How could I have lost the bulk of the photos I took of Taormina?  I have not a clue.  I lost the photos of Mt. Aetna shot from the balcony of our hotel.  Now I am glad I was unable to capture the night the volcano acted up a bit, glowing red, then redder.  But I did take photos of the Greek theater at the top of the main street of the town and a number of shots of the caldera of the volcano which was easily seen from parts of the theater.  I even took a few shots of The Four Season, now famous as the locale for Season 2 of The White Lotus.  The guide told us the ocean view suites now go for 10,000 Euros a night, the non-sea view a paltry 5,000.  But all these shots have disappeared.  I did not take any photos of the opera performance we saw our first night there.  The performance hall looked like an 
Elks auditorium — it was embarassing to be holding the premiere tickets for the front row.  The program consisted of a number of famous arias from different Italian operas and featured a tenor, a soprano and a pianist.  The tenor’s voice was quite powerful but not always mellow, the soprano was OK, and pianist (who had two Sinfonia solos) was pretty accomplished but quite laconic and very unenthused.  It was great fun, though, and the announcer prompted three encores from the performers.

The only photos I have are from a boat we took along the coast.  You can see the towns spilling down the hills and although it was chilly, the hotels are getting ready for summer beachgoers.  The water is crystal clear and the orange coral that grows on the rocks turns into jewelry.

The town is charming – narrow streets lined with shops, cars somehow maneuvering through them threaded with motorcycles.  

We took a taxi the last night to a town higher up the mountain called Castelmoro.  We were told it would only be a ten minute walk down and there were steps but according to Google Maps it was a 42 minute walk down and steps or no steps, neither of us wanted to tackle it.  We called the driver and he wove back down the switchbacks to get us back to the hotel.