Visiting the island of the godfather

[Zoltan]

First of all i would state that probably i am one of the most silent man at stake. You could replace "man" with "mod" too and this sentence would be still correct.

When i saw today's challenge at 3AM when i woke up i got excited and completed every challenge in the first task. I was happy, then i saw that there is a second part... You can imagine what i felt  It was almost 4AM so i decided to go back to sleep. It was hard, because i started thinking about what i should post and i had no idea. 4 hours later i woke up and still nothing, i hoped i would dream of something to make it easier, but it didn't happen. 

So i started checking the sections that were mentioned in the OP to see if there is something that i could do. I saw there is a math and probabilities section which is definitely for me, but probably if i start to write about my calculations and experiences of the 100+ bots i am betting on, most of you would be scared or bored  So i continued the browsing and i found the Travel section. Then it came to me, that i should write about my latest travel which was at the beginning in October. I went to Sicily (Catania) with my sister and spent interesting 5 days there. I will try to summarize it so you don't get bored and won't need much time to read it through.

We traveled on a Tuesday evening there, by the time we landed a big storm just went by. After we stepped out from the airport there were thunders everywhere and it was raining heavily. We got on a bus and traveled to the central station. Luckily it was a short drive and when we got off the rain got lighter. As the hotel was about 15 minutes walk i convinced my sister to walk there. Turned out it was a bad decision. The roads were covered in water, which at first didn't seem to be deep, but when i stepped down from the pavement to cross the road my shoe disappeared under the water. It was "nicely" flowing inside it and it was as high as my ankle. As it happened and there was nothing to do we continued the walk. The first shock came to me when we got to the thin streets where there were no bins for the litter, they collected it in plastic bags. You heard it right. It looked devastating especially after the storm. Everything was dirty and as it was already night a little bit scary. My sister confessed the day after that she was afraid the whole time until we got to the hotel... By the time we got to there the rain stopped but we were soaking wet already. The hotel itself was nice, the receptionist that day couldn't speak English well, but we managed to understand each other.

On Wednesday we decided to wander around the center of the city and explore it ourselves. We walked a lot, really. It was about 15 km altogether or so. The second shock happened this day. We could hardly find anything to eat  It was not because the lack of restaurants, but because they were full and sometimes well hidden... After we found a good looking one in a side road we ordered and waited more than an hour to get our late lunch. The service was bad and they were not nice and the food was not that good, so we stated we will never go there again. We were tired already so decided to hop on a tour bus and see what they offer around the city. Only 4 of us were sitting on the bus, so after 10 minutes the driver stopped and told us we should wait 10 minutes and another bus will take us further. At least there was one station where we stopped that looked good. It was a small castle and we really liked it, but the break was only 10 minutes so my sister and I decide we will go back there alone later.

On Thursday the main goal was to visit Etna. The pickup happened at 7:30AM so we had to hurry with the breakfast but we managed to do it  The travel to the Etna took around an hour and it was only the "bottom" of it. From there we went by cable car until the height of 2500 meters and from there we traveled by jeeps to the height 2900. After we got there we could walk around in groups and visited a crater where it steam was still coming up. It was really warm but not that hot so you could touch it. The rocks were quite warm which was really good considering it was 4 Celsius there  I made dozens of pictures i really liked the view, i won't show them all but here is just one so you get the idea.

 

On Friday we went to Syracuse by bus, it was more than an hour to get there and as we started late the marketplace was about to close. We still managed to find some open but most of them packed up already. I didn't mind it to be honest as i don't like the mass when you can hardly walk and everyone bumps into you. We made a small walk in the center and wandered around in the tight alleys. I really liked it but my sister was a little bit afraid she told me that someone could jump at us anytime from one of the doors  I just laughed and told her not to worry, the island lives from tourists would be bad for them if something like that happens. There were some so tight street that i could touch the building on both sides at once. After a while it started to get cloudy and we heard thunders in the distance so we prepared to travel back to Catania. It was a huge rain the whole drive. The cars stopped at the side of the road, but the bus driver was not afraid at all, we went so fast that sometimes it felt like we are in danger. I guess he had experience in this kind of weather already. Luckily we got back to Catania without any injuries

On the last day we decide to go on a whole day tour with a guide as we had to leave the hotel at 10AM and our plane started only at 10PM that day. We went to many places this day: Savoca, Castelmola and Taormina. We visited the bar where some of the scenes of the movie The Godfather was shot. We saw mummies a Greek theater and amazing panorama wherever we went. I didn't like the serpentine's much, as the driver was in a hurry and we went really fast so my stomach was not in a 100% condition  For lunch she organized a small picnic for us which was the breaking point back to love her  I really loved it, we had plenty of snack and some traditional Sicilian food too and of course some wine! Luckily for me the other participants of this tour (a couple from Pennsylvania and a Woman from Cyprus) did not drink much, so i could drink the rest  It was a positive tour at the end it started a little bit bad but after we got to the airport at the end of the day i told my sister it was worth it and she agreed.

There was some last trouble at the security. My sister does not speak English only German so she had trouble when the staff asked something about her package. In the meantime i was occupied because when i took out my tablet from my bag the memory card fell out and i i realized it only when i went through the gate. I asked some of the staff if i can go back and search for it or they could do that for me. They told me i could go back but then i saw that a woman is packing out my sister's bag so i went there instead and asked what is the problem. They told me that the X-ray found some weird metal and we have to show it. I asked my sister what it could be and then it came to us that she packed some fridge magnets there. So this problem was solved but then when i went back and asked the guy if i can go back to the other side of the security checking site they told me no. They said i wouldn't find it anyway and they can't let me go back. It was a little bad experience for us at the end but all in all the trip to Sicily was interesting minimum and we were happy.

A week later i saw in the news that there were heavy raining throughout the whole island and even some people died in the floods. So we were lucky with our timing. Last week i saw that the Etna is covered in snow now and a new eruption started to get more active so the is real lava at the top now which we could have seen too. Maybe next year...  

[Guest]

Oh, wow!  First things first: are you aware that it was 200 words, not 2000?  

Now let's get serious. I love how you described everything, I'd love you to be my tour guide! Just let me know on time when you will go there again, so I can pack my bags.  

But I really think some touristic attraction shouldn't allow itself things like you described above.  Bad organization, restaurant issues, security issues. That should all go smooth, especially considering the destination you mentioned. Other things like bad weather, wet shoes (I have to admit I laughed about that, sorry, I'm mean ), narrow streets, etc, that's something that was circumstantial, but organization should be on a way higher level! And not feeling safe is also a huge issue as well. 

Thank you for taking so much time to present us this island, I'm amazed by your approach to all of this.  I've never been there, but after this, I'd love to visit it. At least now I'm warned about potential troubles (for example, bring extra pair of shoes, a bag of food, don't bring memory cards, etc 😂)

Thank you so so much for this, I enjoyed reading it! ❤️ 

[Zoltan]

9 minutes ago, Irena said:

Oh, wow!  First things first: are you aware that it was 200 words, not 2000?  

Now let's get serious. I love how you described everything, I'd love you to be my tour guide! Just let me know on time when you will go there again, so I can pack my bags.  

But I really think some touristic attraction shouldn't allow itself things like you described above.  Bad organization, restaurant issues, security issues. That should all go smooth, especially considering the destination you mentioned. Other things like bad weather, wet shoes (I have to admit I laughed about that, sorry, I'm mean ), narrow streets, etc, that's something that was circumstantial, but organization should be on a way higher level! And not feeling safe is also a huge issue as well. 

Thank you for taking so much time to present us this island, I'm amazed by your approach to all of this.  I've never been there, but after this, I'd love to visit it. At least now I'm warned about potential troubles (for example, bring extra pair of shoes, a bag of food, don't bring memory cards, etc 😂)

Thank you so so much for this, I enjoyed reading it! ❤️ 

As you don't like winter much, i would suggest summer, though i really want to see a snow covered Etna too  That does not matter though just pick a date and i will go with you! ❤️

[Blaine]

I have visited that godfather island through the car rental https://travelsites.com/car-rental/ booking site which was very affordable under my budget which I would like to do it again with my friends or family but my budget always get spike due to much spending on it.