were blown away by such magnificent views! There we enjoyed paninis and fruit for lunch supplied by the family, and while Jacob spoke to them in  Italian, I enjoyed reading and taking in the view.

On our last day in the late afternoon, we traveled down to Aci Castello (a thirty-minute car drive from Riposto) to enjoy the lovely views from the seaside town and I had a quick look inside of Castello Normanno. We moved onto Aci Trezza were we enjoyed a pasta dinner with some of Jacob’s family late into the evening, followed by a stroll along the water’s edge while enjoying some ice cream.

For those traveling to Aci Trezza, the area is filled with plenty of options to dine and experience the night like the locals do.

In true Italian fashion of living, Jacob’s Sicilian family’s residence on the slopes of Mt Etna had a garden full of fresh produce. Olive tree’s from which they get freshly pressed oil or whole olives to marinate for salads. There were Hazelnuts & Walnut trees, a beautiful cherry tree, and grape vine. Me being a tea drinking gal in a country whose homes rarely stock an English breakfast, I got to try a lovely, fresh laurel-leaf tea, plucked straight from the garden.

 Take a forty-minute drive from Giarre to the top of Mt Etna and you are gifted with stunning views from Taormina all the way down the coast to Catania. The gorgeous afternoon lighting up on Mt Etna had me taking plenty of pictures, which made it incredibly hard to decide on what pictures I liked more to post here. So, I’ve used all of them for you to enjoy! The backdrop of the beautiful black soil and the gray stormy clouds was a stunning sight. Amongst the sporadic grass patches were pretty, small purple flowers. Jacob tried in his Italian to ask what type of flowers they were but couldn’t quite understand the answer, unfortunately.

Aci Castello is a beautiful seaside town, filled with little streets and a gorgeous plaza where children and families gather in the late evenings. It would have been lovely to enjoy it during the day also.

Also, does anyone else think all the orange roof-tops remind them of Florence?

(In the last picture above, the town in the distance is Aci Trezza where we had dinner for the evening.)

From Palermo to Catania is roughly a two and a half hour train ride and from Catania transferring trains to Giarre is 20 minutes. We did have a forty-minute wait for the next train so we popped over to a restaurant to have a quick lunch.

 I would highly recommend this as a lovely weekend away from Palermo or while you are holidaying in the city of Catania.

If any of you are from England and know or live around Dover area, where would you go for a day trip? I’d happily hear your ideas and inspiration for September and I’d love to see what you guys like and would like to see me blog about.