We stayed for a number of days within sight of Mt Etna with the plans to hike the peak. However, she had different ideas and instead was extremely active and exploding for our entire visit. We drove twice to the highest point only to be turned away due to activity. The only good thing about […]
It was a beautiful day, so we headed inland to a well known hiking spot. Pantalica is a prehistoric settlement that was listed as a UNESCO world heritage site in 2005. The civilization found here dates from 13 to 7th century BC. The main part of the settlement that is still visible is the cliff
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Pompeii and Herculaneum were both well established cities by 79 AD. They were both near to the sea and had strong shipping routes and money inflow. There was an abundance of nobles who came to the cities to watch the arena fights and bet on who would win. The slaves were probably less thrilled about
Yoga week retreat was a fun relaxing way to spend some extra time we had on our hands. Every morning we would get up at, the not fun hour of, seven o’clock to get ready for yoga at eight. Yoga was generally ninety minutes long and in the morning was almost always vinyasa flow. Breakfast
We visited a small family olive farm in central Sicily, Amodeo’s Farm. Not only did we have an amazing meal, we learned how to properly taste olive oil and what it should and should not taste like. Afterwards we headed to the field where the real work is done and learned how the olives are
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The west side of Sicily is famous for its salt pans. These areas are large man-made shallows where salt has been produced since the time of the Phoenicians. Pools of gradually decreasing depth were built to bring in salt water and allow evaporation to occur thus leaving the valuable salt behind. We toured one of
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Another region of Italy = another food tour! We are only in Palermo for four days so I found a combined tour that allowed us to tour the markets AND the cultural sights of the capital city. Our guide, Paola, has a degree in architecture and museum studies and was quick to immerse us in
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We boarded a train in Pompei to head to Sicily. A train is definitely not the most efficient way to get to the island, but it sounded like a fun way to travel! Our first train of the day was a quick 40 min ride to take us from our apartment in Pompei to a
Who likes sweets? I know I do! We’ve had lots of fun trying all the yummy confections around Nice. We had ice creams, chocolates, candied fruit, and my personal favorite macaroons! The places to get the sweets were also very nice. There was a flower market that was open almost every day and it didn’t
We were sad to be leaving Rome because even Chris, who hates most cities, found a love of this vibrant place. We took the kids to ALL the typical Roman tourist stops. The Colosseum The Forum All the Egyptian Obelisks The Pantheon Castel Sant’Angelo aka Hadrian’s Mausoleum This place was originally built by the Emperor
