Sicily, Italy

Spring break found us in Italy this year!  Sicily, to be exact.  In fact... the motto goes, "Sicilian first, Italian second!"  This is a place that is very proud of its heritage!

But first... our Transavia flight selfie!  Let's go to Sicily, shall we?

Everyone on the airplane was FREAKING OUT that we could see Venice so clearly on our way to Catania.  So neat!

Kit, pondering what the trip to Sicily will be like and what she might learn.

Not so neat?  The airport in Catania.  We kind of had a rough start to our trip.  It began actually way back in Munich, when Todd left his phone in the van that took us from the car park to the airport.  Thankfully he immediately noticed that it was missing, we were able to call the car park place and the driver returned the phone to Todd.  Phew, crisis averted!  And famously, Todd says, "Let's hope that is the only bad thing to happen on this trip!"

Ummmm, nope. 

We travel a lot.  But we usually don't bring the car booster seats to most places we go.  Either we go to a walking and/or public transportation city like Paris or Rome, or we drive ourselves and don't worry about the seats because they are already in my car.  But this time, we brought them because we learned a very expensive lesson in England over Thanksgiving that car rental places charge and arm and a leg for them.  Hooray for saving money!

Except if you forget that you brought them, and you walk out of baggage claim, good luck getting them back. 

So we got over to the Avis car rental counter (outside, down the road a bit) and Todd looks at me panicked and says, "The car seats!"  So I had to run back to the airport and immediately approached the guy standing outside of the automatic doors to baggage claim.  I asked him if I could just go and get my car seats, and showed him my boarding pass to let him know that I JUST landed a few minutes before.  No, he says, but he sends me over to the information desk down the hall.  Ok, we have spoken to her before, so I know she speaks English!  So I go over there and tell her my problem and she tells me, "Oh. This is impossible. I'm sorry."  I just started laughing and said, "It's not impossible!  My car seats are sitting right behind that door.  I'm gonna get them. Watch me!"

So I run upstairs to try to find the Transavia desk so that maybe they can help me.  But if Transavia doesn't have a flight going out within an hour or two, then no one is at their desks.  Bummer.  So I run back downstairs to ask the guy at the door to baggage claim one more time.  He tells me to go over to the lost luggage counter (which he initially tells me is upstairs, but I'm guessing due to poor translation, he meant to tell me it was down the hall and to the right).  So I run around trying to find that place.  I find another information desk and ask him, and tell him my story, and again I am told it is impossible to get my car seats back.  So I finally find lost luggage and of course... the sign says they won't be open for another hour.  I ring the buzzer and no one answers. I make a phone call and no one answers.  There's a man who was on a flight from Russia (his wife is Russian, he is from Messina) and he tells me good luck, because this whole operation is super shady.  Of course, I already know that... it's Italy!  Finally I run back to the poor guy at the door to baggage claim and I beg him.  I fake tears.  And I finally get him to say, "Hold on."  He waits for the automatic doors to open and calls over one of the security guys inside of baggage claim.  And then another shows up. And there's discussions in Italian. And they're looking at my boarding pass.  And I'm pointing to my car seats, which I CAN SEE WITH MY OWN EYEBALLS.  One of the security guys has to escort me over and keep an eye on  me the whole time, but you're DANG RIGHT I strolled victoriously out of that airport with my car seats!!!!!!!

Hence the picture of the much needed wine that our lovely AirBnB host Sebastiano provided for us upon our arrival in Siracusa.

Ahhhh the charming Siracusa!  Believe it or not, the city of Syracuse is 2700 years old! 

Here we go again... Cats of Sicily!  Truthfully, we really only saw a lot of them in Siracusa. But they were ALL OVER the place around our apartment!

As soon as we unloaded and drank our wine, we headed out to meet up with my old boss (hey who are you calling old!?) Rich and his wife Barbara.  We couldn't believe our timing when Rich told us a few months ago that they would be in Sicily the exact same week we would be there!  I mean, what are the odds?

Of course, we got to their apartment and the kids took this cute picture on their balcony but we forgot to take any pictures of all of us!

Much of Siracusa is on the island of Ortygia.   The main part of the island is the Piazza Duomo, named so because it's the location of the Cathedral of Syracuse.

This kid on a hoverboard was chasing Grant around as soon as we got into the Piazza Duomo.  Grant thought this was the funniest thing!

Since we had just arrived in the city, we didn't have anything for the kids to drink (and we normally keep bottles of water in their backpacks).  We randomly happened upon this!  This was the one with beer in it!

Taken from Largo Aretusa looking toward the marina on the west side of Ortygia.

Random stop for dinner with Rich and Barbara... and we had a fantastic meal!  I had the sea bass and even though ALL of the bones were still in it (such a pain), it was really good.  I also had the caponata (that we all shared) from my scratch off food map and I was really surprised that I LOVED it.  I usually am not a huge eggplant fan (for texture reasons!) but it was awesome.

This wine was awesome.  You know I really like a wine if I take a picture of it and put it on my blog!  We had other wines similar, but none quiet as good as this one.

Thankfully we had to walk back to the apartment so they could let their inner crazy out.

I'm not kidding you when I tell you this was the size of the door to our apartment.  Don't worry, there was a step down once you got inside, so he fit inside ok (with the exception of the bathroom door frame).  Europe, you're unbelievable!

The next morning, cappuccino was a MUST.  In Sicily, you only drink cappuccino for breakfast.  You would never order it after lunch! 

The Caffe d'Ortigia was funny.  Absolutely NO COSTUMERS.  Like, if you have a costume, you're absolutely not allowed.  Nope.

We weren't super happy with the weather situation (thumbs down) but the Temple of Apollo sure gets a thumbs up!  This temple dates back to the 6th century BC and it's the oldest known Doric-style temple in Western Europe.  (Doric is one of three styles of the columns and is known for having circular capitals at the tops of the columns, vs. the more ornate Ionic and Corinthian styles).

Although it's known as the Temple of Apollo, Cicero said it was actually a temple to Artemis (in Rome that would be Diana, or Apollo's sister!)

There's kind of a lot going on here and I wish it had come out clearer.  Flower baskets and wires and birds, oh my!

Easter is coming.

The Piazza Archimede's pretty fountain, in the rain.  At this point, it was absolutely pouring rain.  Kind of hard to tell from the photo, since it's a fountain and all.  At this point, we are legitimately deciding whether we should call it a morning and go back to the apartment or just forge on.

Come on!  We're the Griswold's!  Of course we forged on! 

He's singing in the rain, folks.  Just singing in the rain.  What a glorious feeling!

Todd, that's really sweet, but you can go ahead and tell the world your real name.

The good news is... when it rains, Siracusa ducks inside to escape it.

And I get incredible human-free photographs of empty streets.

Oh darn, there's a human.

As the rain let up, a few started coming back out.  We bought some really good Limoncello and Orangecello at the store on the left!

We continued to meander, and the rain finally stopped so we could take a three out of four picture in the Piazza Duomo.

Ahhhh, good thing we brought Long Arms!  He can capture all four of us in the Piazza Duomo with his mighty arms! 

I liked this picture of the Cathedral of Syracuse, and oh hey... you get a nice picture of this crazy couple, too!  Did you know this Cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage site!?

The view of the Piazza Duomo from the steps of the Cathedral, after the rain.

Some of the columns in here (namely the ones on the left and right in this shot) are from the Temple of Athena from 480 BC.  Impressive that they just went ahead and made a church out of it, rather than destroying something from the pagan world and starting over!

The baroque alter of the Cathedral of Syracuse.

This church has been piecemealed together over the years (centuries!), with much being changed after the big 1693 earthquake. 

This is one of the remnants of the Temple of Athena.  You can see they just continued the column right on up and threw a ceiling on it!  I can't help but wonder what shape these are in, and what's going to happen in the next earthquake....

Santa Lucia (or St. Lucy) is the patron saint of the city of Syracuse.  She was born (283 AD) and died (304 AD) in Syracuse and was raised in a wealthy family until her father died when she was five.  When she was older, her mother discovered she had a bleeding disorder and promised Lucy to a pagan man to ensure she had a good future.  St. Agatha came to Lucy in a dream and told her that her mother had been cured of the disorder and that Lucy would be the "glory of Syracuse."  Now that her mother was convinced of the power of the Holy Spirit, she gave Lucy permission to distribute her wealth and jewels to the poor and needy.   However, once her fiancé found out about this, he "outed" her as a Christian to the governor of Syracuse who then sent her to a brothel.  Yet Lucy had already promised her virginity to God, so when the men tried to come take her to the brothel, she was filled with the Holy Spirit and could not be moved, not even by a team of oxen.  Then they put wood around her and set her on fire, but she would not burn.  Finally, she died by a sword to the neck.

The tiny little shoes of St. Lucy.

One of St. Lucy's fingers.  Unfortunately for her, the Emperor Constantine granted religious freedom to all Christians in 313, less than a decade after her death.

We finally met up with Rich and Barb and wanted to head up to the Archeological Park Neapolis to see the old Greek and Roman theaters.

This interesting cave formation is known as the Ear of Dionysius.  Dionysius was known for being a pretty evil ruler who ruled between 432 to 367 BC (that's a pretty long time back then!)  Legend says that Dionysius used this cave as a prison, and was able to spy on the prisoners because the acoustics were so good.  Another legend says he just liked hearing the tortured screams of the prisoners, which were magnified by the cave's shape.  It's called the "Ear of Dionysius" because the inside shape is much like the shape of a human ear.

 The Ear of Dionysius, with humans for scale.

Is that the ear drum!?  (I kid...)

The inside of this cave is very, very dark.  It could only be illuminated with a flashlight.  Thank goodness for cell phone lights!

The entire area used to be a granite quarry, and this was used for water storage for the city of Syracuse back in Greek and Roman times.  As more water storage was needed, they dug down and at an angle, giving us the shape of the ear today.  A series of earthquakes weakened and cracked the walls of the Ear, so water storage was no longer possible.

The flora upon exiting the Ear of Dionysius was very pretty.

Next, we all went up to the Greek theater which construction began in the 5th century BC, although much of what we see today is from the 3rd century BC.  Of the two theaters here, the Greek theater was much more well preserved.  The kids were playing near the top of the theater known as the Street of Tombs which dates to the Byzantine era. 

(Former) floodplain managers discover water management techniques dating back 2000 years!  This little niche is called the Grotto of the Nymph.  That water was pretty disgusting!

My kiddos and some pretty weedy flowers and some caves of dead people!  Now that's the trifecta!

I know sitting higher up makes it more difficult to see the play down below, but at least you can see the water from way up here!

The Greek theater was used (and is still used) for plays and concerts.  You know, the fun stuff. The Roman theater was used more for gladiator style killings!

Panorama of the Greek theater in Siracusa.

I mentioned previously that this area had been a large granite quarry long ago.  This particular piece made me think of Gol'gotha (or Calvary) in Jerusalem.  I can't help but wonder if this large chunk of rock was of poor quality for mining so they left it here, much like what seems to have happened with the rock of Calvary which Jesus was crucified on. 

I'm a big fan of funky trees.

The next stop was the more overgrown Roman theater.  I've seen better pictures of this theater than this, so I was a bit disappointed!   It was much smaller than say, the Colosseum in Rome (obviously) but you could still see the secret underground tunnels and rooms where the animals would emerge from.

Cats of Sicily!  This one suspiciously had a moustache!  Perhaps he was in disguise!?

It was a pretty good hike to and from the Greek and Roman theaters... about 2.5 kilometers or 30 minutes (except we have two kids with us and we frequently stop so it was probably more like 40 minutes!)  On the way back, Todd snapped this nice picture of the boats safely parked between Ponte Umbertino and Ponte Santa Lucia.

All that walking and learning sure makes adults thirsty.  Time for adult snack time!

Some paper mache strong men of Sicily. 

Pinocchio... is that you?

After a long day of sightseeing and day drinking, we just kept the party going back home while we took a little break before dinner.  I have to say, I think I like Peroni better than Birra Moretti.  Go ahead and judge, I'm sure that's weird. 

 Nearing evening blue time at the Temple of Apollo and the clouds are finally breaking.

  

We went to dinner at this really awesome place called Wine Shop@ (yes with the at symbol).  We were literally the only 6 people in the entire restaurant for the whole evening.   More tasty wine!

Incredible meal!  Mashed potatoes in a little jar!  Our compliments to the chef, Mayte!  She is something else!

Naturally the kids enjoyed creme brulee and chocolate mousse!

In the morning, Todd went out to get us breakfast before we left for Agrigento, and he snapped this nice early morning picture.

On the road again.  Why hello there Mount Etna.  I see you're blowing off a little steam today.

We thought it was funny that this town was built on rock on top of a hill!

The Sicilian scenery was far more beautiful than I had expected. It strangely felt a bit like Ireland. But with sunshine.

The Sicilian highway system is fairly new.  Instead of building directly on the ground, they built a lot of it on elevated pilings.   Apparently the highway system in the north of Sicily (which we did not visit on this trip) is far more beautiful and the roads are in much better condition.  But we didn't think these roads were too bad!

This little driveway is actually a "road."  Of course, the drivable part stops just behind where all of those cares are and it becomes a pedestrian staircase.  Unfortunately, the poor owner of our bed and breakfast had to park our car in here for us because it was so tiny and usually crammed with cars!

After we arrived in Agrigento, we needed to get some grub before we went on to see the Temples, so we climbed the stairs to the old town of Agrigento.

Of course after we arrived and dropped off our stuff, we needed to get some lunch!  And beer!

 The sun was shining and you just couldn't beat the view over the Mediterranean!

I ordered some fish.  And it showed up like this.

But you know I absolutely slayed it!  It was really delicious!

Our next stop was the Valley of the Temples, the whole reason for our visiting the Agrigento area!  It's actually located on a large hill (not a valley at all!) and contains what's left of seven temples, mostly from the 5th and 6th centuries BC.

The first temple we saw was the Temple of Juno which dates back to 450 BC.

The views from the Temple of Juno.  It really is a pretty island!

There are walkways between the temples but it doesn't seem as large as the 3,200 acres that the entire archaeological park actually is!

Goofy kids and archaeological wonders.

These are actually tombs known as the Grotte Fragapane and date back to the 4th century BC.

Walking down the main road past the olive trees to the Temple of Concordia.

Having kids makes it tough to visit things like museums and art galleries.  They don't want to be quiet for extended periods of time (yes... they know how to be quiet, don't worry!) and they ALWAYS are on the move.  Places like the Valley of the Temples are great because we don't have to worry about these things!

Panoramas are always a hit with our family.

Are they ever normal?  Wait... don't answer that....

The Temple of Concordia was built in the 5th century BC, but was converted to a church in the 6th century AD and it's definitely one that has withstood the test of time and elements.  Notice the Doric columns (you know they are Doric by the fact that they are round columns with round capitals or "heads".  You also can see the many groups of three lines above the columns known as "triglyphs.")

 

The incredibly preserved Temple of Concordia from the side.

Pardon the tree, but I liked how you could see the raised highway from the Valley of the Temples.

The Temple of Heracles was one of our last stops. It was built at the end of the 6th century and was one of the first built by the tyrant leader Theron. 

 On our somewhat frantic search for the WC (no no... it's just around THIS corner!), we stumbled upon the Temple of Olympian Zeus.  This area was more of a complex than one building, however the original Temple here was the largest Doric temple ever built (and had the largest alter in the world at the time), although it was never completed.  It was never completed because the Carthaginians conquered the area in the Sicilian wars which occurred between 600-265 BC.  Earthquakes over time destroyed the entire complex, so not only was it never finished, but what had been completed is now destroyed. 

The only thing they could see coming up was a quick, green lizard.  (Come on... tell me you know that book!)

We aren't the best with time management, admittedly.  When we are enjoying ourselves, it's very difficult for us to pull ourselves away from something.  But we really wanted to get over to Realmonte to see the Turkish Steps for sunset!  Unfortunately, we bought a bottle of wine with us for a nice little romantic sunset and unfortunately, we didn't have a wine opener!  (Todd has opened wine bottles without an opener before and thought he could do it this time with a shoe, but to no avail!)  But you don't even need wine for this to be incredibly beautiful!

 We kind of love Sicile!  We didn't write this, but someone wrote it in the sand!

We let the kids take their shoes off and run around in the water as we walked toward the Turkish Steps.  When I asked the kids what their favorite part of the trip was, they both emphatically said, "The Turkish Steps!" In the above photo, you can see them in the distance with their white marlstone cliffs.

They had an absolute blast splashing around in the (cold) water of the Mediterranean.

Close up of the calcium carbonate-esque marlstone steps that have been formed over time by the wind and the rain.

Panorama of the sunset at the Turkish Steps.  Notice the fluffy marshmallow-like rocks in the center.

Similar photo to the one above, but not panoramic.  It kind of reminded me of the white cliffs of Dover.

No.  They haven't seen Titanic.  And yes.  Yes, they are pretending to be Rose and Jack.

I'm not sure, but they might be posing here. They're kind of cute though. Kind of.

The sun setting over the Mediterranean taken from the Turkish Steps.

Griswold family photo at the Scali dei Turchi, Realmonte, Sicily.

I mean, there isn't any other picture that's going to describe us any better.

OK, time to head back down the steps because once the sun sets, there are no lights to guide us back to our car.

Little boy with a backpack walking down the big hill.

Todd and Natalie walking down the Scala dei Turchi.   It's only fitting to have a handsome escort.

Back on the ground, our pants are rolled back up and it's time to play in the sea again.

Because we knew of the sunset/time constraints... we left the Turkish steps before the actual sunset.  But it actually made for some incredible photographs as we walked back to Majata Beach.

Stunning Sicilian sunsets, with humans for scale.

We see you there, Mister setting sun.

This was, of course, right before he fell in the Mediterranean, soaking himself, his only jacket and his backpack.

 The rocky beaches of southern Sicily.

I don't know where we stopped for dinner in Agrigento after we left the Turkish Steps.  I'm pretty sure I was delirious at this point.  But wine and spinach risotto always make a girl feel better!

These two.

I'm kind of obsessed with weird looking statues or mannequins.

We had a good night sleep and a great (free) breakfast at our bed and breakfast in Agrigento before heading back out on the road to Catania.  Of course... about 30 minutes into our drive, we realized Natalie's beloved Pink Bear was not with us... and was likely still in the bed at the bed and breakfast, so we had to turn around and go get him.  This is never up for discussion.  Beloved items get retrieved, end of story.

After our hour long detour, we finally made it to Catania for the last leg of our Sicilian trip.  Our apartment was in an amazing location.  Right below our window was a daily farmer's market!

Sicily... lots of mopeds, run down buildings and graffiti.

Let's not forget the fact that there are literally NO DRYERS in all of Italy.  Everyone hangs their laundry out to dry.

Our extreme detour meant that we once again needed wine as soon as we got to our destination.  We loved the wrap around balcony at our apartment!

Americans and Germans would be having a conniption over this one.  Oh Italy!

Finally we decide to venture out and of course... look at the sky.  Surely we can get to the Catania Cathedral on the right, right? 

Oh but the Piazza dei Duomo is so pretty!  I love the elephant statue!

We managed to snap ONE picture of the kids in front of the Catania Cathedral before the raindrops started.

So we ran to our right and ducked into the Palazzo dei Chierici, where a guy was waving at us to come in and get out of the rain.  There was lighting and thunder! 

He is our strangest child.  We looked over at one point during our lengthy stay in the Palazzo and he was just standing against the wall like this!

Nope.  Still coming down pretty hard.

We weren't the only ones in the Palazzo!  Many people took refuge in here during the storm.

Finally the rain ended (read: Mommy deemed it safe to go out because the lightning and thunder had ended) and we were able to head over to the Catania Cathedral.  Originally constructed in the late 11th century, it's been destroyed several times by earthquakes since then, and subsequently rebuilt.  The bell tower is the third largest in Italy, only placing behind the Vatican and the Milan Cathedral!

Cardinal Dusmet is buried here.  He was beatified but hasn't yet been canonized, so therefore he's not yet a saint.  Although he is venerable, they are still looking for one more miracle to proclaim him a saint.

 The Catania Cathedral is dedicated to Saint Agatha, who is the patron saint of the city.  She isn't buried here (she's buried across the street at the Church of St. Agatha) but she figures prominently.

The rain seemed to be gone for the foreseeable future, so we decided to walk around Catania and we happened to spot THIS.  THIS!!!!  A beautiful wisteria growing on the side of a building!

Natalie wanted a smell, so I picked her up so she could smell the wisteria.  Believe it or not, wisteria is actually in the legume family!

This seems a bit more Italian to me.  Kind of like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree of tomato plants.

Walking up steps on the sidewalk on the Via Antonino Di Sangiuliano.

Grant just hanging out at the trade union.

Anywhere they can run around and actually have fun together is definitely a good thing.

The church on the right is San Benedetto, which was built in the early 1700s. This road that we are on, the Via Crociferi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for all of the churches and monasteries along it.

The Catania Cathedral, as seen from the Piazza Mazzini.

How cute is this?  Little Buddy and his Dad after the rain.

I know it's really hard to visit allllll of the churches in a city, especially in Italy.  However, this one was something special. This is the Basilica della Collegiata.  It was built in the early 1700s, not long after the great earthquake of 1693.  You'll find in Catania (and most of Sicily) that a lot of things were destroyed in this great earthquake, so most of what has been built was built after this event.

Ooooo la la!  The ceiling frescoes are beautiful!

I like a combination of pretty frescoes and stucco art.

While we really loved our AirBnB apartment, it was the loudest apartment we've ever been in.  The overnight was really loud because there were nearby bars with live bands and people screaming and shouting in the streets at all hours of the night.  Once that finally settled down around 3 am, it wasn't long after that the farmer's market started gearing up.  If we were staying longer, we would have definitely imbibed in the beautiful fruits, veggies, meats and fish of the market below our apartment.

I could NOT have been more excited when we woke up on our last full day in Sicily and we saw BLUE SKIES and sunshine!  This means we will get a decent day to explore Mount Etna!

The black lava rock can be seen man miles away from the summit of Etna.  Only in the last week, Etna has had some minor eruptions (but enough to make the world news!)

Driving up to Etna, its obviously still covered in snow.  But the dark lava rock clearly shows through.

Going to the top of Etna is NOT CHEAP.  Something around $225 for four people, to go all the way to the top.  First, you have to take a gondola up to a mid point.  Going up wasn't so bad, even for me.  Notice we still have some blue sky!

The first part of the trek up is in a four wheel drive bus.  You pass a couple of craters, some hikers and really, really, really high snow banks.

There's definitely still snow up here in April.  It's VERY chill near the top.  This is the second stop on the trek -- the point at which the four wheel drive buses can no longer handle the ice, snow and the steep grade.  We had to wait here for a few minutes for the tracked snow plows to come back down the mountain.  You can see a couple of the craters here.  The darker the surface, the warmer the surface.

At this point, it's chilly but not too bad.  The ground we are walking on is warm enough to emit steam because Etna is still very much an active volcano.

This dark lava rock is very fresh.  It was a lava river only hours before.

We were at Mount Etna on April 7.  We did not see this!  But that would have been cool! 

The next step toward the summit of one of the craters of Etna is to take this giant now plow on tracks to the top.

 She's smoking, folks.

Once you get to the top and get off of the snowplow, you follow your guide to the top of the crater (based on what language you speak... the main guide on our four wheel bus spoke several languages but focused on German.  This guide spoke English).  I didn't take any pictures at the top of the crater because IT. WAS. FREEZING.  I mean, so cold that the kids were crying and begging to be held.  It wasn't so much that it was cold as it was windy.

Then the guide says, "Do you guys want to see some lava?"  Um, YES PLEASE!  I've never seen lava in my entire life!  Note in the above picture that it's obviously much warmer since there is no snow.

You saw the picture of the lava rivers above... but this is all we got to see.  That's ok, it's still lava!  Real, live lava!  This scientist was super excited!

I can't begin to express how much warmer it was here so close to the active lava.  It must have been at least 65 degrees (compared to wind chills that were probably in the 20s slightly higher up on the crater rim).  Sitting on the warm rock was glorious.  You can see my kids are MUCH happier here.

Ok, time to go back down.  We lucked out with seats in the top row of the snowplow. My goodness, how cute are we!?!

Seriously, we felt like this snowplow was going to tip over at any point.  Look at the uncomfortable folks in the middle who are leaning and practically laying on each other!

The scenery and the weather were intense!  I have to say... despite the price, for someone who has a Master's of Science in Geosciences, this was an incredible trip and I would recommend it to anyone.  However, I would certainly say rent the coat and boots at the base camp.  You can rent them for a small fee (I believe it was 8 Euros).  Well worth it because it is REALLY cold at the top.  At the very least, rent it for anyone under the age of 18 to avoid whining and crying!

We had seen that there was an M.C. Escher exhibit back in Catania so after we had some lunch at the base camp of Mount Etna, we headed for the temporary Escher exhibit at the Palazzo della Cultura.  Escher was an interesting guy who kind of looked like Van Gogh but about 50 years later.  His work was a combination of art and mathematics. 

White birds flying in one direction, black birds flying in another, but which comes from which?  Day into night and night into day.

Drawing Hands was definitely my favorite.  The dimension in this sketch was so incredible. I love when one thing flows seamlessly into another and then around again.

We went to a restaurant at Il Maggese in the Piazza Mazzini for some dinner.  First... one of the people who worked there (maybe the owner?) had his kid running around with a wine box on his head.  He kept stalking our table and trying to speak to us in Italian. 

Second... I saw a bottle of Four Roses at the bar.  Sweet.  So when the waiter came over to take our drink order, naturally I ordered some Four Roses and Coke Zero.  The conversation went something like this: 

Me:  I'll have the Four Roses bourbon and a Coke Zero, mixed.

Waiter:  The Coke Zero?

Me: Yes.  With the Four Roses bourbon.

Waiter:  No.

Me:  But I saw it up there on the shelf?

Waiter: No.

Me:  Are you sure?  Cause....

Waiter: No.

(Waiter walks away and brings me a Coke Zero, without the bourbon).

On our walk around the city looking for an open gelateria, we finally found one in the Piazza del Duomo.  The Duomo looked so pretty lit up at night!

One last pretty picture of our quiet (not so quiet at all) street in Catania.  Loud farmers market by day, party street by night.

Give us two puffs if you're going to miss us, Mount Etna!

The islands of Croatia.  Perhaps the closest I will ever get to Croatia?  Only time will tell!

I know this isn't the best picture because my phone wanted to focus on the ice crystals on the airplane window, but this is Lake Bled, Slovenia where we are hoping to go this summer!

I love to watch my kids looking out the window on airplanes.  What is he thinking?  Does he know what he's looking at? What kind of adventures are in his head?

Until next time, Sicily!  It's been real!