They don’t get cruise ships in Corcheval. They’re banned by the French. So instead, they have Russians. It happened about 25 years ago when a gorgeous little Alpine town, famous for its Croisette, morphed into Rodeo Drive up the Mountains. The gorgeous little boulangeries and boutiques were out-priced by the incoming droves of Tom Ford and Gucci and high-end art dealers and Pateck Philippe who’d discovered where the real money in the world came out of hiding for the winter months.

Cruise ships don’t have the same trouble coming to little coastal towns, but they have the same effect. The promise of thousands of rich people, many with neither taste nor clue, arriving every day looking for ‘local things’ to buy. Like Channel dresses, Rolex watches, Dior handbags. And so the very essence of the town, the very ‘localness’ is stripped away in the name of ‘progress’ and internationalist marketing strategies. Creating the ubiquitous ‘cruise ship town’. Overpriced restaurants, designer shit and endless crowds.

We saw it a few years ago in (once) beautiful Cartagena in Columbia. And here in Taormina the same. The exceptionally pretty, mountainside town, so sweet and gorgeous, totally taken over by corporate excess and greed. This may sound like a communist manifesto but it’s just a ‘casual’ observation.

What the cruise ships can’t fuck up is the natural geographical wonder of places. Unless there’s too many and they just obscure everything (errrr, Venice anyone?)

So what we did here was avoid the town in daytime (when the ship – singular, thank God- is docked) and breeze in during the evening. And if this means we missed the Roman amphitheatre, then that’s our loss. If we missed a museum, we probably wouldn’t have gone in anyway. And if we missed a church, how many churches do you see/enter/pray in (?) during the course of a week? Me and Jesus? We’re cool.

Instead, we stayed in our hotel. Which was perched on the very tip of the peninsula on which Taormina sits. So we had views, like this one from part of the pool area, which itself climbed the mountain (the area, not the pool, for obvious reasons; and if those reasons aren’t obvious to you, check out Archimedes, he lived round here, in Syracuse, out next stop) and every view was to die for. This one is the hotel (brown strip across the top left) from the top tier of the pool area. Even Mount Etna watching menacingly from afar. Hopefully far enough if it all kicks off. Then, when evening comes and the ships sail away, we dare to venture out. Hoping that the ice cream prices have reverted to ‘pre-cruise’ values.

Off to the island of Ortygia, in Syracuse. Let the wedding celebrations begin! I’ve been ready since Heathrow.

Happy Friday

A xxxx