Drop Dead Gorgeous

On Monday we traveled north to Taormina to start the tour. What a difference from Catania... this is where the beautiful people have been coming for hundreds of years. And here we are (yes, they let us in...it's a mystery). Anyway, so much too remember about the past 24 hours so I thought I'd just go with random thoughts we've had and some more pictures... All the women here are super models - right down to the cashiers and hotel clerks. And they're nice too! Not fair, makes it worse. Needless to say, Ted's been taking lots and lots of pictures. There will be a whole scrapbook of his pictures of advertisements. Obviously, we didn't bring enough black clothes. Guess what Ted found? They use black lava stone in everything - jewelry, nick knacks (like a bust of General Patton), street pavers, buildings, everything. It's very cool. This is Gelato Nirvana! Today we swam in the Ionian Sea. No sand, only marble pebbles. Water so clear I could see my toes 5 feet down, and so saline I could float head\shoulders above the water without trying. Mount Etna at my back. Mazzaro beach, Taormina. Just so you know, I was swimming about the same time as my usual weekly staff meeting was going on. I am so LOL! Greco Roman Amphitheatre The city... Taormina is absolutely beautiful. Boneless Rabbit, chilling my the sea.

Beautiful and Gritty

This past weekend we acclimated to Italy by spending it in Catania - walking a lot - immersing ourselves in the culture. By day, Catania is not a beautiful city. It's industrial with few cultural attractions. You could easily dismiss it without the right attitude. The local market was pretty famous so we explored it early one morning, watching the vendors set up and call out to each other. Each display of produce or meat or fish was artfully crafted. It was a little scary to watch the old guys with cigarette hanging out of their mouths hacking up big slabs of beef (or whatever) and refrigeration seemed like an after thought. Ted tried roasted chestnuts for the first time. And for the record, I ate marinated artichoke hearts and loved them. (Yes it's me - must be the air here or something cause normally those would not have passed my lips!) We found a little hole in the wall trattoria that was recommended for dinner. Of course we were early - 7:30 p.m. when most Italians are just getting ready to go out for their evening walk before even thinking about dinner. But the chef and Ted had developed a relationship (lots of hand gestures) so they opened early for us. We had the restaurant to ourselves and the chef catered to us exclusively. We had rollini which was very very thin bread (kind of like pizza crust only really thin) with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella & EVOO etc, rolled up and baked. They were very good. Then the last night we went to another restaurant - a little more upscale - absolutely no english spoken and nothing written in english. I used my little Italy restaurant translator and ordered our entire meal in Italian. I was very proud. We had the most creamy fresh buffalo mozzarella with proscuitto, agnolotti (filled pasta) covered in a pistachio cream sauce (OMG), and fritto misto (fresh shrimp and calamari lightly battered and fried). It was all delicious. Then of course, gelato on the walk back to the hotel. In Catania we looked for the beauty and what we found was that the people are friendly and open, the food is great, and by night the city is transformed. The architecture is ornate and mixed - a roman column here a greek stature there. The streets are paved in lava stone (too cool). When the sun goes down and the shadows deepen the buildings take on a character and presence that is dramatic, a little gritty but beautiful in it's own way. We are glad we visited. P.S. The pistachio pesto is fantastic and we are bringing some home. Can't get enough!

Base Station Established

18 hours and many miles... Catania, via Vienna. We survived the trip, although I have to say that the international airlines put the american airlines to shame. I mean wine with every meal - free - even breakfast. Now that's civilized! It didn't really sink in right away that we were here. Didn't get that feeling of "Were not in Kansas anymore, Toto". Until... we found our first Gelateria. Una pallina of Bacio and we were in Italy! The Great Gelato Experiment has begun. Started with my favorite. The presentation was incredible, like works of art.

Wandering around and getting our bearings, visited a market for some fruit, got caught in a rain storm and had to seek shelter in a Trattoria (a couple of Moretti Beers and we did not mind being all wet.) Also, Day 1 and Ted has called in his first Gatto (cat), it's a gift.

Off to find as many wine bars as we can between the internet cafe and our hotel as we can. Ciao!

The Great Gelato Experiment

Allora, Gelato... For me it is the pure, concentrated essence of Italian desserts. Whenever I visit Italy I must have it, daily, without reservation or guilt. Just una pallina (one scoop)... well, maybe due palline! My favorite flavor is nocciola (hazelnut) with cioccolato (chocolate) as a close second. Ted likes frutti di bosco literally fruits of the forest (blueberries, blackberries, etc.) but technically that's sorbetto if it doesn't contain milk. He doesn't seem to care. As we embark on this new trip, I think an experiment is in order - let's see if we can try 30 flavors! Each day we will seek out the best Gelateria and try a new flavor. I will have to sneak some bacio in there too (think Nutella flavored ice cream - yum!) but we'll see what we can come up with. Buono!

Follow the Rabbit

Have you ever followed a Rabbit Trail? Say you started something only to be distracted by something else, then some other thing, etc, until you notice hours have gone by and you never finished what you had started in the first place. I know it sounds like attention-deficit (or even senility) but it happens to all of us. So what if you had a month to explore Italy? There is so much to see (and eat and drink...) you gotta have a plan. Here's ours... We picked Sicily this time around and because the airfair was significant we decided why not get 2 trips for the price of one air ticket and added Southern Italy. We explored Northern Italy 2 years ago and fell in love with the culture, the scenery, the people, and of course the food and wine. As you can imagine, this is going to be a trip of a lifetime. With the 2 Rick Steves tours we have some structure - they get us to the good spots, the "must see" places in each area plus we get plenty of time to follow our own Rabbit Trail.