Thursday, June 24, 2010

Spring in Sicily

Hey Everyone!

As I'm preparing to take our first trip home together, I've realized how much I let my blog go! We have had a really fun spring/early summer with lots of traveling, sun, wine and relaxation. I will try to recap the adventures as best as I can :)

In March we took a 4 day trip through Tuscany.We drove to Palermo and flew from there to Pisa. To our shock and terror we learned that on certain Italian airlines, no one acknowledges their assigned airplane seats. The stereotype is 100% true that Italians will not wait in a nice orderly, American line. So just imagine a crowd of 200 something Europeans, smooshed together in a line-like clump fighting for seats on an airplane. Mamma mia.

We visited Pisa, Florence and Montalcino. Pisa was a quick stop. Took the obligatory "look I'm holding up the tower" picture, realized that there are actually more than one building in the city to see, had a cocktail and then headed to Florence. Pisa really is a beautiful city and I'm sure you could enjoy a few days taking in the sights and the food, but its waaay too touristy for my liking.




We took a train from Pisa to Florence, and stayed at a hotel in the center of the city. It was great, we could walk from the train station to the hotel, and then from there anywhere we wanted to go in the city. My dogs were barking by the end of the trip, but it was nice to not have to worry about parking or translating the signs for public transit! We visited art museums, saw the beautiful sights, ate big steaks and drank delicious wines. Florence is a place of beauty, and decadence.







Our favorite part of the trip was the tour through wine country in Montalcino. We went with a tour guide and a small group to two vineyards that produce Rosso di Montalcino and Brunello wines. The Rosso is the cheaper, more table red, very tasty. Brunello is my new love, a very full bodied "meditation " red wine. The first vineyard was family owned, Our tour guide was the owner, manager, farmer, harvester, wine maker, bottler, labler, chef and marketer. The little place has so much character and incredible wine. The second vineyard was a larger, more mass produced type of wine, but just as good tasting. The experience of small family owned boutique wine just didn't come close to the big guys. Here are some pictures of the day





We spent our Easter exploring "Isola Bella", an island ( really an Isthmus) near Taormina. We took Sophie for a walk on the rocky beach, spotted our first topless sunbathers and German tourists of the season, and had our picture taken by Asian tourists. It was really pretty- but the rocks were hard to sit/walk on!









On Memorial Day weekend we took the ferry over to the mainland in stayed in the town of Tropea, in the Reggio Calabria province. It was fun having our car and Sophie there for the weeekend. We rented an awesome apartment right on the beach in a little resort type place. They had a full resteraunt where we ate dinner the night we arrived, and breakfast each morning. We spent our days by the beach and evenings in Tropea which has a busy little pedestrian area full of shopping, dining and people watching. It was amazing to us how different the people, food and wine are on the mainland, even though we were only about 100 miles from home.







Pictures from Boston/Cape Cod to come soon! We had a blast with our family and friends, but are happy to be home with Sophie again :)

Monday, February 15, 2010

Carnevale

Yesterday we went to Carnevale in Aci Reale- the 2nd largest mardi gras festival in Italy, the most famous is Carnevale in Venice. It was crazy!! Everyone carries confetti and silly string and throw it in the faces of random strangers. Most of the adults will toss it at you and smile, but some of those damn kids with chuck handfuls of confetti right in your face! Most of the children are dressed in costumes, and some of the adults. Almost everyone wore masks or hats or something silly. The main attractions are the giant floats. Half are made of fresh flowers, and the others paper mache. They spend the night circling the main streets in a parade. Each float has it's own DJ and most have performers or dancers that perform on it or in front of it. We though the music was so funny- some Italian pop music, but a lot of American music!











The streets were lined with vendors selling toys, balloons, masks, and all kinds of food and sweets. We enjoyed some delicious Italian street meat sandwiches with crispelli- Italian fried dough with honey and pistachio's for desert.







Look at my facebook album to see all the pictures from the day: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2249079&id=11002081

Hey nice ride!

Friday, February 12, 2010

Dinner with the neighbors

Ciao everyone,

No pictures to post this time, but we should have lots to post after this weekend, we are headed to Carnevale ( the Italian celebration of Mardi Gras). We hear it is pretty awesome so hopefully we will have lots of pictures to post!

We've been laying pretty low the past 2 weeks, Gabe has been very busy at work with his annual 2 week inspection, but passed today with flying colors!

We attended a wine tasting night at a little wine store in our town a few weeks ago. It was advertised as 'Wine tasting with food complements". Turned out that not only did we taste each wine, we had a glasses topped off as much as we like! I was the driver that night and had to keep telling the heavy pour sommelier that I didn't want anymore! Gabe drank himself silly and it was all delicious! The food pairings, were brought in by the owners and some of their friends. Everyone had home-made a dish to pair with the wines. Everything was so tasty, I was stuffed by the time we left. Not bad for 10 euro!

Sunday our landlords invited us up for lunch. Always an experience. I've decided that they remind me of a sweeter Costanza couple. Both short, and almost look alike, and CONSTANTLY talking over one another. Giuseppe will speak to me a mile a minute, and when Lucia gets the sense that I'm getting lost, she will tell him NO no no Giuseppe, No capito!! And then she will begin to tell me the exact same thing at the exact same speed, adding in hand gestures to increase my understanding. I do think my Italian language class is helping, I'm starting to understand most of what they are telling us in context, and can even manage to get out a few sentences and ask a few questions myself. I learned that Lucia will not fly for longer than an hour and a half because she is afraid, so won't visit her friends in America. She sits like a mummy with her arms crossed over her chest rocking back and forth and her eyes rolled back in her head while she flies, I suppose in prayer? Not sure but it was quite a scene while she was explaining and her and Giuseppe both assumed the "airplane" position.

I asked them where they buy their olive oil, because I noticed their's was in an unmarked bottle. They told me they buy it in large quantities once a year from friends who own a farm, and then gave us a bottle!! It's so delicious, much better than store bought. This November we are going to buy a truckload too!

So things are still going well, I will post pictures of our weekend at Carnevale in a couple of days- Happy Valentines Day!

Friday, January 22, 2010

Ciao Ciao

Hey everyone! We have been busy doing lots of exploring the last few weeks. I have GPS unit from work we can use, so we have been driving all over the island with the assistance of our trusty Tom Tom named Bonnie. She's good. Two weeks ago we went to Gambino Winery. Its a vineyard all the way up the mountain. Beautiful views of the island and the ocean. All the grapes were gone because its winter, but we plan to go back in the spring when everything is in bloom. Wine tasting in Sicily is a very different experience than in the states. You sit down and are served one glass at a time, complemented by cheese, olives, bread, artichokes etc. It's a 2-3 hour event, not a 10 minute throw back. Definitely one of my favorite experiences so far on the island and a must do for any visitors!





Last weekend we booked a pet-friendly hotel in Palermo and spent Sat & Sun exploring the city. Palermo is the capital, and largest city in Sicily. We really loved it. Our hotel was walking distance to all the ancient sites to visit, and lots of modern shopping, restaurants and bars/pubs. The best sites were the ancient cathedral, open air markets, ancient fountain and the catacombs. If you're not familiar with the catacombs- go here; http://motomom.tripod.com/index-3.html ; it was the most surreal thing I have ever seen- real dead bodies within arms reach on display. The mystery is to why some are so well preserved and others aren't. Some of the 300 year old bodies still had skin and hair. The most bizarre is the 2 year old girl, who died in 1920 and looks like a sleeping doll. She is perfectly preserved. Its unreal. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures here, but definitely look at the website!








On Sunday we made a stop in the town of Cefalu, a famous beach town. It has a beautiful city center and cathedral as well. We all enjoyed a weekend at a hotel with lots of sightseeing fun. ( Sophie too)






All tuckered out from a busy weekend.


Recently I've started a 3 hr/week Italian language class and have been working on Rosetta stone. Slowly but surely its coming along! I just booked a trip home in April for some job training and Julie's bridal shower, and Gabe and I are coming to Boston together June 26-July 12th. The Salinas' will be meeting us in Boston too! So things are going great, we're still having an awesome experience and can't wait to come home for a visit!!