Days 7 through 9: Mediterranean Boating and Volcano Climbing

Ortigia was the first super touristy town we had visited so far. With its labyrinth of stone paths and limited vehicle activity, it was a perfect place to walk in leisure while eating and drinking everything in site. Our first morning, we enjoyed some fun in the sun during our boat cruise around the small island. We boarded a small boat with 7 other people and our guide took us to some of the large caves in the side of Syracuse's seaside cliffs and showed us spectacular views around the bay.

We had skipped breakfast in order to not miss our early morning boat tour and so we were starving. With my superior restaurant searching abilities, I found this little hidden cafe called Irma la Dolce with amazing food including one of the most life-altering homemade hot chocolates I've ever had. It was thick as molasses and exploded with dark chocolatey goodness. I threw in a shot of espresso for a kick and topped it off with freshly made whipped cream. It even came with cookies!

We burned off the calories exploring all the hidden corridors, meeting more street cats, and doing some epic shopping. The shopping was pretty remarkable as I bought myself some legit Italian made shirts and Christina acquired a few things herself. That is pretty much all we did. Walk, shop, eat, drink, repeat.

Our last dinner was at a seafood restaurant Christina found and I know I keep saying this but it was freaking delicious. I would have to say it was the best seafood I have ever had. And I'm comparing that to the culinary perfection we once had in Santorini, Greece where I ate an incredible grilled squid. But this place in Ortigia won the title for best seafood overall. We ordered squid, seafood pasta, and pan-fried swordfish washing it all down with a bottle of Sicilian white wine. A beautiful street cat kept walking past me hoping I would drop a few bites for him. Lucky for him, I'm a messy eater so there were plenty of treats that fell to the floor for the little dude. The dinner was the best way to end our quick trip in Ortigia and fuel up for our journey to Mt. Etna the next day.

The next day, we grabbed breakfast pastries, packed up the car and headed toward Mt. Etna, Sicily's resident volcano and the largest in all of Italy. We drove up more winding roads to the starting point of the cable car lift on the south side of the volcano. The price was a bit steep at 78 euros a person but it was absolutely worth it. The cable car lifted us up 2,500 meters (about 8,000 ft) to a base station then we hopped onto an off-roading mega bus that drove us up another 500 meters. So we were about 10,000 ft up the very active volcano walking on rocks that were spewed out less than a year ago in its last eruption. It was a bit freaky thinking about how the heck we were going to get down if this thing decided to get angry and release lava or toxic gasses, but I did a good job keeping those dark thoughts at bay. We walked around one of the large craters where lava once spewed out and our guide told us some factoids about the volcano. But I was even more impressed with the guide's ability to switch from Italian, to English, to French, and to German multiple times as he spoke with different tourists.

After our 45 minute tour, we loaded back onto the bus and returned to the base station where we enjoyed a little snacky snack in the cafe. We sat there eating our paninis and chips while taking in the spectacular view of the entire Sicilian east coast. It was simply Wow.

We then made our cable car journey back down to the parking lot, explored a little more in the area, then jumped back in the car for our next fun activity, wine tasting. We booked a wine tour at a vineyard, Cantina del Malandrino, situated along the eastern slope of Mt. Etna. Getting there was absolutely the scariest driving experience up to that point in our trip. Again, no surprise the roads were narrow and winding but the cars coming in opposite directions clearly didn't care to use their breaks. They were so confident they wouldn't scrape the side of my car as they barreled on past us. We eventually made it to the entrance of the vineyard and were welcomed by the host and her partner as well as their many cats and dogs.

The host sat down with us and regaled us with the story of her vineyard startup adventure. She was an architect and her partner an engineer and they decided to buy an abandoned vineyard just for fun. It turned out to be more work than they thought but ended up loving it. We tasted in total 7 of their wines and they all had a slight bit of fizziness. Maybe it was from being 100% organic but the first wine we tasted was pretty much kombucha. We were given a nice tour of the place and learned about the old ways wine was made in the building including seeing the room that would be filled with grapes and people would step on them. The juices would flow down to stone drains as the floor was slanted. Of course they don't do it that way anymore and that room was the dining room where we enjoyed a pretty remarkable assortment of cheeses, meats, and other treats. That cheese....my gosh. I think the whole room heard the noises I made when I bit into that first chunk. Usually Christina would be embarrassed of my extra animated reactions but she was busy having her own moment of indulgent bliss with the ricotta cheese. The fresh ricotta was astonishing and tasted like no other ricotta we've ever had. It was freshly made that day for it came from a neighbor's sheep farm. I know I sound like a broken record, but this place became the best wine tasting experience I ever had both for the actual wine and the food. I told the guy this and he was very honored. They were such a kind couple and I will certainly be leaving them a great review. We wanted to stay a bit longer to try more wine but it was getting dark. The 2 hour wine tour turned into a 4 hour tour and I was worried about the winding roads at night. So we bid our friends farewell and drove over to the most famous town in Sicily, Taormina.