Sunday June 14

We left Syracuse at 9am to drive to Taormina - even though it was Sunday, traffic was quite heavy particularly at the entry toll booth to the freeway. We arrived around 11:30am and found the winding mountain road up to our hotel quite hairy. (After going up and down this road a few times in the hotel shuttle it did not seen so hairy).

Our stay started off on a bit on the wrong foot; even though our room was in the new wing of the hotel and lovely and modern it did not have a Nespresso machine (as expected). Dieter "discussed" this with the front desk people and finally one lady said we were wrong but she would try to find us one (as it came to pass this never materialised).

We took the afternoon shuttle into the old town of Taormina and wondered around checking everything out including the cablecar down to the beach. We finished off with a drink on a hotel terrace overlooking the water. 

Back at the hotel - we had dinner in house - the restaurant is lovely overlooking sea but only a few tables were occupied - surprising since the hotel is fully booked - we presumed most guests take the shuttle into town for dinner.

Monday June 15

This was our first and only full day in Taormina - we took the hotel shuttle then cable car down to the beach where we booked a 45 minute boat tour. You got what you paid for (10 EUR pp) - the whole thing was a CF - leaving 40 minutes late, you needed to wade in into the water over very unstable rocks to get to the boat. Anyway we saw some of the caves and did a drive-by of one of the $5000+ pn hotels (where Pauline Hanson stayed a few weeks late with her bestie, Gina) - it looked amazing but at that price it should be. Now the beach was just rocks with 20 EUR entry to any area with sunbeds - many people just used the free area with towels laid on rocks - not a grain of sand in sight.

After our cruise we stopped at a beach bar/restaurant for a drink - quite an expensive undertaking a they charged a 3 EUR PP cover + relatively expensive drinks. However in Sicily (like most of Europe) if you order a drink you get a selection of nibblies which we counted as lunch.

Back at the hotel we had dinner there again to an almost empty restaurant - but the food was fine.

Thuesday June 16

Off to Palermo today - see next entry; however below is a list of our issues with the hotel:-

• The Nespresso machine - probably our own fault when booking as some room types do have them but extremely annoying

• There was a kettle with 2 nescafe tubes - these weren't replaced after the first day and we needed to request this several times

• On returning to our room the first day none of the power points worked (they did before we went out) - on raising this in person at the front desk - the first person simply said they had no idea - the second person did something on their phone then said it should be OK now (and it was !!). 

• Any issue had to be reported in person by going to the front desk as the phone in the room did not work - they said they would fix it but never did

• The safe did not work properly

• Many staff spoke limited English even though the majority of the guests were English

• When you order anything at the bar or restaurant they just ask your room number - you never sign a bill - needless to say our final bill had 2 duplicate charges (which they removed)

• Now the big issue - Dieter booked the hotel direclty by phone over 9 months prior only to find when we were there that they had not given us the 20% discount - raised this met with refusal to admit this.