That theme of running didn’t seem to stop. We grabbed some muffins from the breakfast buffet and ran downstairs to meet the tender for the 9:00 tour.

A quick tender ride to Naxos, then a bus to Taormina and we were at Messina Gate. Taormina is probably one of the most underrated cities in all of Italy and even when it is being praised it is still not praised highly enough. It's better than even that.

First off, it’s a walled city, which instantly makes it cute and quaint, but as is typical of Sicily, it has Arab and Roman influences throughout. The highlight of the city is considered its Greco-Roman theater, but the entire city deserves a few days to walk through every shop.

The Greco-Roman theater is still in great condition and is of such a large scale it will remind you of the Coliseum. Behind the "stage" is the ocean, so from every seat, when you get bored on stage you can look out onto the ocean and Mount Etna behind it. My only regret is not having seen a performance there as the setting is incredible.

On the way back from the theater we saw a few symbols of Sicily on the sign. I asked the tour guide why they had a medusa’s head and she said, "That’s the symbol of Sicily. Medusa the Gorgon. The myth is that she lived here in Sicily."

I looked at my Sicilian wife Margherita and said, "That explains a lot about my in-laws."

After walking up and down the main strip we jumped back on the tour bus and it was onwards and upwards to Mount Etna.

Mount Etna feels akin to what I imagine going to the moon is like. It’s windy and cold and black. You don’t truly go to the tippy-top of the mountain, but a part with actual craters about two-thirds of the way up.

There’s a restaurant there that serves great pasta and looks out over Sicily.

Near the restaurant is a bar. They serve a drink called, "Fuoco de Etna" that, in my opinion, is the strongest and hottest liquor in the world.

Near the volcano is a crater, which nearly killed me.

Anyway, yes, death. Death was upon me. I saw it knocking and I was a bit late in answering the door.

How could this happen? Please tell me more, you say.

I ran out to the crater and even ran to the bottom of it. At the bottom of the crater I picked up a pretty little crater rock and showed it to Margherita. She had already ran inside the bar because, as I mentioned, it was really windy.

But I heard a noise.

"Come to me."

The edge of the crater called me. It was like a five-year-old boy with fire, I needed to touch it. I started to crawl to the top of the crater and could just sense the glorious wonders that would be over the edge of the mountain. Surely it would be beautiful.

I reached the edge and stood up just to seem a bit more victorious.

I then immediately jumped to the ground. While I really remembered the part about the wind, I forgot the fact that wind near the ground is, shall we say, restrained as compared to when you stand.

Well, when I stood up on the top of the rim of the crater, looking out on all of God’s creation, a bit of wind lightly pushed against my back. A 60-mile an hour push. I jumped to the ground simply to save my life and reduce my wind resistance. Every time I stood up the wind would knock me over and considering that "over" was only inches from a cliff, well it was pretty stupid.

I shimmied down the mountain and Margherita called me an idiot. It was a long bus ride back to the ship with Margherita calling me an idiot, but for that near-death manly experience, it was worth it.

Taormina with Mt. Etna behind