The road from Linguaglossa[1] up Mt. Etna - it's in fairly high res on Google Earth. A never-ending bendfest but very few tight Alpine-esque hairpins. I'd guess they're mostly in the 50-70mph range on a bike, but it's hard to tell as we were in a Fiat Panda :-/ Best bit is the road surface. Grippy as ****, with no gravel, no cracks/potholes, & amazingly not one single bit of over-banding. I've never been so depressed to be stuck in a cage. As for the rest of Sicily, I loved it. We stayed in Taormina, which I suspect would be a nightmare in high season with the heat & crowds. But in May/June it's fantastic - a really nice place to sit on a restaurant terrace above the bay with Etna smoking away as a backdrop. Views don't get much better. Thankfully the food was consistently better than Venice or Rome, so my faith in Italian cooking has /almost/ been restored, apart from the rancid prawns dished up on the last night. I wouldn't mind if it was just a genuine rogue prawn, but when the waiter returned after taking them away & said "I've tasted them & the chef has tasted them & they're fine, it's just that they're fresh & you're used to frozen prawns" it was time to go postal & walk out, ensuring the other diners knew why we were leaving. If you ever go to Taormina, avoid the 'Il Cicclione' (sp?) in the main street at all costs. [1] 1,681 miles from here according to MapPoint - only a couple of days riding then. Hmmm... -- Krusty www.MuddyStuff.co.uk Off-Road Classifieds '02 MV Senna '03 Tigtona 955i '96 Tiger '79 Fantic Hiro 250
Stayed in Baia Taormina a couple of years back - not bad, but I wouldn't rave about it. The rest of our experience of Sicily was very disappointing. ??? I'm shocked, although I've never been to these. We found the food on Sicily to be very mundane, boring even, with very little variety between restaurants. If you're a lover of seafood then perhaps ot would be better, but otherwise it was pasta, pizza, escalopes and the odd steak, not even very well presented. Contrast that with my (2, so far) experiences of Tuscany in general, Florence specifically; they couldn't be further apart. Frankly, I'd go to Florence for the food alone, although the wine is also outstanding. Wild boar, wild pig (Cinta Senese), rabbit, lamb, and loads of other meat dishes feature heavily. If I were to visit Sicily again, I'd go self-catering to get some decent grub. Go to Florence, or any of the towns around there. Even the ultra-touristy restaurants in the Piazzi are better than anything we found on Sicily. Actually, now you mention it, we did have a couple of half-decent eating experiences in Taormina itself - the first few days in Giardini Naxos, which was, basically, a dump, had perhaps tainted our opinion. The last four days we stayed at this place http://www.baiataormina.com/inglese/albergo/hotel_taormina.htm which was much better, but even so... -- _______ ..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom) \`\ | /`/ GSX-R1000K3 (slightly broken, currently missing) `\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2, IBB#10 `\|/` `
*ding* though, in Florence itself there are a lot of fleece-the-tourists type places to avoid. If anything, I found the best Tuscan food in places that don't look like much e.g. Pogibonsi, but also had some absolutely brilliant food in Sienna.
Aye, but even those actually serve decent food. Yeah, we ate in the square there on our last night (of four, the weekend before last). Great food and wonderful surroundings. Another memorable meal was lunch in the village square at Greve-in-Chianti. The only bad thing was that I forgot to make a note of the supplier of the unbelievably good house wine we drank at around 3 Eu the (large) glass. It was from a vineyard we'd walked past earlier, but I was later unable to find it in any shops. In the event, we stopped at a supermarket on the way back and got just a dozen or so bottles of rosso - next time we'll take the Volvo and make a special effort to fill it with the stuff at the suppliers'. -- _______ ..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom) \`\ | /`/ GSX-R1000K3 (slightly broken, currently missing) `\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2, IBB#10 `\|/` `
I posted about the horrendous food back in January, iirc. The difference this time was I made a point of researching restaurants before going, & only going to the highly recommended ones. We did break this rule one night - three guesses which one... I think 'rustic' is the word, but yes, a lot of the restaurants were quite samey. The fish however is superb, as were some of the pasta dishes, particularly the tagliatelle with black truffles we found in one place. I also had possibly the best pizza I've ever tasted. Florence is on the list for a trip - possibly next Spring. Indeed. Naxos is a low-budget shithole with a nice beach, whereas Taormina is a very upper-class town riddled with designer shops & expensive hotels. We stayed at http://www.hotelmontetauro.it/uk/index_uk.htm It's a somewhat surreal place - sort of a cross between Italian chic & 1970's pre-fab concrete tower block. Excellent rooms, service & location though, & a pool guy who takes his job so seriously it's hysterical. -- Krusty www.MuddyStuff.co.uk Off-Road Classifieds '02 MV Senna '03 Tigtona 955i '96 Tiger '79 Fantic Hiro 250
well, yes - it's the rip-off prices that I object to - but you're right, it's hard to get bad food in Tuscany. I am determined to make it to the Paleo sooner rather than later - I adore Siena. it's the polite thing to do.
Thanks for the offer, but SWMBO's not into distance riding. I'll wave from the plane as we fly over though. Must be a time of year thing; it was immaculately clean last week, as were the pebble beaches a little further up. We didn't go anywhere near the deckchairs though, preferring to stick to the unmolested end further away from the harbour. -- Krusty www.MuddyStuff.co.uk Off-Road Classifieds '02 MV Senna '03 Tigtona 955i '96 Tiger '79 Fantic Hiro 250
