Reggio Di Calabria

November 2:  After a LONG day of Vatican City, metros, buses, and planes we finally arrived in Reggio about 10:40pm on Wed. night.  We hop in the car with Tanner’s cousin Cailyn, and her Italian friend Saso (that’s how you pronounce his name, not how you spell it, I have no idea how to spell it).  Within five minutes, I foundo out that he knows some of my friends who studied in Reggio this past summer, SMALL WORLD!  He is currently dating one of Cailyn’s two roommates.  Tanner and I were starving, so we dropped our bags at Cailyn’s apartment and went to get some food. 

Home sweet home for the week

Kitchen

I didn’t take a picture of the restaurant, which was unfortunate because it was my favorite pizza in all of Italy.  One side was mozzarela, parm, and ham; and the other side was spicy proccuto and cheese.  They also served us these potato wedge type fries with sauteed mushrooms on them, deliciouss.  

parm on the left, spicy meat on the right

After a third of that pizza and a beer, Tanner and I were comatose, so we went back, had some canolies, and crashed.

November 3:  We just got the tour around Reggio for our first day there.  Tanner’s cousin plays professional volleyball in Italy, so they had stuff to do in the morning – which meant Tan man and I finally got to sleep in till around eleven, it was great!.  We woke up and headed down to the beach with a sheet and a few beers.  

Awesome beach! Rocky, not sandy

The town is nothing to write home about, but the aura of it and just the atmopshere were awesome – everyone said it is 10x better in the summer, which I definitely believe, but it was still a blast.  We stopped at Sottozzero, a famous gelato place to get this gelato called “flavor de Sicilia” and it was the best ice cream I have ever tasted.  

Flavor di Sicilia!

It had thinly sliced postaccios in it, but aside from that I don`t have any idea how to describe the flavor, it was unlike anything I have ever tasted, but teeming with flavor.  It was right on the beach, so we took our gelato to the boardwalk and then just hung out on the beach for a few hours.  On our walk back we passed the “travelator” as they had nick-named it.  It was literally an escalator for the street, pretty odd but neat.  We also walked by the oldest building in Reggio, the only building to survive the massive 1908 earthquake that struck the south of Italy.  

"Travelator"

Old castle

We went out that night, but I forgot my camera, nothing too special.

November 4:  Taormina!  Today was quite the adventure, all in all, we took a bus, ferry, train, and cab in our travels to and from Taormina.  The ferry across from Reggio to Sicily took about half hour, and that thing was moving.  It was a pretty large boat, it could probably hold over 100 passengers and had to have been going 35 miles an hour at least.  We got to the first city in Sicily, Messina, which was nothing special at all.  The one thing that was great in Messina was this food called Arancini (pronounced aranchini). 

Arancini

It was this cone shaped friend ball with rice, cheese, some sort of amazing sauce, and ham – for only 1,50€ it was the best snack I`ve had this far in europe.  From Messina we hopped on the train, for Tanner’s first train ride ever!  Took about an hour to get to Taormina, and once we got there we got impaceint waiting for the bus and hopped in a 5 minute cab ride that set us back 15€, I knew it was bad news when he didn’t have a meter.  Oh well.  Finally in Taormina, the views were breathtaking, and the city was just so neat.  

When you think of Italy, you think of Taormina – winding streets, every other street was stairs because of the slope the city is built on, and around every corner was a different beautiful view of the Mediterannean.  

Windy streets and staircases!

Little garden Tanner and I found

We just sort of wandered around the city aimlessly, which was awesome – we got lost for a while which actually was legitimately fun.  It was pretty cloudy and started to rain towards the end, a sunny day would have been great, but it was still beautiful nonetheless.  

We made our way back to Reggio, and walked around in Reggio until 8, where we went to BIRRI BASTA.  The best restaurant in the world!  

SUCH A COOL PLACE

It was the coolest, best vibe I have ever gotten in a restaurant – the bars were clear glass so you could see all the kegs and lines going to the taps, they had pictures of all their patrons up on the wall, and a list of beers that about quadrupled the list of food.  

The beer on the right was like no beer I had ever had, the taste left your pallet after every sip, so it was like your first sip every time.  Very neat.

I had one belguim beer and one german beer, both delicious and unlike any other beer I have had, plus the pizza wasn’t too shabby either.  

Clear bars, with black lighting

I couldn’t stop thinking about how well a place like that would do if it was in Harrisonburg, it was absolutely awesome.  We didn’t go out that night because the girls had a game the next day, so we just hung out and watched Spy Games, which I had never seen before, and it blew my mind, such a neat plot.

November 5: Today we slept in again while the girls had practice and woke up to head to Scilla (pronounced sheela) around 11:30.  It was just a half hour train ride to this tiny town that was RIGHT on the water.  When I say right on the water, I mean the furthest house from the beach was no more than a few hundred feet.  

Gorgeous

We had lunch and this stray dog came up to us, who was soo cute and followed us around all day because we kept giving him food.  After lunch we went up to the old castle that you can see in the picture above that was a defense outpost with even better views out into the ocean.  

Other side of Scilla

speaks for itself

After touring around that we just hung out on the beach for a few hours, vegging out and actually swam, in November!  The water was probably aroun 70 degrees, but the cool thing was that the water is so salty that you literally did not have to put forth any effort to float.  

Splashh!

Just floatin'

You could just spread eagle, put your hands behind your head and float without doing anything – awesome!  We trained back to Reggio and the girls had a game that night.  Admittedly, I did not have high expectations for this game, but they were GOOD.  

They killed the other team and everyone had a great game, I was very impressed with their skills.  We went out that night, the nightlife is nothing too great, but it was still fun.  We woke up at like 5 to head to the airport and back to Spain we went!

Italy was awesome.