I really tried my best to represent the beauty of the scene, but the reality in this case beats the fiction hehehe.

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Ahu Nau Nau is symbolically one of the most important ahus on Easter Island as it is located on the beautiful beach of Anakena, the place where, as the story goes, King Hotu Matu’a first landed with his entourage to populate the island.

The ahu was restored in 1978 by a team led by Sergio Rapu, the island’s first professional archaeologist. It was also here that the white coral and red scoria eye was found, which is currently exhibited in the museum and has served in the recreation of the true image of the upright moai statues on their altars.

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Taormina is a small town on the east coast of the island of Sicily, Italy, midway between Messina and Catania. Taormina has been a tourist destination since the 19th century.

The area around Taormina was inhabited by the Siculi even before the Greeks arrived on the Sicilian coast in 734 BC to found a town called Naxos. The theory that Tauromenion was founded by colonists from Naxos is confirmed by Strabo and other ancient writers.

The present town of Taormina occupies the ancient site, on a lofty hill which forms the last projecting point of the mountain ridge that extends along the coast from Cape Pelorus to this point. The site of the old town is about 250 metres (820 ft) above the sea, while a very steep and almost isolated rock, crowned by a Saracen castle, rises about 150 metres (490 ft) higher: this is undoubtedly the site of the ancient Arx or citadel, the inaccessible position of which is repeatedly alluded to by ancient writers. Portions of the ancient walls may be traced at intervals all round the brow of the hill, the whole of the summit of which was evidently occupied by the ancient city. Numerous fragments of ancient buildings are scattered over its whole surface, including extensive reservoirs of water, sepulchres, tesselated pavements, etc., and the remains of a spacious edifice, commonly called a Naumachia, but the real purpose of which it is difficult to determine.

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San Marino historic center with a view down to the Adriatic

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