The Beach at Taormina

We went to the beach on on our second Saturday in Sicily.  We see the Mediterranean Sea every time we go to church, when it's not too cloudy, but we wanted to go touch it. We knew it was only going to get colder, so better try to enjoy it while it's still nice.  It was a clear, gorgeous day.  Most of the coastline of Sicily consists of rocky cliffs.  Some people at Matt's work suggested going to Taormina, just 1/2 hour away.  It actually has beaches, though rocky.  It was October 29th.  We thought we would splash our feet a bit, and brought changes of clothes so we could be dry driving home.   The water was chilly along the shore, but we saw more than a dozen out swimming.  Isaac was the first brave one to just dive in.  It was actually warmer when you swam farther out.  I don't know why, but it felt true to us and was confirmed by others.  Weird.  We were definitely the weird ones.  We didn't have swimsuits, but didn't know if we would be able to have another clear day.  So we jumped in with our clothes.  Cuckoo, I know.  Isaac and I kept wishing we had goggles at the least, and preferably swimsuits too, to try and swim out to the buoy lines.  

Before our swimming exhibition, we took a boat ride out to see some grottos along the coast.  There was one called the Blue Cave, but in Italian, where the water is almost blindingly blue.  We saw post where guns were mounted to stop ships (Allies, I'm sure) from coming in to the bay during WWII.  It was a lovely day.  We had our first meal out later that evening.  We managed to order and had an excellent dinner.  That was where Matt go into conversation with some German tourists.  We had been feeling handicapped in Italy.  

We saw two examples of local wildlife on the switchback trail down to the beach.  This one didn't bother us, but the next one did, especially after watching it scale the wall! 

That's a black snake, over two feet long.

 

On the boat ride.  The guy blows a conch shell when he come to shore to advertise his ride. 

That's where they shot at boats during the war.

The kids and I swam out to some rocks.  It was SO HARD to hold still for a picture.  The waves weren't big, but strong enough that it was really hard to have all 4 of us upright at the same time.  We didn't realize it till back at the shore, but those rocks are sharp!  I used up a bunch of band aids patching up bleeding slices from the rocks.  The water was gorgeous, but disgustingly salty.  We did get to change into dry clothes, but wished we could rinse off the salt first.  Oh well.  We will have plenty of beach days soon enough.