Surely people cannot live up there? This thought strikes as you approach Taormina by road from the south. For, there ahead, stands a volcanic column of rock even higher than all those craggy hilltops around, its southern face a sheer drop of more than a thousand metres. Somehow, perched atop, a cluster of buildings clings to the rock's summit, like a seagull perched on a flagpole in a roaring gale. That place is Castelmola.
Taormina is famed as Sicily's answer to the Amalfi coast; a beach resort at sea level, overlooked by the old town some 500 metres above, reached either by cable car or by a vertiginous road and a precipitous series of z-bends. But Castelmola looks down on Taormina as does the eagle on its prey. The cable car that could reach Castelmola has not yet been invented. In bygone days, paths trodden only by men and mules wound their way up a 3 or 4 kilometre route to reach the summit; today, a public road will lead only the most careful of drivers up the final climb to the 1,000-year old settlement that is Castelmola.
And right at the very top of the top? They only went and built a castle. What were these men saying? They were saying If we can build a castle here, on top of the world as we know it, staring Etna in its face, then we are mighty hard men, and you had better not try to knock us off our perch.
In Castelmola Town Square only the size of a small courtyard you can look northeast to the very tip of Sicily where Messina seems to reach out to touch Reggia di Calabria. From this direction you will see the sun rise and gradually light up the Ionian Sea. The lights of Taormina will twinkle below you. Walk only 200 metres through the village's narrow cobbled streets and Mount Etna to the southwest will unveil herself to you. Brooding beneath her nightgown of dark, woolly cloud, Etna will slowly reveal herself in the morning light, but she is reluctant to cast off her nightcap and will usually remain crowned by a halo of cloud.
As daylight conquers the darkness, people begin to stir and go about their business. And out above the hillsides, a hawk hovers noiselessly on the breezes. Some blameless small creature on the ground is blinking sleepily in its first glimpse of daylight. Suddenly, the hawk drops 200 metres like a stone into the scrub below.
The day begins with death. read more
