Sicily, Italy!

 I can't believe that I got to go to Italy for the second year in a row for my birthday trip!  It just worked out that our good friend Jeff Jackson was going to be in Sicily and invited us to join him for a trip around Sicily - how could we pass that up? Here is a pic from our plane of Mt. Etna.

Ok - long story short: Jeff got to Sicily a few days before us, had a car accident in the rental car, man on scooter ran into his car, police took away Jeff's license, we had to change the reservation to Jeremy's name, it took a while, it all worked out, no one was injured!

Our first stop on our 5 day road trip was a city known for their ceramics - Caltagirone.  They were getting ready to celebrate a festival in honor of Mary.  There was a large set of stairs that we walked down and then subsequently back up ( it wasn't as bad as it looks.)  All along the stairs were ceramic shops and at the bottom was where we had lunch: delicious pasta with pistachio pesto.  You just can't beat the food in Italy!

 The flowers were in a particular design for the festival and the people process from the bottom to the top holding a statue of Mary up to the church at the top of the stairs.

When we were done in Caltagirone, we drove on windy, country roads to Agrigento.  Our hotel was right on the water, which was fun.  (We had a mosquito battle in the middle of the night when Jeremy opened up the doors for a little breeze.  We heard them buzzing around our faces and found them eating us for dinner even under the covers.  In the end...we won and they died!)  We immediately went for gelato as a dinner appetizer!  In this area they serve gelato like a normal ice cream (dish or cone) but their specialty is in a brioche bread.

Our dinner was delicious, but this particular appetizer was the best orange I have ever tasted in my life. It was so flavorful and wonderful with the onions and pistachios!

After dinner, the boys got another gelato - when in Sicily...

That night, we took a ride up to the Greek temple ruins to see them all lit up!

The second day we went back to the Greek temples to walk around them.  It was pretty awesome, until I heard something rattling in the bushes - a snake!  "I don't wanna see a snake" became my favorite tune to sing walking around the temples.  There was also a great view up there of the surrounding area.

All of Sicily had tons of almond and olive trees.

Later that day we headed towards Sciacca and had a delicious new treat - panelle.  They were fried chick pea squares and it was fun to see Jeff with all of his friends from his mission - they still remember "Elder Jackson", or fondly "Jackson."  Jeff also had us taste some pistachio and almond honey brittle, yum!

It's no mystery why the Italians can afford to eat so much pasta!

That evening we stayed in a hotel that had sulphur pools.  Jeff and Jeremy tried them out and it turned Jeremy's wedding ring a copper color for a good month!  It was stinky too.

The next day we headed up to Erice, a mountain town with a really cool castle on the top.  Unfortunately, we froze a bit because some big clouds came in and we were so high up.  We also bought some fun souvenirs in the stores.

After we left Erice, we headed to Palermo.  Palermo is one of the biggest towns in Sicily.  We walked through the big food market and had fun looking at the seafood especially.

The final scene of the Godfather was filmed in this opera house!

The next day we drove to Taormina, which was one of my favorite places.  It was another town on top of a mountain on the coast.  We parked in a garage and then took a bus up to the top.  We found this very frightening abandoned car here.

As soon as we got up there, we saw a wedding in the center square.

One of the big things to see in Taormina is the view and also the Roman amphitheater.  I was just wishing we could've seen someone like Andrea Bocelli that evening singing there.  It would have been even cooler!

Just another project I would like to do someday!

We ate at this restaurant with the best view.  We just kept commenting on how lucky we all felt to not be working and be eating here that day.  It was gorgeous and the food was delicious!

 The last day we went to Syracuse to try and get Jeff's driving license back.  Luckily, he was able to by the some miracle!

There is a natural fresh water spring with papyrus growing just a stone's throw from the salt water sea.  I bought a little souvenir and something for my grandmother at a store here out of the papyrus.  The lady in the store showed us how she handmade the paper from the papyrus.

We were lucky enough to have Jeff come and stay with us in Paris for the next week.  He got to go to the French Open and tour around the city.  We loved all of his efforts in  planning this trip and had fun all being together!