My last trip before the pandemic was to visit my sister in Italy. She studied abroad in Sicily for her nutrition program, so my family decided to travel to Sicily as her study abroad was ending and meet up with her. I have been to a lot of beautiful places, but Taormina easily takes the cake as the most memorable place I have ever been. The culture and history of the city are so diverse as many different peoples who have conquered the island influenced the melting pot that is Taormina, and much of that can be noted in the architecture and cuisine throughout the town. Around every corner you may come across Arab-Norman or Arab-Norman-Byzantine structures, Norman-Catholic and Greco-Roman buildings, or Arab-Islamic murals and other stylistic elements. This fusion of cultural influences makes Sicily so unique and so beautiful. Also, I am an art history nerd, so this was incredibly fascinating to me.
Taormina is home to one of the oldest structures in Sicily: the Teatro Antico di Taormina. It is a Greek amphitheater that is miraculously still standing. Fun fact, I was staying in the hotel across from the amphitheater, and there was a John Legend concert in the amphitheater while we were there. We could hear the concert from our rooms, and we even saw John Legend a couple times in the hotel! The theater and the hotel are both located in the middle of two mountain peaks (taormina comes from tauromenium, which means "bull", and the two peaks represent the bull's horns). Because of this, we had the most amazing view. I still sometimes look at the pictures I took and wish I could go back for another visit.
I most enjoyed walking down the road towards the town square and neighboring towns and to the beach. Taormina is built on the side of a cliff, so there is almost no way to get lost even with all the winding roads (though it almost happened a couple times); if you go up or down, you will find your way again eventually. And I can't forget about the food! Their gelato is the best I have ever had, but Sicilian granita with brioche at Bam Bar is definitely the best food I had on that trip. I'm craving it now just thinking about it. I am not one to take aesthetic pictures of food, but I probably took more photos than I would like to admit.
Oh, how wonderful that you have been to Sicily, Lydia! I spent a lot of time at University of Siena in graduate school, and one of my favorite professors there was from Ragusa in Sicily. And just as the Islamic element is a huge part of art and architecture in Sicily, the same is true also for India! I will be using a lot of Mughal artwork in the class, so if you are curious to learn more about Mughal art history, that is a great topic for a class project! Here is an article at Scroll.in about some Mughal illustrations of the Ramayana: Eight exquisite Mughal miniatures of the Ramayana ... luckily digital art can be very satisfying in a way that digital pictures of food do not come anywhere close to being as good as enjoying a granita! :-)
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