Train to Taormina

We get the 1pm train- but this one stops in Catania and we have to change trains. Probably should have taken a non stop but they weren't at good times (too late or too early). The train to Catania (1hr) leaves 10 min late from the station so our 11 minute connection in Catania isn't looking good. The conductor/ticket taker takes pity on us and we think he calls ahead because when we get off he is shooing us down the stairs and across the tracks (under the tracks!) to the train to Taormina. The ride is another hour and we get a cab up the mountain to our hotel. The hotel is lovely and one room
Has a large terrace with loungers. The city is up he hill further and filled with shops- some nice, most touristy and some feel just like the Ponte de Vecchio in Florence- a lot of tchotchkes but the views are just Magnificant (see photos). We have a late lunch and an even later dinner on the rooftop terrace restaurant of the hotel. Pasta for the Wishingrads and caponata for Deb. We all agree that Marc's "Norma pasta" is the best (eggplant, onions etc) but Sarah's gnocchi are so light and delicious too. We have a few problems with our room. The first is that there is a sewage smell that we can't get rid of. Pretty unpleasant but nowhere to move tonight. We sleep with the windows open. The second is that we can't figure out the TV so someone comes
up to turn it on and just as he leaves Marc catches something about "WindJet"- the local airline that we are booked on tomorrow morning for our direct flight to Paris. We can't understand he Italian so we google
it and sure enough, our worst fear- it's gone belly up in the last 24 hours- canceling all flights and stranding passengers all over Italy. We spend the next 3 hours (until about 1:30AM) trying to come up with alternate plans for departure. No one can help us on the phone so we give up, go to sleep and hope to wake up to find the smell gone and the news of WindJet a bad dream. No such luck.
We get up early and ask advice of the front desk- a travel agent in town may be able to help. They open at 9AM. So we go up to the terrace to wait and drink a ton of espresso. The buffet is the most elaborate of any we have seen so far (photos). Who ever heard of cannoli for breakfast? Really? Why not? The girls are still sleeping when we head up into town to try our luck with the travel agent.