5 years in Sicily: a dream come true

Note: I started working on this post shortly after leaving Sicily in mid-January, but have been so busy I’m only just finishing it now. Something about three kids, international move, new schools, new house needing lots of work, lots of feelings … blah blah blah. 

More than five years ago, we arrived in Sicily and took up residence in a hotel in Motta Sant’Anastasia. After a brief incident in which Chris crashed a rental car, we headed to a random restaurant called Valentino’s. Thinking that portions would be small because of Italy (propaganda), we each ordered an appetizer, a pasta and a meat.

Then we accidentally got a truly absurd table full of food  — all at the same time, rather than in courses — because, apparently, we didn’t know what the hell we were doing.

It was delicious (and mortifying). And man, do I wish I had a picture.

Fast forward to January 2022. I’d long planned on our last meal being with friends at Valentino’s because of my (possibly irrational) love of bookends. Covid jacked up those plans in a variety of ways: restaurant wasn’t open for dining, some friends couldn’t come because of Covid, they were only serving pizza rather than a full menu, which led us to move to ordering Valentino’s pizza at our friends’ Matt and Christine’s house. Despite the change of venue, the sentiment, however, was exactly what I hoped for. The food we loved (I will dream of the pizza calabrese senza capperi until the end of my days) was fabulous as ever, but being surrounded by some of the people we love most? Perfect.

We also spent our last Saturday in Sicily in Taormina, which I considered a great bookend for our years here because that’s how we spent our first Saturday in Sicily. Looking at these pictures, I can’t even fathom a) how much the kids have grown, and b) how quickly time has passed.

We’ve had some incredible times here. Honestly, the last five years — despite problems like Cochroach House, Baby Who Doesn’t Sleep and that other tiny thing, uh, the one that shut life down for ages? Oh  yeah, COVID — have literally felt like we were on vacation. Five years of vacation.

Honestly.

Sometimes I worry people think I don’t appreciate what I’ve had, but given how sad I am about leaving — and I am enormously sad about leaving — the one thing that helps is that I know that I appreciated every bit of living here.

For the entire time we were living in Sicily, Chris and I had this bit we’d do. If we were driving somewhere and saw somewhere beautiful, or we’d just look at each other and go

“WE LIVE HERE!”

In the more than five years we lived in Sicily, we had so many cool opportunities, both on the island and off. Memories we will cherish for forever. Memories we will be laughing about years from now, the same way my siblings and I laugh about that time with the rocks on the German guy’s car in Salzburg in ’01. My kids still run around periodically yelling that their “mind is a beautiful computer” like our crazy first landlady, so we’ll always have that.

Anyway, I’m having a hard time coming up with a better way of expressing this than lists. So, lists you shall have. I don’t make the rules.

Also photos. So many photos.

10 All-Time Favorite Trips

Well, this was meant to be about five top ones, but then I couldn’t stop adding. Oh well.

1. Loire Valley. Our eight days in Paris, Giverny and Loire Valley were one of our very first big trips — celebrating my 30th birthday — and every bit of it was spectacular. Paris will always be one of my favorite European cities ever, regardless of whether that is cliched or not. But the Loire Valley! A somewhat random add-on to the trip: chef’s kiss. Spectacular. Beautiful scenery and wine and castles! CASTLES!

   

   2. Slovenia. This was another one that took us by surprise! Chris read about a treehouse hotel in a Navy magazine, so we looked into it and booked it for the following year (first availability). We did not know much about Slovenia beyond this hotel, but we ended up being blown away. We spent two great days at Lake Bled, then two more in Ljubljana, a city that is now in the running for one of my favorite European capitals.

   

   3. Scotland and Berlin. A real dream team here, 3 days in Berlin followed by 8 in beautiful Scotland! Berlin in one of our favorite cities, and we liked it so much we wenet back a second time just a few months after this trip. Scotland was incredible as well. Highlights included Harry Potter sightseeing, finding our favorite-ever museum, ethereal scenery in the Highlands and MORE CASTLES. Hm. Sensing a theme yet?

   

   4. Puglia. Ask the kids about their favorite trip, and both Owen and Fiona will bring up our four days in Puglia. It’s hard to disagree, because it was jam-packed with awesome (except for one thing, see below). Our visit to the “heel of the boot” was easily my favorite within-Italy trip, with highlights being an e-bike tour of the countryside, visit to the ZooSafari and walking around beautiful Alberobello. 

   5. Switzerland. Our “last hurrah” trip to Nendaz was one of the best, even with some minor misadventures! We learned how to ski (kind of) and stayed in the most beautiful AirBnB we’ve ever had. Plus, SNOW! Which was a novelty at the time. There is now snow on the ground in March in Ohio and we are over it. 

   6. Belgium. This was the beginning of our realization that 4-days trips where you don’t have to change accommodations are the bee’s knees, baby. (Never mind that our accommodations in this case turned out to be above a sex shop, up several flights of the most perilous stairs I’ve ever encountered.) We had a great time exploring Brussels (read: eating all the chocolate and french fries in Brussels), Bruges, Ghent and seeing one of the best museums we’ve ever been to in Bastogne. 

   7. Romania. This was a more recent trip, one I took with just the kids. We missed Chris, but adored this beautiful (and extremely affordable) country! We saw two castles, visited a dinosaur park, rode a funicular to find snow and enjoyed a spa evening with waterslides and outdoor hot tubs. 

   8. Budapest. This was the final trip we took as a family of four, and we all loved it. Staying for four days in one city gave us the chance to see a lot, and even still we felt like we only scratched the surface. Every meal we had was amazing, which was great for me because I was about eight months pregnant and completely ravenous all the time. Fan favorites included the pinball museum, a Danube River cruise and the Budapest Circus. 

   9. Christmas markets in Germany/France. Really, this item could encompass all the Christmas markets we’ve been to, because these are truly one of our favorite things. However, this quick trip included two of our favorites: Christmas markets in Frankfurt, Germany, and Strasbourg, France (the “capital of Christmas”).

   

   10. Vienna. What a gorgeous city this was! We spent four days exclusively exploring Vienna, and still could have used another. My favorite part of this one was spending an entire day exploring Schonbrunn Palace and its grounds, which included a zoo and hedge maze (among other cool stuff). 

   HONORABLE MENTION: Nice & Provence in summer 2021! This was similar to a trip that we were supposed to take in 2020 with my family, which got cancelled for the obvious reason. We spent three beautiful days in Nice (including a visit to the best full-service beach), plus four more days driving around beautiful Provence during lavender season. It was an absolute bucket list item for me and I’m so glad we got to go! (And will blog about it eventually). 

   Let’s hear from the kids: Owen & Fiona’s favorites

Owen: Puglia, Germany (“all of them, especially when we went to the Lego Museum for my birthday“), Poland.

Fiona: Malta! (Also for her birthday), Puglia and Romania. 

Favorite trips with family and friends

Writing this up reminded me how many times we were privileged to travel with our friends and family! (And this is with group trips to Amsterdam, France and Tuscany all cancelled in 2020). This list also doesn’t include the many wonderful visits from family and friends, which allowed us to share our home with the people with love. 

1. Oktoberfest! At the time of planning, this felt like my magnum opus. We went to Oktoberbest on our honeymoon in 2010, and immediately after I was planning to do a group trip back in 2012. Instead, I had Owen in October 2012! Once we moved here, I got moving and we ended up doing an Oktoberfest trip with my parents, two of my siblings, Chris’ brother, my aunt and uncle, four of our friends (and three of their kids) and four of my parents’ friends. It was EPIC.

1. Ireland with my in-laws! We visited Dublin, the Rock of Cashel and the Cliffs of Moher. Dublin was so much fun, and then after that *everyone* got to enjoy my first* attempt to drive on the left (and in a giant van!). Good times.  *Edit: not actually my first time, I just remembered. But my only every left-hand driving experience was driving a scooter in Thailand, which is somewhat different than a 9-passenger van.
2. Spain with my sister and Chris’ brother! I’m not even sure how this trip exactly came together, but we ended up spending a week in Barcelona and Mallorca with my sister Torie and Chris’s brother, Brett. Since Chris and I have been together since the two of them were teenagers, they know each other really well and are like brother and sister themselves (past hijinks include getting in trouble for racing wheelchairs at the hospital while I was delivering Owen). The seven of us had so much fun seeing the sights, eating great food and accidentally robbing a robber. 

   

3. Paris with some of our favorites! I went to Paris with my bestie Shaina, and it was some of the most fun I’ve ever had! I could not be more grateful that we got to have that experience together. Chris also had a great time exploring the city on a different trip he took with his brother. No matter how many times I’ve gone, I never get enough of Paris. 4. Garmisch! We spent the 2019 Thanksgiving holiday at Edelweiss, a military resort in Bavaria. We’d already planned to do the trip with my in-laws, Gail and David, but later found out that basically our entire friend group had the same thing in mind. So in addition to spending time with family, we also got hang out with Megan, Dave, Christine, Matt, Meg, Sam, Angie, Rey and their collective nine children. It was insanely fun! And I will be dreaming about the outdoor hot tub at Edelweiss until the end of my days.5. San Vito Lo Capo. This impulsive group trip was the product of lockdown fatigue (someone suggested it one afternoon in summer 2020 when things were just opening again) and within a couple hours, we had five families on board. That was the summer we fell in love with group beach trips, and this one was no exception. Between the families, we had at dozen kids with us in this gorgeous seaside town in western Sicily. 6. Krakow with our besties! Another of our final trips, and one I’m so happy we got to take! Our friends Megan and Dave and their two kids visited Krakow, Poland, at the same time as us and we had a ton of fun together (including my kids trying to teach hers to lick the walls in the salt mine we visited). 

Top 5 times my family kinda hated me

10 points to Gryffindor if you can spot what these have in common!

1. That time I thought a hike to the Old Man of Storr on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, would be our “first hike of the day.” 

   

   2. That time we got off the bus at the wrong stop in Chianti and had to walk about 30 minutes (partially in the rain) to get to a winery.

   

   3. That time I thought it would be a good idea to visit the Grotte di Castellana for what turned out to be a long, long underground tour … after spending the morning on a three-hour e-bike tour. In my defense, the e-bike tour was a huge hit with everybody and I was still high on the gloriousness of my victory there when I made this decision. Plus, Chris agreed to go so it was at least 50 percent his fault. 

4. That time we got drunk and did the hardest hike in Cinque Terre. I haven’t written about this trip, so here’s the background: we made a last-minute decision to take a 11th anniversary trip to Pisa/Cinque Terre in September 2021. I’ve wanted to hike between all five towns since we arrived, but Chris never wanted to do it with the kids (see above for reasons why) so it kept getting pushed back. Once we knew we were moving, we knew it was time to get it done. We stayed in Riomaggiore and decided to take the train to the furthest-away town (Monterosso al mare) and walk back as far as we could. Except first we had a bottle of wine for lunch in Riomaggiore. (And then another glass of wine in Monterosso). Then we were warned by the woman selling us passes that it was “challenging” and “would take two hours” and “have water and good shoes” and “don’t do it,” but to be real honest with you, I assumed she was just being a little hysterical. After all, I walked on some of the paths back when I was a teenager traveling with my family. Still, I took precautions and got us these for the walk:

Turns out, the paths I walked back in the day were what you’d call “less challenging” and also “paved.” I was encouraged by the number of college students and fit people who were turning around on this hike (or at least as exhausted as us) because hey! we are hanging in there! Chris, however, saw it as signs of our impending doom. Tomato, tomato. See? Looks the same when you write it. Anyway, it was rough but at least we were sufficiently buzzed while sending instructions about care of our children to friends in Sicily.

5. That time that I ran out of gas on a random farm. To be fair to all involved, the only one freaking out or pissed off was me, the person who apparently passed the last gas station leaving Cefalu without noticing. My parents, along for this ride, were extremely chill and understanding about the whole debacle. Chris wasn’t there, obviously, because he’s a proper grownup and doesn’t “get into scrapes” as Anne Shirley and I do. 

Somehow, each of these are actually a cherished memory. Even the gas incident, it turned out to be the first time I ever got to try rabbit (while being warned, in Italian, to watch out for buckshot). So, silver linings.

Things I miss about living in Sicily 

1. Our friends! Above all else, I miss our wonderful friends. Living there was tough because it is temporary for almost everyone, so we said a lot of goodbyes over the years. But I love that we got the chance to meet so many people! (And that I now have people to text in basically every time zone).

   

   Included in the friends category: our wonderful landlords who looked after us for three years.

2. The food. Do I really need to say more? While certainly we got sick of Sicilian food from time to time while there, we miss it terribly now. I can get pizza any time of day now (rather than only in the evening), but it isn’t going to be pistachio pizza and it is going to be — I’m estimating here — about 150 million times the price. Sigh.  I miss walking into a tavola calda or bakery, grabbing whatever looks good and walking out with an epic bag of food and 5 fewer euro in my wallet. My kingdom for a bombe from Puleo! (Deep fried pastry filled with ham and cheese, 1 euro, insanely delicious). 

   

3. The wine. Same thing as above, really. Even the cheapest wines in Sicily (say, the kind that comes in a plastic water bottle from the bakery for three euro) were almost always very tasty. We also had the chance to go to a ton of beautiful wineries and while I don’t think I’ve retained all that much information about wine, I cherish the memories of many wonderful date nights, girls’ day outs and family outings at various spots around Sicily. 

4. Mount Etna. No matter how many times we saw Mt. Etna erupt, it never got less exciting to see. 

5. History at our fingertips. Everywhere we looked, we’d see buildings with incredible history behind them. There was a castle less than a kilometer from us, for crying out loud! We were always finding new things we hadn’t heard about as well; my friend Megan and I stumbled across an ancient mikva while just wandering the streets of Ortigia shortly before I left. 

6. The sea. So many beautiful, unforgettable beach days. With friends, family or just the five of us, it was always wonderful.

7. Cheap flights. Enough said. 

What else can I say? It was an incredible five years in Sicily, and somehow only two months after leaving it already is beginning to feel like a dream. I really hope that someday we’ll have the opportunity to live overseas again, but in the meantime I will just state once again how grateful I am for the last five years. So, I will close with a bunch more of my favorite photos from our time in our bella Sicilia.