Friday Feb 27th - Arrivederci Catania & Sicily

I can’t believe that one month has passed so quickly and we are leaving for the next phase of our trip tomorrow.  Living in an apartment in Catania has been another great life experience. Catania is a very cultured city with many beautiful buildings, piazzas and wide avenues.  We have come to appreciate the uniqueness and warmth of the Sicilian people. They have been so welcoming to us. They are very proud of their culture and are Sicilian first and Italian second.  They love to celebrate with passion. The St Agatha festival was over the top. It was mixture of devotion and folklore that the whole city embraced.

We have loved the food here. It’s been the best we have tasted in all of Italy. The climate allows them to grow fruits and vegetables year round and the volcanic soil from Mt Etna is very rich, which provides a unique taste to everything. The Catania market was amazing and provided us access to an incredible source of fresh foods.  The wine was also excellent and very inexpensive for the quality, whether from a vineyard on the side of Etna or from the wine merchant with his large vats of local wine.

Unfortunately, we had one very bad experience in Sicily. We had a car-jacking episode where Wendy’s purse was snatched out of her hands in the back seat of the car in broad daylight. The thieves had a very organized method of attack, that is apparently a common occurrence in Sicily. We were returning home from our driving trip around the island and coming back into Catania using our GPS to find our apartment, when a motorcycle stopped and blocked the road in front of us. This was the decoy and focused our attention forward. Then suddenly, the back door opened and a guy grabbed Wendy’s purse from the floor. She fought with him to keep it, but he won out and jumped on the back of another motorcycle and they sped away. The guy in front of us also sped off once they had their booty. The good news was that we were not hurt and they didn’t get much as Wendy wasn’t carrying much.  We went to the police, but they shrugged their shoulders and said this happens all the time and there was nothing they could do about it. The lesson learned was that you should keep your car doors locked at all times and be very aware of your surroundings. This is all part of life’s tapestry in Sicily.

Here are a few pictures that summarize our amazing time here in Catania and around Sicily. 

Our apartment was fabulous, across the street from the Castello Ursino

 A fabulous market with amazing food stuff

..... allows for great good

 ... and wine

 Our cooking lessons will help us prepare Sicilian dishes when we get home

Lots of Roman ruins

Fabulous architecture

... parks

...and piazzas

 Incredibly beautiful churches of course

 Mt Etna was amazing

There was lots to see in Sicily - Taormina 

 Noto

 Palermo

Agrigento and the Valley of Temples

The St Agatha Festival was amazing and consumed the city for a week

A special thanks to Massimiliano and his lovely girlfriend Sara for all their help during our stay in Catania. We really appreciated your patience with all our questions and your responsiveness to any issues.