Category Archives: Italy

Italy

Sicily

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The last couple of years after Thanksgiving, we have taken a trip with my son, Zach, and his partner, Shannon.  Last year we visited Malta (see post from March of 2017) and this year we decided on Sicily.  With all of the traveling for work that Zach and Shannon do, they accumulate a lot of rewards points and they have been generous with the sharing of those with us on these trips.

Let me just say that Sicily is absolutely beautiful, the people are very friendly and the food is great.

Palermo

Palermo is the largest and most important city in Sicily.  After all, it is where the final scene in Godfather III takes place (see opera house pictures below).  Its history goes back to the beginnings of Mediterranean civilization, through the Phoenicians, the Greeks and the Romans. It was the capital of Sicily and spent time as one of the capitals of the Two Sicilies (Naples and Sicily combined). It has been destroyed many times and the old port was completely wrecked by Allied bombing during World War II. We spent several days there exploring this beautiful city as well as many great markets and buildings.  Above the town, we went to the village of Montreale with a great panoramic view of the city and the sea beyond.

View from our apartment
Model of the opera house
Inside the opera house
View from the royal booth (remember the Godfather movie?)
Fish market
Vegetable market
Vegetable market
Cathedral in Monreale
Inside the cathedral
View of Palermo from Monreale

Valle dei Templi near Agrigento, Sicily

From Palermo we drove south (through the village of Corleone, again for the Godfather fans) to Agrigento to visit the ancient ruins of the Greek city of Akragas in the Valley of the Temples.  “Valley” is a misnomer, the ruins sit on a ridge just below the modern city of Agrigento.  It is considered the largest archaeological  site in the world.

Temple of Concordia
Temple of Concordia
Icarus
Olive tree
Love the horns on these goats
Our great travel companions
My best friend
Sunset at the ruins
Sunset at the ruins

Taormina and Mount Etna

We then drove to the east side of the island and got a close up look at the most active volcano in Europe, Mount Etna, and the lovely resort town of Taormina.

Etna was always smoking and when we drove up the side it was a moonscape of pumice. You can take a gondola to the rim of the upper crater and helicopter tours are available.  It was cold and late in the day and we did not avail ourselves of either.  It was an eerie place to be.

View from Taormina
Etna from Taormina
Roman theater in Taormina
Above taormina
Taormina theater from a distance
Etna
Streets of Taormina at dusk
Etna smoking
Etna smoking
Cinder cone on Etna
Gondola to the top of Etna
Bottom of the small crater
Never underestimate the power of a volcano

Siracusa

We took a day drive to Syracuse.  It was at one time the second largest city in ancient Greece and rivaled Athens in splendor.  It is now a rather subdued small town on the coast with few indications of its former splendor.

The cathedral
Shannon and Zach
You have to love Italian uniforms
And the men in those uniforms acting like everyone else
Fish market
Outdoor vevetable market
One of the few remnants of the Greeks

Messina

Messina is a port city on the northeast corner of Sicily and has a clear view of Calabria on the Italian mainland.  It is also home to what they claim to be the largest astrological clock tower in the world.  Every hour there are cocks crowing, lions roaring and bells ringing with a parade of saints and animals.  It is actually quite a piece of craftsmanship.  It displays not only the time but the month and the phase of the moon.

Port of Messina with Calabria in the distance
Port of Messina from the clock tower
The clock tower
The inner workings of the clock
The inner workings of the clock
The inner workings of the clock

Cefalù

On our way back to Palermo, we stopped through the small port city of Cefalù on the northern coast.  It was one of my favorites. It has a great 11th century cathedral, a castle on the hill and great views.

Cefalù
The Cathedral
Inside the cathedral
The castle wall on the hill
Sunset

After a night at the opera in Bari, the last view of our two travel buddies.

Italian Cities, Italy

Roma con Amici

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Visiting great cities is always fun.  Visiting great cities with great friends is even better.  Visiting Rome is one of my favorite adventures.  But visiting Rome with great Italian friends is a rare once-in-a-lifetime treat and that is what we did late last year.

Those of you that follow this blog, should be somewhat familiar with our friends Gianfranco and Paula.  In addition to being our friends, they have acted as our tutors, chauffeurs, translators, dinner guides and Sunday-night-movies-at-Dario’s companions.  Gianfranco was the first person we met in Lecce and we shall be forever grateful for that piece of luck.  When they suggested that we go to Rome together and visit several gracious people we had met a couple of times before at Porto Cesareo, we jumped at the chance.

The Major Cast

Gianfranco and Paula on the train to Roma
Paula
Gianfranco
Yours truly with the gfirls
Holly and I

Caravaggio

One of the major reason that Paula wanted to take this trip with us was to visit as many of the Caravaggio paintings housed in Rome as possible.  I sometimes felt like we were characters in a Dan Brown novel scurrying around town in search of the next hidden painting.  One of the works is featured in the Angels and Demons movie.  I know that his paintings will not be new to many of you, but seeing them in person is breathtaking.  His use of light is something every lighting designer should study.

Italian Dinners

I am always traveling around with a camera slung over my shoulder waiting for the next opportunity to find a scene I cannot resist.  We were invited to dinner on consecutive nights to two homes of the friends we had met at Porto Cesareo.  I took a camera the first night, but it felt a little awkward.  That is a long way around to the fact that I have pictures of the first dinner, but not the second.  In hindsight, I am not sure I made the right decision.  Just know that both dinners were spectacular meals and we ate way too much at each of them.  You just cannot say no to Italians set on feeding you, and the food just keeps coming.

The table
Gianni (our chauffeur) and Holly
Rosaura and Gianni
Dessert

Just a few of the regular sites

 

Ponte Sant’Angelo
Can’t go to Rome and not take a picture of the Coloseum
The Pantheon – one of my favorite buildings in the world

Just before we left to return to Lecce, we had a lunch buffet at the restaurant run by Gianni’s son, Alessandro.  By the time we rolled ourselves onto our train, I thought we would never be able to eat again.

Italy

Grandchildren and Pompeii

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Lecce is difficult enough to get to that even when they come to Italy, many friends and family cannot find the time to actually travel that far south to visit us there.  Zach, Shannon, Jamie and the Thanksgiving gang all made the effort and I hope they felt handsomely rewarded for their efforts.  The only other exception was my daughter Jessica, her husband Matt, and their three children, Ethan, Brooklyn and Benson.  They decided to make the trip last summer and we had a great time.

For those of you that still have some notion about southern Italy being somehow off limits, you are missing some incredible food, beautiful scenery, historic cities and friendly people.  Perhaps we all need to see the great cities of the north, Venice, Florence, Rome and Milan, but once you have had your fill of too many tourists, try the south.  You will find it fascinating.

We met Jessica and her family in the modern town of Pompeii and spent a day visiting the ancient ruins there and then returned to Lecce where all seven of us packed into our small apartment and spent a week exploring, eating, swimming and just relaxing.  Traveling can be very tiring for all of us and I think it can be especially hard on young people.  All I have to say is that this group never seemed to get bored or complain about the heat, the antiques or anything else.  I cannot think of any better way to spend our precious time than sharing the wonders of the world with loved ones.

The Group

From left to right at the table, Jessica, Benson, Matt, Brooklyn and Benson.

The gang of five

Pompeii

Since it is one of the most visited sites in the world, I know many of you have been to Pompeii and wandered through this ancient city, but for those of you who haven’t, here are a few pictures to give you a feel for the place.

One of the reasons this place is so special is that because it was completely buried for so many centuries, nothing was destroyed by the ongoing urban development like so many other places.  They are also doing some restoration (not sure how I feel about that) so that at times you can almost imagine yourself walking  through the town nearly 2,000 years ago.

We started our day early when there were few people there.  By the time we finished several hours later, the place was packed.  I did my best to keep most of those people out of the pictures.

In the modern city of Pompeii
One of the main streets of Pompeii
An atrium
An atrium
Frescos
Frescos
Frescos
Frescos
The Faun of the famous “House of the Faun”
Stepping stones in the middle of the street
The culprit looming in the background
Centaur
Bronze statue
Plaster cast of one of the victims
Inside the bathhouse
It was hot, but not a wimper

Lecce and points south

We not only spent time in Lecce, but also took trips to Gallipoli and Porto Cesareo on the Ionian side and Otranto on the Adriatic.

Under the castle walls
Got his phone thing going on
The joy of swimming in the Adriatic
The Adriatic
Hot day and cool water
Just about done for the day
Brooklyn and Ethan in Lecce
My buddy Benson

The farewell

It was rather sad to say goodbye at the train station, but it had been such an extraordinarily good time, who could complain?

Just about to hop on the train for the trip home
Italy

Thanksgiving in Italy – Take 2

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This is a long past due post that Holly has told me I must write before I am allowed to write anything more on this blog.

Most of you who know me understand that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year.  There are several reasons for this and I could probably write a long treatise on the subject, but to spare you from my ramblings I will make it short.

It is a holiday that we seem to all be able to relate to.  Without being blind to the imperfections in our lives and the troubles around the world, most of us can look around us and  see the good we do have; family, friends and those good things that we see happening.  You don’t need to be an adherent to a specific religion, political party or be a super patriot. You just need to be able to take time once a year to recognize the good you do have and not dwell on the negative for at least one day.

For around 30 years, Holly and I hosted a Thanksgiving Day dinner at our house on 34th and Denny in Seattle.  (As a matter of fact, since I left to go to graduate school in Detroit in 1972, with only a few exceptions, I have hosted a Thanksgiving dinner at my house.) Those dinners have included children, grandchildren, siblings, nieces, nephews, parents, grandparents, friends and anyone else that needed a place at a table on this holiday.   During those last 30 years we had anywhere between 23-32 people to celebrate with us and always had a wonderful time of feasting and sharing with everyone involved.  To be quite honest, losing this tradition was one of my personal reservations about our move to Italy.  But life moves on and new traditions always evolve.

Both years we have been here in Italy, our daughter, Jamie, our son, Zach, and his partner, Shannon, have traveled all of the way to Lecce, Italy to share this special holiday with us.  This year Jamie brought three of her friends, Lizzie, Molly and Kim, and Zach brought his friend Ipo along for the occasion.  Adding our Italian friends, we had a total of 23 people sharing our dinner and listening to my ever-present Thanksgiving toast (this year in both English and broken Italian).

The Cast from the U.S.

The group on our rooftop terrace (without Shannon, not sure where she was)
Jamie
Zach
Shannon
Lizzie
Molly
Ipo
Kim
The girls: Kim, Lizzie, Molly and Jamie

In the United States, it was always hard for me to find a 30 pound turkey for our dinner.  In Italy the smallest I could find was around 33 pounds.  Our local butcher, Ermano, always likes to clown around and picking up the whole turkey (they sell the pieces, but rarely a whole bird) was no exception.  The turkeys here are very juicy and if you are not careful at the end of the roasting your pan can be very full of that juice.  Imagine (or look at the photo below) my surprise when all of that hot juice came spilling out of the pan as I took the bird out of the oven.  Thankfully there were no injuries, just a mess to be cleaned up as I was trying carve a turkey for 23 guests.

The Turkey

The bird and the butcher, Ermano
Takes two to carry that big bird home
Stuffed and ready to go
Into the oven
Perfect fit
Oops
The mess
The finished product

We had a great dinner and our Italian  friends always seen to enjoy the traditions as much as we do.  They all bring food and so the dinner is a delightful blend of traditional American and Italian food.  It was an absolute joyous evening of eating, drinking and conversing.

The Dinner

The dinner
The dinner
Our wonderful friend Dario
The dinner
The women
The aftermath
The aftermath

Since our American guests were only going to be in Italy for a few short days, it was decided that we needed to take a trip the day after our celebration and Matera was chosen as the place to go.  Since we held our dinner on Friday evening to accommodate our Italian guests (dinner starting around 8:30) we didn’t finish the cleanup until around 3 am.  At 9 am the next morning, we got everyone out of bed to trek off to Matera in a rented van.  Along with our American guests, Gianfranco and Paula also joined the excursion.  Although I had originally disagreed with the prudence of trying for an outing the day after our dinner (there was some sleeping on the 2 hour drive back) Matera worked its magic, and everyone was totally enchanted.

The Day After Trip to Matera

The whole gang in Matera
Holly and Paola
Magical Matera
Magical Matera

Before we leave Portugal next week, I will be posting several long overdue stories and hopefully will have time to write-up our time in Lisbon and Porto.

 

European Travel, Italian Cities, Italy

Gallipoli: a port city in Italy, not the famous battle site in Turkey

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Our new-found friends, Lili and Robert from Espressino Travel, invited us to a performance of some traditional music and dancing on Sunday evening not far from Lecce.  When we arrived, it was a beautiful, clear Italian afternoon, not a cloud in the sky.  However, we were told that the performance had been postponed due to the torrential rain that had just occurred (we saw little trace of it).  As we looked around, we discovered that we were in an old quarry.  That was interesting all by itself. I have included some pictures below.

Not to be deterred, Lili and Robert suggested we take a side trip to Gallipoli and have dinner.  Turned out to be a great idea.  We had a delightful dinner on a rooftop deck at sunset.

The magic just seems to continue.

Lili and Robert
The quarry
Interesting parking job
Gallipoli
They do churches right here

Part of the fishing fleet

Old town Gallipoli in the back ground
Beautiful sunset from Gallipoli

Our dinning spot