this video is sponsored by noon last time on delightful travelers we checked out the
little Beach town of giardini naxos it was great to relax on the beach but now it's time
to move on in this video we'll be visiting one of Sicily's most popular destinations
taormina this place comes highly recommended and it's easy to see why I'm Anna and this is
Trevor in this series we're exploring the south of Italy join us on our adventures
by hitting subscribe and clicking the like button an extra thank you to our channel
members and patrons for making these videos possible now let's go explore
well hello everyone and welcome back to our final video here in Sicily not Italy though we are in
one of the absolute prettiest towns in all of Italy I would say but it's also very busy here
it doesn't look good right now though it does not but we are in taormina it's one of the most
recommended places and you're gonna see just how pretty it is so we've literally just arrived here
and already a few things that are surprising us one is how many people are here so if you've been
following along you know that we arrived in Sicily in likely mid-august and it's now early September
and things have definitely been getting quieter as we go along but it doesn't seem to be the case
here first not so busy right here but the main road is packed and there's huge lineups to get
into the main tourist attractions so we purposely tried to start in a quiet alley today just so you
guys can hear us because it's going to get busy as we make our way throughout the video now I'm sure
you're saying to yourself this just looks like a the same old kind of Italian alleys the same
old kind of town I assure you it is not this place is perched on top of or let's call it a cliff and
it is straight out of an absolute Dreamland so one little travel tip for you if you are coming
to a very touristy town try to get off the main drag I always think of like Dubrovnik that main
pedestrian area is always packed with people same thing here so try to get into the little Alleyways
it gets so much wider and really really cute being our last day here in Sicily we thought we would
get some more Sicilian treats of course we've had these before in videos but they're also good we
went again for a granita which is basically like shaped ice you get different flavorings Trevor
went for coffee with whipped cream comes with brioche bread and I went with lemon not gonna lie
it is really hot today so we needed a way to cool down and this is the best way to do it now I've
been seeing lots of Italians getting these kind of granitas which has the coffee in there so I'm
just gonna go for a look at the mess I'm making here you can see the whipped cream on the top
oh this is so good with the little bits like chocolate syrup on the inside it makes it
nice and sweet mmm really taste the coffee we all know whipped cream what whipped cream tastes like
what a perfect little medley of things to cool you down on a very hot Italian summer day we
unfortunately had a little bit of a fail at the beginning of the video we had plans to go to a
place called bambar which apparently is really really famous for their granitas but it's Monday
and they're closed on Monday I don't know if that's a new thing it's not updated on their
Google thing which says they're open but there's a big sign on the door saying they're closed on
Mondays maybe it's because it's low season now I'm not sure but this is definitely a great
alternative we got this brioche bread here and I'm gonna try some of my lemon granita with it
Hmm this is so good we have to love the brioche bread with it it's a little bit sweet very very
soft the lemon this is the first time having lemon granita it's perfect a little bit sweet not too
sour so refreshing I wonder if we can find this in the rest of Italy I don't know good question
we will find out soon well we finished up lunch and we came over to a park and I'm pretty sure
they can see why yeah we haven't spent too much time in this town yet so maybe there's better
views somewhere but I don't know this is pretty incredible so as you might know in the last video
we were in Nexus which you can actually see from here that's what basically what we're looking at
and it's funny because there we were looking up at this beautiful town on the hill and now it's
cool to see the other perspective and look down on an axis so these Gardens are absolutely beautiful
and right in the town we kind of just stumbled across the mall we did and right in the middle
of the gardens it's some sort of war memorial yeah not sure what the story is behind it but there's
like basically a statue in the Middle with a bunch of names on it I think from first world war and
there's like a cannon and maybe a summer yeah and some of them even have dates of like 1995 on there
something that's super interesting about these Gardens is that I find it actually encompasses the
types of foliage that we've encountered throughout Sicily at least in our experience because you see
everything from like various types of Palms to pine trees to cactuses or cacti I guess it is
and everything in between so it's like super dry species to like something you think you find in
the north somewhere so it's a super diverse and really interesting so we've just come across this
structure here clearly they are some ruins and they're kind of gated off under construction but
we're not sure what it is now I feel like we've been saying that a lot in the Sicily series but
here's the thing it's not on map it's on Google Maps and there's no signage but it's right in
the middle of this very popular Park and clearly it's an attraction because there's a lot of people
stopping and staring at this place and they're staring at me talking as well it's getting pretty
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us now back to the video we are making our way through one of the last quiet alleys onto one of
the busiest streets you probably thought we were joking all along saying there's so many people
here because we've been in pretty quiet spots but here you go you can see all the people what's kind
of interesting is most people kind of stick to the main three or four streets they do it's like
there's a couple of Main Streets that are full of people and then everywhere seems pretty much empty
so we just came over to one of the main squares in this charming little town and we keep saying
to each other that I I think we both think this is one of the most beautiful places in all of Italy
it is like just the square alone is so gorgeous there's two churches the one behind us is the
Church of San Giuseppe it's also like a couple of towers and also well let's not forget the amazing
view from here I know the view from everywhere in this town is just incredible so if you guys
are new around here one of our goals with the channel here is to try to figure out places we
can live throughout the world different places so we're kind of on the hunt for that as we travel in
between these beautiful towns yeah so right now in Italy we're taking things a little bit faster
than usual we prefer we're gonna try to start to really slow things down and spend some time in
places a little too expensive to do that right now but we're sort of looking for places that we could
actually come back to and spend some time I would say based on what we're seeing right now could we
live here I don't know there's too many tourists for us however what about the evening I don't know
so it's interesting we've met met some people and heard that a lot of people do day trips here so
I'm very curious if it's going to get quieter at evening or if all the people that are currently
inside are going to come outside and half the people will leave and have them will come outside
and they'll feed Justice yeah I still don't think I could ever live in a super touristic town I know
that for sure yeah I bet you in low season it's so much better it's so pretty here I mean I can
see how you could come here and just be enchanted by it because it's so so pretty one of the must do
things here in taormina is to come to the Greek Theater and wow I think you can probably see
why this is one of the most interesting coolest theaters we've ever come to this is definitely
not our first time to a theater like this in fact we were recently at a theater very much like this
in Catania in Catania but we've also been in once obviously in Greece and also in Turkey as well but
this one is pretty special yeah what you can't see in the background is Mount Etna now if those
clouds weren't there you would see this looming volcano Mountain that would look really close to
here so that's pretty cool but also you get great views from that Beach town we were at called naxos
as well so this place is very very special I read a little bit more about this place so what
they what it kind of says is that this is actually primarily made of bricks so that indicates that it
was Romans that built it however it's in the Greek style like basically the layout is Greek so what
they think happened was the Greeks originally did it and then the Romans built over top of it they
clearly knew what they were doing I believe this is maybe the highest point here in this charming
little town you have a view of naxos the beach town we were at and on a clear day you can also
see Mount Aetna pretty wild and I can only imagine they seem to be setting up for a show here so they
clearly still do shows they definitely and this is uh compared to the one we're at in Katana this one
has been entirely rebuilt you can come here and enjoy shows that's so cool walking around this
place is just mesmerizing and I can't help to think what it would be like a couple thousand
years ago but a couple Pro kits for you one is we got to the city mid-morning and we just happened
to walk by here and there was a huge lineup to get in we actually came at what three o'clock 3 30 and
there wasn't much the lineup took us maybe two minutes to get our tickets and it was 10 euros
per person to get in that's not too bad I mean 10 euros a person to get in here and get views like
this I'd say it's worth it we decided we have to get one more or arancini before we leave at
Sicily again just like the granita I'm not sure if this is something you can find in the rest
of Italy we have been twice before in other parts of Italy and I don't remember seeing them but of
course I wasn't really looking for them either now I will be uh I went for a cacio e Pepe so
this place has some different types of arancini that we haven't seen in other places it's towards
later in the day so imagine in the morning you probably get a better selection they were out of
a lot of things but this is the one I would have gone for so I lucked out actually try it it's an
interesting shape before I get into that so in Palermo they were circles in Catania they were
shaped like Aetna and I thought they probably would be here but at least this one is not
will this just not disappoint for my last Erin Genie here in Sicily cacioe Pepe is actually one
of my favorite Italian I think it's Roman style pastas it's just a certain type of cheese I forget
what kind and pepper and that's essentially it simple delicious to say the same thing about this
nice and creamy I love the cheese inside and it's super peppery so for my last one I'll be honest I
was really hoping to get the traditional Ragu and they were all out and I think that's just because
we're a little later in the day now there's less people here which is kind of encouraging I like
that it's not as busy throughout the entire day but the one I went for is pistachio now
pistachio is from this region I think there's some spec in here like a ham and pour some
cheese nice and golden on the outside it's not very hot though so let's see what it's like
hmm oh there this is a tasty little guy there's a bit of that nutty flavor and then you can taste
the meat as well gives it the Savory flavor the cheese is very good it's just not quite
hot enough I do wish it was a little hotter it's a very lukewarm at best temperature but it is good
I was hoping to have a better one for my final one here in Sicily but either way this is gonna
do the trick because we're starving we've been walking around a lot today Welcome to our hotel
the grand miramari it's actually the next day and we figured before we leave we would show
you a little bit around the hotel so just so you know hotels in toramina are super expensive this
was a total Splurge for us though probably our one Splurge here in our time in Italy but we had to do
it how often are we going to stay in a beautiful town on the edge of a cliff not very often yeah
and we Splurge but this room is not very big huh no so just so you know some of the hotels
here are upwards of like a thousand Euros a night this I think cost is around 150 so definitely on
the cheaper side of tormina but still expensive for us for sure so this is actually it you'll
see the closet behind me right here we do have a desk there is a nice view which I'll show you
in a minute we have a fridge we've stashed our luggages on top of that we're only here for a
couple nights but it's very small huh yeah so we got a bathroom over here yeah so this way it's
a nice bright bathroom lights bright yeah a big sink area a toilet of course the bidet the shower
um I took a shower last night first and Trevor asked me how it was and I said very small and an
aggressive rain shower and when he took a shower he said it was maybe one of the worst showers
he's had because it's that that rain shower is super crazy and there's no room and water gets
all over the place so maybe not the best shower ever I just want to show you guys this so that's
my tripod holding up my MacBook charger into the wall so if you don't know in Europe often your
chargers fall out so I've been using this to hold my plugs in more than I've been using it for like
a camera tripod but you've been doing it basically everywhere it's not it's not just this hotel it's
basically every plug we've had issues with but really at this hotel what you're paying for is
the amazing view yeah here is the view outer window you were just looking right down the
coastline of Sicily and we're very high complete Ocean View it's beautiful so I just made my way
outside here and the views get even better now I'm trying to make my way down this giant staircase to
find Anna she's already at the pool but you can probably tell just how special this place is from
the air it is out of this world the views you have of Sicily here on the coast are like no other and
you can see izola Bella off in the distance there it's like this little tiny Island and there's like
a walkway to get out there if you want to go down I believe there's a cable car that you can take to
go do that so yeah this place is amazing views like this I could just stare at them for days
I'm not even joking there has to be hundreds of stairs to get down to that pool way down there
now I'm halfway already welcome to the pool it's actually super quiet down here so I'm going to try
not to talk too loudly to interrupt other people it's very very quiet and relaxing so this part
I know we said we splurged a little bit this is kind of why we did it so we could have some chill
pool time the nexos tormina portion of our Sicily train trip we've kind of been devoting it to like
relax a little bit more enjoy the beach enjoy a pool because before that we were in Catania and
chapalu and before that Palermo we really didn't get any down time or like days off we were filming
and doing work now is our time to like enjoy this yeah we we're supposed to be going slower but I
know for this portion it's been quicker so far it has not been like that yeah so let's talk about
that a little bit the whole slow travel thing so we anticipated not doing that too much in Italy
remember we said sometimes we're going to slow travel in other times not the problem the good
problem with Italy is there's so many places to go it's really hard to pick just one also it's
a little more on the expensive side so we have to be kind of strategic we're down here in Sicily for
the first time we want to check out a few places but as we go on throughout the months we will be
going a little slower in certain countries that's right of course we're going to different countries
so that brings us to the question of could we live here in toramina and I would say based on
what we've seen so far and I know we're here in Taurus this year reason is that it is too touristy
for us probably a little bit too expensive for us I noticed the restaurants are a little bit
more than they are down in Nexus and other places so probably not a place we would come stay for a
long period of time but I think what potentially we could do is stay in Catania which has a lot
more stuff available um it's cheaper there's a lot of different restaurants as you saw in
our video and then do you know like vacations do a little weekends away to places like this day trips
and well Night Trips maybe yeah to places like this but this place is worth visiting for sure
absolutely yeah it's absolutely stunning we're back in our room now and we just wanted to take
the time to kind of wrap up Sicily because that's it finito for now for now so we know a lot of you
watching are probably going to say we miss so much here in Sicily silly is a really big island if
you didn't know that already it's huge there's so much to do and see here so we are we really
saw a little bit of a sliver here but it's like we could come and spend months and months here
yeah it gives us a good reason to come back we can't see it everything on every trip we do we
always say that often when we go somewhere because people will say I can't believe it
yeah so if you're wondering we will come back but we're not leaving Italy quite yet huh no
so next up is Napoli or Naples as they call it I don't know we say that or Italian in Italian
yeah so that is what's happening next and I'm sure we will be eating some food there maybe
some pizza I think that's what you go there for one of the things so that should be uh awesome
but back to just Sicily and you know until the the new series that we're in here like could we
live here so out of all the places we visited I think if we lived somewhere we can kind of
picture ourselves in Katana yeah for sure out of like they're gonna pick out of the two cities
Palermo's lovely yeah but I think Catania just felt more livable to us it felt more livable to
us and I don't know if that's because it just was like very diverse full culture the food was
awesome it wasn't just Italian food as much as we love Italian food we just love having options and
it felt like more of a city where people live rather than just like tourists yeah yeah very
young at heart and you can take a train to these Beach places so that was that would probably be
the one but there's more to explore here as we go throughout Italy now if you guys got this far
in the video and you're even in the series so far thank you for watching we really appreciate
each and every one of you leave us a comment hit the like button do all the things we love
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week all right guys that's it from taormina wishing you delightful travel see you soon