Susanne p style=”text-align: left;”>The course includes three lessons per week, and is particularly popular with Babilonia language students from Japan and the United States. Donatella added that Japanese students in particular are extremely precise and detail-oriented and very gifted when it comes to applying decorative painting to pottery. This may have something today with their exposure to the popular Japanese tradition of calligraphy.
Often Donatella’s students become her friends and she invites them into her home and does a culinary exchange: Donatella will create a variety of Sicilian specialties while her students prepare various tasty treats from their home country. She indicated that to this day she receives emails from some of her Japanese students from years ago, and she enjoys it every time when she receives international correspondence from her previous students.
Villa Comunale, a lovely garden donated by an Englishwoman
After having lived in Umbria, another beautiful region of Italy, Donatella moved back to Taormina several years ago which she really enjoys and which inspires her creativity. She also teaches children’s art courses and volunteers for some local schools. She showed me a couple of pieces that had been completed by students and three of her own works of art. I mentioned I would have loved to see her studio to see more of her own art. Maybe next time.
Enjoying a feline rest…
Following this interesting side trip another excursion was waiting for me: punctually at 2:30 pm eleven people were assembled in front of the Babilonia Language School, ready to go hiking on Mount Etna whose summit is located at an altitude of over 3200 m. Peppe Celano, Babilonia’s social activities coordinator and one of the language teachers, was ready to introduce us first-hand to Sicily’s highest mountain and an active volcano.
As a matter of fact, Mount Etna had just erupted a few days ago on April 30, but unfortunately I did not see it. The eruption was only a few hours long, and one of my co-students saw the red lava stream at night! So today we would see Europe’s largest volcano up close.
Getting ready for our hike up Mount Etna
Peppe had rented a small van and a small passenger car to carry all the participants. Our drive to the parking lot on the southern flanks of Mount Etna took about an hour and twenty minutes. We drove through local towns such as Giarre and Zafferana Etna where Peppe explained that near this area the Arabs used to cultivate saffron, hence the name.
The famous Valle del Bove, with the most recent lava flow
The day was overcast and rather cool, a windproof jacket and a nice sweater were definitely in order. We parked our vehicles on a rather isolated parking lot and got ready for our climb. The lower part of our climb took us through a forested area where the leafs were just starting to come out. Not surprisingly, at almost 2000 m of altitude, the plant growing cycle is a little slower, even on a subtropical island such as Sicily.
Three happy mountaineers
Peppe explained that the local fauna includes chestnut, oak and birch trees which have all existed here since before the last ice age. We walked single file along a steep narrow path that was punctuated with many roots and stones, right along a precipice with many lookouts towards the famous “Valle del Bove” (Valley of the Ox), site of layers upon layers of lava flows.
Our teacher / tour guide Peppe explains something
Our steep hike continued for about an hour and took us from 2000 m in altitude to 2400 m to an area with a perfect view, facing the recent lava flows in the Valle del Bove. The summit area of the volcano stretched out right in front of us. Our area was a side summit designated by a cross and a broad natural ledge that our group used as a perfect posing area for our group shots of our conquest of Mount Etna. We spent about half an hour at the top of this side summit, chatting, snapping pictures and generally enjoying our mountain adventure.
A “scarafaggio” (beetle)
On the way down three ladies, one from Switzerland, one from Germany and one from Austria (me) raced down the mountain in about 20 minutes. Coming down was a heck of a lot easier than going up, and almost sprinting down this steep mountainous pathway was rather exhilarating in itself. Once all the other mountaineers arrived we set off to visit a local winery. The “Murgo” vineyards were just about 15 minutes away, located in the fertile foothills of Mount Etna and many people in our group bought red, white and sparkling wines. An animated discussion followed in the van and by 7 pm we had arrived back in the school.
Some of us posing in front of Mount Etna’s summit
After a brief refreshment back at the hotel, a group of us met at a local pizzeria called “Trocadero”, right next to the Porta di Messina, where we were going to have a nice dinner. For some of us this Thursday evening was our last night in Taormina; I was going to leave tomorrow night to go to Milazzo while another person was going on an excursion to the Eolian Islands. Most of our group members were leaving Taormina this weekend, and we were all commenting how much we have been enjoying our experience.
Dinner at the Pizzeria Trocadero
Everyone around the table was a German speaker: we had three folks from Germany, two from Switzerland and myself, originally from Austria. Given the linguistic differences throughout the German-speaking countries, we all mentioned that each one of us has to speak “Hochdeutsch” (Standard German) in order to be understood by the rest of the group. All of us speak fairly strong dialects that would essentially be incomprehensible to German-speakers from other regions, so we get by, speaking the standard version of our language. For me this exposure to other Europeans was really enjoyable. Having lived more than 20 years in Canada, I hardly ever come in contact with German speakers, so this experience of enjoying a nice meal, speaking in my mother tongue, was a definite treat.
By 9:30 pm I started to get really tired since I had already gone on a one-hour walk through Taormina before breakfast, followed by another walk through town to meet Donatella, the pottery decoration artist, capped off by a short yet strenuous hike up Mount Etna. And tomorrow was after all going to be my last day in Taormina, so it was time to rest.
One thing is for sure, when you come to Taormina for language studies you definitely don’t get bored.
