| Original Message: Taormina |
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From Armerina, we traveled east to the coast, and then north, winding up in Taormina, where we spent the night. This is a beautiful resort town, situated near a gorgeous bay, that I will show. During our day there, we walked around the shopping area, where we found lots of stores selling a variety of products. Many are geared toward tourists, but most of the stuff was of a high quality, and often expensive. There were businesses specializing in antiques, and then there were modern jewelers and designers. My first photos were taken at a store that had some nice amber and coral beads in their window. I was attracted to the amber, because Sicily used to be one of the important non-Baltic sources of amber in antiquity, and up until the late 19th century. Nevertheless, it seems very few people know about this anymore. I was pleasantly surprised to hear from the storeowner that she had these amber pieces because they were visually similar to old-time Sicilian amber. However, she was frank to say these particular pieces came from Chiapas, México (!). Because Sicily is not far from Naples, the stores in Taormina often have great displays of coral jewelry. We often hear nowadays that most or all coral jewelry comes from China, and that the Neapolitan industry is almost belly-up. However, I saw very little dyed Chinese coral here; and most of it appeared to be decent or very good Mediterranean coral. JDA. All rights reserved by Bead Collector Network and its users |
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