Cliff note’s version: Lido San Lorenzo = awesome (and spendy). They deliver food and drinks to your chair!

Long version:

My friend Annie and I loaded up the kids Tuesday for a trip to a beach she’d visited before, Lido San Lorenzo. It is located near Noto (a town we visited last November), south of a nature preserve called Riserva Naturale Orientata Oasi Faunistica di Vendicari (long enough title, eh?). It was about an hour and 20 minutes or so to get there, so a bit longer than our usual spots Cassibile and Fontane Bianche.

So, my first impression of this beach was FANCY.

We only went for the beach, but I guess there is a spa as well? Plus a bunch of other activities, according to their website. There is a restaurant, a pizzeria and a self-service type tavola calda situation as well. Annie luckily knew to call ahead a reserve chairs from the first time she visited, so she did that early in the week (if you are planning to go, she said there was one front desk person who spoke English). I believe our two sunbeds + umbrella cost 30 euro for the day, plus another 6 euro for the kids’ admission.

We could have rented a big bed like this, but it would have been 60 euro. Even bigger ones (that fit four) were 100 euro, though prices are different at different time of the summer (August is peak).

The water here was as beautiful as Cassibile, but with chairs and amenities like Fontane Bianche (but better). Once you get there, you can download their app and use it to order drinks and (after 12:30/1) food that is delivered to your chair. Surprisingly promptly, I might add. We got a couple rounds of cocktails, plus pizzas that turned out to be both really tasty and a bargain at only 4 to 5 euro each.

The water was great and so was the aperol spritz, so it should come as no surprise that we ended up staying most of the day. Owen and I never wanted to leave the water!

I would definitely suggest this as a good splurge sometime. The extra 20 to 30 minutes compared to Cassibile isn’t the best (and obviously it is a bit more expensive than other beaches) but if you are making a whole day of it those aren’t a big deal. It felt seriously luxurious to just be able to summon drinks and food to our table with the press of a button (ok, Annie had that app so I wasn’t even doing the pressing, ha!). And almost relaxing? Like, as close to relaxing as you can get when on a beach with two little kids. Splurge. Worthy.

I also wanted to give a quick shout out to our new favorite pool destination — sorry, Alphio’s! We are loving the Hotel Sigonella Inn in Motta Sant’Anastasia! I’d actually read about this place on another blog from 2011 before we’d gotten here, but once I arrived I’d heard that it had been shut down or that it was open but sketchy. After some friends tried it out and said it was great, we decided to go ourselves. Sig Inn, where have you been all our lives?! Only complaint is that getting a spot there was a pain the last time, though I attribute that mostly to it being August and a lot of people here are off for most of the month. Anyway, it is 3 euro per seat but if they don’t have chairs you can put your stuff on the deck for free. One warning: the deck is insanely slippery. All three of us have hit the deck at least once.

It has a great baby pool that sort of overhangs the main pool, which is pretty cool looking. It is only a couple feet deep in there, but quite a large space so pretty perfect for when we go with friends and want the crew contained so we can chat for more than 30 seconds.

People jump off this ledge into the pool, which makes me laugh because it feels like something you’d get yelled at for in the States. 

There is also a SWIM UP BAR (!) that I’m hoping to visit with friends next week once my kids are in school.

BUT, the thing my kids love most is this:

Diving board, baby! They were nervous the first day and wanted me to “catch them,” but now they are absolutely obsessed with jumping off it. Constantly.

Oh, don’t mind Fiona. Just doing something unexpected and TERRIFYING here, per usual. 

If you haven’t been, check it out! I’m hoping we have at least a few more weeks before they decide it is fall and close up shop.

The post Exploring our island: “Fancy beach” and our new favorite pool spot first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Exploring our island: “Fancy beach” and our new favorite pool spot appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

Must-see Sicily: Alcantara Gorge

The Alcantara Gorge. Guys, this is some must-see Sicily!

So the first thing we saw as we walked up to the Alcantara Gorge riverbank was someone losing one of their shoes, and totally failing in her half-hearted attempt to save it.

We laughed. Because we’re jerks.

Approximately five seconds later, the first of my own flipflops was sailing away. As I tried to grab it, the second ripped off and followed. I had been in the river for less than 10 seconds by this point and yes, I totally deserved that. Karma is a bitch.

And so, my first and most important piece of advice if you visit Alcantara Gorge (which you should!): Buy some freaking water shoes.*

Let me repeat that: if you are going to the Alcantara Gorge, BUY THE WATER SHOES.

Anyway, backing up a bit. I’d only recently learned that the Alcantara Gorge existed, and also that it existed about 45 minutes from my house. I immediately made plans for Chris and I to go on one of his Fridays off — sans kids, as I was worried the kids might get swept away.

I didn’t really know what to expect once I got there, but I’d heard there were some short trails near the Alcantara Gorge and a beach where you can hang out by the river. Once we got there, I was pretty impressed as it had a lot more amenities than I was expecting, including maps in English and decent signage. More on that below.

If you are planning a visit to Alcantara Gorge:

Parking: We just entered Alcantara Gorge Botanical and Geological Park into our GPS (Via Nazionale, 5, Motta Camestra, ME 98030) and got there easily. You can park on site for “a donation,” which is what we did, or there are a couple other parking lots right nearby. I’d suggest going early in the day, as we had no problem parking around 10:30 in the morning but as we were leaving I noticed there were a lot more cars. It cost 8 euro each for just lift tickets down to the beach, or 13 euro to see everything. We opted for the see-everything ticket, but shouldn’t have bothered this time.

What to do: Anyway, our my original plan was to hike for a little bit to see the Alcantara Gorge from above by walking around on the trails. Once we got there, it was already so oppressively hot that even though none of the trails were (allegedly) more than one mile, I hastily changed the plan to hiking just to a couple of highlights nearby. Before we had hiked very far though, the plan changed again: to hell with this, we’re going to the beach!

I actually would really like to go back and do a bunch of walking there because it looked really neat, but again … it was really freaking hot. Sig friends, let me know if you want to plan a trip there with me! In say, October.

Anyway, as I mentioned there was an elevator to get down to the riverbank (and up, fortunately, because the stairs would not have been fun). From there, there was a strip of rocky beach where most people dumped their bags and towels. Without shoes, walking on the beach and in the water (also rocky) was pretty ouchy so again — water shoes, people.

This is one of those posts where I’m super frustrated because the photos I have just don’t really do justice to how neat it really looked. But as I was concerned about losing my stuff by leaving it on the riverbank or damaging it by dropping it in a river, I opted to stick with my iPhone camera.

Upstream from us were these basalt columns — the show-stopper of the Alcantara Gorge. According to the explanation on my map, they were formed about 8,000 years ago when lava flow met the cold river water, causing it to basically crystallize into various shapes and crack in some places. The stone was quite smooth to the touch.

The water was cold, cold, cold — my feet definitely went numb pretty quickly. Given that we were mid-Heat Wave Lucifer, however, it felt amazing. To me. Chris wasn’t enthused enough to dive in all the way, but I realllllllly wanted to try drifting along in the current and that is hard to do while standing so ….

In I went.

I think Chris would like to note for the record here that part of his objection was that they actually offer body-rafting excursions at the Alcantara Gorge park, with what he terms “appropriate equipment.” Helmets and wet suits. It was honestly fine though, the water doesn’t take you that fast in the area I was in and at any rate it was mostly too shallow past a certain point to body raft comfortably.

Downstream from the gorge were some boulders that created both some some rapids and some smaller pools of water that a lot of locals (as far as I could tell) were gathered around. Very cool looking.

What else to do at Alcantara Gorge: As I mentioned, the Alcantara Gorge park had a lot more to do than we actually did. Options included the trails with a bunch of different balconies and views of the Gole Alcantara, bike excursions, body rafting, river trekking, a farm, a kids’ splash pad, “glamping” areas, etc. I’ll definitely go back one of these days to look around, and maybe bring the kids if we aren’t going to the river — the current was strong.

As for my shoes, no big loss there. If I had to lose some, I’m glad it was a pair of $1 Old Navy flipflops that I’ve been wearing for at least three years. And I still had the tennis shoes I’d brought for hiking. Let’s just call it a sacrifice to the river gods, I guess.

*After the fact, we realized we could have bought some at the on-site shop where we later had lunch.

The post Exploring our island: Alcantara Gorge first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Exploring our island: Alcantara Gorge appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

It’s been scorching hot this summer in Sicily, but we’ve been trying to lean into island living (ok, and beat the heat!) by hitting the beach as often as possible. As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve mostly been going to Fontane Bianche. This past week, however, we tried to branch out a bit more.

Cassibile Beach 

Third time was a charm for getting to this beach at last on Saturday, after our first two plans were scuppered by thunderstorms and sickness. It is actually very close to Fontane Bianche — they are the same exit off the highway — but while Fontane Bianche has had a lot of seaweed in the areas close to shore lately, Cassibile was crystal clear! I seriously can’t get enough of swimming in that blue blue blue water. Also like Fontane Bianche, there is a long stretch where the water is very shallow, which makes it a great place to play safely with the kids. There are also some cliffs you can climb to jump off of, but I ended up chickening out because I didn’t know exactly where I should be jumping. I’ll go with someone who has been next time!

We could park in a lot practically right next to the beach for 15 euro; not cheap, but it was worth it for not having to haul our stuff far. I will admit that we missed the convenience of being on a lido (beach with chairs and umbrellas for rent and usually services like a restaurant and changing rooms and bathrooms). We’d packed a cooler for lunch, but didn’t give enough consideration to how tricky it would be to assemble and eat sandwiches on our towels with two kids who seemed to have a mission to rub sand on every square inch of them. It was otherwise perfect though, so our plan is to buy a couple of chairs and an umbrella of our own to bring next time! I highly recommend this beach.

We had so much fun that day (and were so sandy) that I forgot to take a picture. Sorry!

Bonday Beach Lido at Giardini Naxos 

I’ve been meaning to check out the beaches at Giardini Naxos, a town located just south of Taormina, for a while because our landlord has a house there and has spoke highly of it. It is also only 35 minutes north of us (compared to about an hour to the south of us for Cassibile/Fontane Bianche) so I was hopeful that it might be a good weekday destination when I don’t want to drive far.

Unfortunately, we didn’t love it. It is much more rocky than sandy, and the “sand” was mostly gravel that was painful to walk on. It as a bit like a once-gravel parking lot that hasn’t been redone in a long time– some sand from where the pebbles have been crushed but also small and mediam-sized rocks that could be quite sharp.

It was a hot day so the gravel was also scorching hot — I legit think I burned my feet when I tried to walk on it without sandals at first.

That could have been remedied by wearing water shoes, but the water — while clear and beautiful — dropped off fairly abruptly and was quite deep already only a few yards into it. There also seemed to be somewhat stronger currents, so I had to keep a tight rein on the kids in their floaties.

My kids did LOVE hunting through the rocks to find seaglass, and at one point Owen actually said “this is BETTER than a sandy beach!” because of it. I don’t want to make it sound like a terrible trip, we met up with some friends and had a very nice time and if we we were better prepared with water shoes it would have been less of an issue. We also thought the town was pretty cute and we had a nice lunch after we left the beach. On the whole, however, it just wasn’t as little kid-friend as Cassibile or Fontane Bianche.

They still had fun! Rental for these chairs and the umbrella was 15 euro, by the way. 

A note about parking: because my GPS was on the fritz, I ended up on the opposite side of town from where I was aiming. That side, which has a lot of lidos, had me freaking out because there was virtually no parking to be found. Once I got myself in the place I was supposed to go — further south toward Recanati — the parking became basically easy. If you want to try Bonday Beach Lido (located near the Hilton) I’d suggest parking on Viale Jannuzzo. There was plenty of street parking and you could use a credit card to pay at the machine, 1 euro per hour. From there, it was a fairly quick walk to Bonday.

There are still plenty more beaches I want to try, such as the lidos in Catania, but thus far Fontane Bianche and Cassibile have been our favorites of the ones within driving distance. (We loved Cefalu too, but it is too far to drive for just a day). We have some visitors coming next month and we can’t wait to bring them there!

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The post Exploring our island: two new beaches appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

Those of you who follow my Babies With Backpacks Facebook page already know that I recommend Bam Bar in Taormina, but here’s some visual evidence as to why.

I feel like we’ve eaten our fair share of granita in the last few months, but Bam Bar is far and away the best. It’s not even close. Today we took the family who we are sponsoring there, and they agreed with our assessment.

Lemon for Owen, coffee for Chris, raspberry for me and and chocolate for Fiona. And brioche for all. 

The raspberry is AMAZING. And so is the cream. Best thing ever. 

Waiting times can allegedly be long, but Chris and I haven’t had to wait more than about 10 minutes. Including today, when we had 11 people (took three tables, ha). I suspect the key is going in the morning rather than afternoon, though I haven’t yet tried the latter.

So pretty much my take-away mesage is, don’t go to Taormina without getting some granita here.

Another recommendation — if you are looking for a quick meal, try StritFud. (Conveniently located near Bam Bar!). They have a ton of different types of Sicilian street food, and it is pretty cheap for Taormina. We ended up with a hot dog wrapped in pastry, two giant pieces of pizza and a slice of a ham and cheese calzone for 10 euro. We got the hot dog for Owen, but my anti-sauce kid ended up eating the calzone after declaring that it having sauce was “ok because it is so good.”

And finally, here are just some cute pictures of my kids.

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The weather has been beautiful (and HOT!) here in Sicily, and we’ve been keeping busy! Our main goal on a daily basis is to leave the house, as even though it is about 10 degrees cooler up on our mountain than it is at base, it is still broiling. We have air conditioning, but currently the main AC system isn’t working so we only have air conditioning units in specific rooms to use. It isn’t a huge problem, but it is is better to be out of here during the heat of the day when possible. Plus, what’s the point of being on an island if you aren’t going to go enjoy it?!

As anyone who knows me in real life knows, I don’t so much tan. At all. Ever. But if there was ever a chance that I was going to tan, it would definitely be this year. If only because I become so freckled that they just sort of meld together into a tan.

What we’ve been up to: 

1. The beach! 

The beach is basically why we were excited to come here, and it has finally been warm enough to go! We’ve been going to Fontane Bianche, a sandy beach (many of them near us are rocky) about an hour south of us. We always cough up for a couple of chairs and an umbrella — 17 euro for the whole day, worth it not to have to haul our own. It is a pretty spot! 

We took some new people who we are sponsoring to Fontane Bianche last week, and we all decided to have lunch at a place right on the beach. The food didn’t end up being anything too special, but it had a great view! 

2. The pool! 

The base pool is open, and for the last couple of weeks we’ve basically been living in it.

The kids are taking swimming lessons right now, and so far it is going pretty well. Owen is making great progress! The last couple of lessons with Fiona have been a bit rocky, but overall she is also doing surprisingly well considering she isn’t even 3 years old yet. Today was a bit odd because she was “too scared” to go in with just her teacher so I had to join the lesson, but once in she repeatedly tried to kick away from me and from the teacher because “I swim without floaties BY MYSELF.” So now she seems to be a little too confident.

3. Eating all the granita

Ahh granita, how do I even begin to describe you? It is a frozen snack (I hesitate to say dessert because I’ve recently learned that people here eat it for breakfast as well) that is sort of between sorbet and a slushie. It is less solid than sorbet but you don’t drink it like a slushie? Anyway, it comes in a lot of flavors but the most traditional (according to our tutor) are pistachio and almond, though lemon, strawberry, coffee and chocolate are also common. I prefer stawberry, Chris likes pistachio, Owen is obsessed with lemon and Fiona is all about the chocolate. It is eaten with brioche on the side and all four of us love those too.

Anyway, we’ve been hearing about granita for ages and finally got around to eating it and well, now we’re obsessed.

We’ve also learned that this annoying whistling noise that we’ve been hearing for months? It’s been coming from a guy with a granita/gelato cart who whistles to summon people for their snack. As you can imagine, being able to just run outside our gate to grab some granita has not helped our habit.

4. Hanging with friends 

Of course, we’ve been doing all of the above with friends as well! I am feeling so lucky that all four of us have found great friends to hang out with. The kids are never happier than when we are doing a play date with their little buddies, and it is even better when people are meeting up with us at the pool! As a bonus, several of our friends happen to own a trampoline!

5. Sitting in traffic 

Ok, maybe I’m being a little dramatic. But not very. I feel like we’ve spent half our lives stuck in traffic lately as there has been a ton of construction and a ton of accidents on the highway. Blerg!

But just for fun, here are some other sights from driving around recently …

Goat traffic! We always stop and let them get around because apparently if you hit one of them you’ll find out just how pricy goats are.

Why yes, that is us driving through a bunch of smoke. The side of the highway was on fire (the flames were right there) but everyone just drove on through. According to my friends who have lived here longer, this is a pretty common sight. I’m not sure whether the fire was on purpose since are constantly burning brush around here, or the result of someone flicking a cigarette out the window. 

Only in Sicily!

The post What we’ve been up to lately: summer edition first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post What we’ve been up to lately: summer edition appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

One of the best parts of having visitors is being inspired to revisist some of our favorite places! When my in-laws were here, we visited our two favorites — Siracusa and Taormina — and checked out places we hadn’t seen.

Taormina 

Taormina is one of our favorite places! Despite that one time that we ended up going during a massive power outage. Since we missed going to the beach on our first trip in October and it wasn’t really beach weather after that, we took the opportunity to pop down and check out the beach and Isola Bella.

The beach itself is pretty, but rocky. There were also a fairly startling number of jellyfish. This wasn’t necessarily important to us that day since we weren’t planning to swim, but it didn’t make us eager to come back and jump in. I’ll have to ask someone if the jellies are a regular feature or if we just showed up on a weird day for them.

We didn’t go all the way to Isola Bella, a small island that is connected by a small sand path through the water. Not having planned to swim, we didn’t really have the footwear to go across to the house on the island, which was once the home of Florence Trevelyan, an English-born conversationist and gardener. Another day, I suppose.

See the path in the background? 

To get to the beach, we parked in the cable-car parking lot. We also took the opportunity to ride the cable cars into the city, and we all thought that was pretty sweet.* I have been wanting to ride on the cable car for a while, but when my parents were in town in March it was still closed. It drops you off at a convenient spot right near the city center and you get a cool view along the way as well. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of this because I was too busy making sure my daredevil daughter didnt try to force open the doors or something.

*And I especially liked the part where I didn’t scrape the hell out of the front of my van again trying to go up the narrow parking garage ramp at our usual spot.

Siracusa 

I haven’t written as much about Siracusa, a town about an hour south of us, but it is one of our favorite places to visit. We checked out the archeological park on our first visit there, but these days we most often go to Ortigia. Ortigia is a small island connected by two bridges to the rest of Siracusa, and it is the prettiest part of it. In Greek mythology, it is the birth place of at least one, possibly both, of the twins Apollo and Artemis.

With Gail and David in tow, we wandered through a farmer’s market and then stopped by some of the traditional sites, including the Temple of Apollo, Archimede Fountain and, of course, the gorgeous Duomo di Siracusa (cathedral of Siracusa). I talked a bit about the history of some of these in this post, so I’m not going to recap all that just now but feel free to check out that post and refresh your memory.

Ok, these two pics are technically from March. But they were already loaded and our internet here sucks so just trust me, they still look like this. 

We also took them to La Volpe e L’Uva (the Fox and the Grape), one of our favorite places, for a meal. I’ve said this before, but seriously — I really recommend this place. And not just because you can get pizza at midday (this is rare here; pizza is a dinner food because of the time it takes to fire up the ovens).

This visit’s highlight, however, was a stop at Maniace Castello. This is somewhat embarrassing, given that Ortigia is not overly large, but I wasn’t actually aware that there was a castle until Chris found it in a list of recommendations for things to do in Ortigia the evening before we left.

It is certainly not a fancy-pants castle in the way of Chambord or Chenonceau; I would describe it more as a fort? Given the huge number of times that Sicily has changed hands over the centuries, however, it makes a lot of sense that it would be more utilitarian in style. This particular castello dates back to the 1230s and was built by Frederick II, Holy Roman Empire. I wish there had been a tour because looking up the history after the fact shows that it is pretty interesting. However, for only 2 euros to get in it was still interesting to wander all over the property.

Mount Etna

Chris and I have hiked one of the trails on Mount Etna, and my sister Torie and I made an ill-fated driving trip toward the top when she was in town. However, when Gail and David were in town we drove all the way to Etna Sud (the highest point you can drive to by us, there is a hotel and shops and tour companies there). From there we made a very impromptu decision to climb up just a tiny bit onto the Silvestri Craters. I was woefully unprepared for this footwear-wise, not having planned to do any hiking, but it was totally worth it.

Panoramic picture to give you an idea of the area; on the right is the hotel. 

I didn’t think to bring my big camera, and these pictures don’t really express the size of this thing. I wore Fiona so she wouldn’t plummet into the crater. 

Aci Trezza

Ok, this one isn’t actually new — but I don’t think I’ve talked about it on here before. Aci Trezza is a lovely little seaside town near us with which we’ve recently fallen in love. Chris and I have been here a few times for granita or a kid-free date, so we decided to take Gail and David for Gail’s birthday.

See these rocks? In the Odyssey, the cyclops — who Odysseus and his men have just blinded during their escape — starts blindly hurling rocks at their retreating boat. These are those rocks (if you have a believing heart). 

We had dinner at Le Muse, a place we’ve eaten at twice now and loved both times.

David was surprised by a tiny fried octopus! 

Overall, it was a great visit for us because we got out and saw more of our island, and I hope it was fun for Gail and David too. Our next round of visitors comes in September, so we’ll have to start brainstorming what we can explore with them!

The post New sights at familiar spots: Taormina, Siracusa, Mount Etna first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post New sights at familiar spots: Taormina, Siracusa, Mount Etna appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

OK, “conquering” may not be the best possible verb to use here.

We did huff and puff up a small part of Etna though. Verdict: 100 percent worth the effort.

We’ve been meaning to give hiking a try for a while, and when the weather started to get milder we decided to go for it. We chose this particular path because it came highly recommended by our friends Natalie and Billy, who had dragged their two kids up there a couple weeks before. We figured that if their 3-year-old could do it all under his own steam, how hard could it be?

Answer: pretty freaking hard. Natalie and Billy, you guys are rockstars!

Google says this means “path of the donkey’s back.” Appropriate, since there were a couple times where we definitely felt like “asino.”

The first bit was a little extra challenging because of the snow that was still up there, which made things a fairly slippery during the initial steeper half-mile or so.

At this spot we could just walk kind of next to it, in others we had to walk on top. There are limited photos of this because I was trying not tumble to my doom. 

Once we were out of the forested area the snow disappeared, and it was considerably easier to walk. (Though not exactly a walk in the park). We took it slow and tried not to tumble off of or into any rocks.

Eventually the trail leveled out in a lot of places, like this. 

We passed plenty of the big black lava fields on the way up, but saw a bunch of slightly more random looking lava rock formations throughout the walk. 

I look like that because lava rock does not make a comfortable seat. 

It was a nice day, so unsurprisingly we saw quite a few other people walking on the trail, including one large British tour group (though I think they went a different way than us because we didn’t see them until we hit our destination). Slightly irritating was the large number of people with tiny dogs, none of which seemed as winded as I was. Embarrassing.

There were plenty of gorgeous views along the way, but Natalie had told me that we shouldn’t give up early because the end would be totally worth it. She was right.

We expected walking back to be considerably easier because, duh, downhill. But that first slippery bit we struggled with on the way up though? A bit more perilous going down, it turns out. Experienced hikers are probably laughing right now.

Afterward, we rewarded ourselves with the WORLD’S BIGGEST PIZZA. We knew it must be large because the woman at the bakery verified several times that this was what we wanted and offered to make a half-size one. To hell with that! Bring on the maxi.

It fit in the car, but barely. A note about the pizza: I’ve only recently verified that this bakery (the one right near the preschool) offers pizza all day long. This is unusual because pizza here is generally an evening thing and there isn’t anywhere around our house where we can order one before 8 p.m. I’m thinking that this pizza is not wood-fired, which is why they offer it during the day. According to our Italian tutor, wood-fired pizza ovens take forever to heat up and that’s why they aren’t generally open at lunch. 

We’re glad that we went when we did because the next day Etna got a new layer of snow. Still, I’m eager to go back up sometime!

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We’ve been planning to go to Caltagirone for quite a while, and on Saturday we finally made it!

(As you might recall, the last time didn’t exactly work out).

Caltagirone is a town about an hour and 20 minutes to the southwest of us. It’s been known for pottery since it was in the hands of the Moors more than 1,000 years ago, as the name comes from an Arabic word for something like “castle of pottery jars.” Caltagirone ceramics are found all over the island now!

The main reason we went was to see the Scalinata di Santa Maria del Monte, the 142-step staircase that joins the upper and lower parts of the city. Every step is decorated with different ceramic tiles.

We walked up all the steps, stopping to admire the tiles on the way. The kids were troopers — Fiona didn’t even want to ride in the carrier most of the way.

Fiona was fascinated!

The view from the top was gorgeous! And kind of scary looking from this angle. Fiona was fairly determined to plummet to her doom, but we managed to thwart her attempts.

“I JUST WANT TO TUMBLE DOWN ALL 142 STEPS”

See the basilica in the distance?

At the top was this mural! I had a theory as we were going up that the tiles were Crusade-themed — which I thought made sense since Richard the Lionheart (whose sister was married to the King of Sicily) stopped in Sicily en route to the Third Crusade — and I feel like this fits? I haven’t done more than a cursory look to try and confirm this theory though. #badblogger

Also at the top of the hill was the Chiesa di Santa Maria del Monte, a 12th century church that didn’t look like all that much from the outside …

But once inside, it proved to be gorgeous.

They did have to have a net up there since the dome seems to be losing some pieces. 

We kept the trip pretty low-key this time — just hung out on the stairs, had a nice lunch and hit up a bunch of pottery shops while I obsessed over what I wanted. Here’s one of the ones I ended up picking.

I’m hoping that we’ll go back at the end of May for Infiorita, a festival where they decorate the stairs with flowers. At the end of July they also have Illuminata, when they light up the stairs with candles in honor of the town’s patron saint, San Giacomo. Both look amazing!

Photo credit: http://www.ansa.it/sicilia/notizie/2016/05/19/a-caltagirone-scala-infiorata-2016_477f931f-3b82-4015-9582-83de233ec6c7.html

The post A day trip to Caltagirone first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post A day trip to Caltagirone appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

So, the past couple of weeks marked the first visit from family members to our new home! My mom came for almost two weeks, and my dad and sister were in for five and six days, respectively. As I mentioned in this post, we love our island and have been eager to share some of our favorite places with friends and family. I’m pleased to say we made it to almost all of the places we wanted to go, even if we didn’t have as much time to explore some of them as I’d originally intended. AND my mom even got to see a volcanic eruption!

That said …

I should preface this by saying that my family in general (and me in particular) is sort of famous for drama on vacation. Sometimes funny, sometimes annoying. For instance, growing up I don’t think there was a single vacation that didn’t involve someone ending up in the ER for some reason (usually ear infections). Whenever we talk about our family trip to Europe, we always go back to the various “incidents” throughout the trip, like getting yelled at in German because my youngest siblings were (we found out after) pushing rocks off a wall and onto the man’s new car. As for me? I’m kind of a walking disaster. The first one that pops to mind is having to take a last minute, middle-of-the-night cab ride across Melbourne, Australia, because we didn’t realize our plane was leaving from a different airport than the one at which we had arrived. Or the one where we had to take a train, bum a ride from a friend, ride a bus, grab a cab and walk (between midnight and 5 a.m.) to get to Sydney’s airport because we didn’t realize that after midnight the trains would stop running because it was Easter. WHOOPS.

Anyway, in true Hawrysz form there was some kind of incident almost every day (sometimes my fault, sometimes not). I think in some cases it really gave my family a feel for the beautiful craziness that is Sicily. So, without further ado …

Saturday 

With my dad and sister not due to arrive until after 5 p.m., I had big plans for the five of us (me, Chris, the kids and my mom) to visit Caltigirone in the morning. We were all packed and ready to go when, of course, I got us locked out of the house. Fail. By the time we got that sorted out, it was too late to drive to Caltigirone so we went to Taormina instead. There aren’t many places to park close to heart of the city, so we always park in a structure nearby and take the free shuttle into the city center. Last time we were there, we had a tiny little car and it was no big deal. Now that we have our van, we’ve discovered that the ramp up to the higher levels of the parking structure is TINY. Minuscule. Lilliputian. The result was Chris and Mom spent three harrowing levels trying to give me advice on when I was about to hit the stairs — because this tiny ramp included a narrow stair for people to walk on — or about to hit the wall. We hit both.*

*Future visitors: as we found out on Monday, going down the ramp was slightly easier than going up, and if you have a big-ass vehicle like ours I suggest trying that (or parking elsewhere).

Once we made it into the city, we had a fabulous lunch at Ristorante Granduca. It was a little overpriced because of a fairly huge table charge, but it was a gorgeous view and the food was probably the best I had all week.

My dad and sister arrived in the evening (my sister making her connection despite a really close call!) and we went out for drinks and a dinner in nearby Acireale that evening. Three cheers for our babysitter, Antonella!

Duomo di Acireale

Daily Drama: Me locking us out of the house, obviously. Have I mentioned that our door isn’t closing quite right now? I’m sure it is completely unrelated to the big chunk of metal they had to cut out and solder back into place.

Sunday

Everyone was kind of relaxing in the morning (though I did take my dad for a walk around Aci Sant’Antonio), but we had a great 3-hour lunch and wine tasting at Murgo Winery’s restaurant Tenuta San Michele. We loved several of the wines, and the food was (mostly) delicious. The evening brought just hanging around the house, binge watching Friends and watching the kids get into shenanigans with their grandparents.

Daily drama: To my surprise, none? That I can remember.

Monday

Monday morning brought our second sick kid of the week (Owen had been sick the previous week with what I thought was bronchitis but proved to be officially diagnosed as “just a cough”). But we still had a good day, starting with a visit to the farmer’s market in our own town and followed by a second trek to Taormina. We are so lucky that one of our favorite places is only about 40 minutes away … or less if I drive fast enough. While we had just been there Saturday, we wanted Dad and Torie to be able to see it too and we hadn’t visited some of the other sights. We had been hoping to ride the cable cars into the center of town, but unfortunately they weren’t scheduled to be reopened until the following day so it was back to the terrible parking garage for us. We strolled down the main drag, Corso Umberto, hung out in Piazza XI Aprile and had a nice lunch outdoors. We considered going to see the Greek Theater, but the big price tag (10 euro per person) and general lack of interest led to us instead deciding to pop into this cool hipster-ish bar for drinks instead. (If you are interested in the theatre, I did a post about it here.)

Chiesa di San Guiseppe is in the Piazza XI Aprile, which is one of my favorite places to hang out in Taormina. There is a gorgeous view of the sea, lots of restaurants, this church, and (on both Saturday and Monday) live musicians playing. 

Just a peek down an alley. 

Dad teaching Owen how to thumb wrestle at the hipster bar.

After our cocktails, we headed over to the Villa Communale Gardens for a quick walk before we went home. One of the nice things about Taormina is that it isn’t very big and is well marked with signs, so finding things is never an issue. We had a nice little walk through the gardens, which include some WWII memorabilia and a great view of the coast.

Daily drama: So as we walked into the center of Taormina, the first thing we noticed was that almost everything seemed to be closed and there weren’t many people on the streets. We had a terrible time trying to find a restaurant that was open. At first we were guessing that a lot of places were closed on Mondays (though this seemed odd for a tourist town) and that maybe people were staying home because it wasn’t very warm. We finally found a restaurant that was open and sat down on a nice terrace, but it wasn’t until the waiter had to lead me and Fiona to the bathroom with his cell phone as a flashlight that we found out the real problem: a major power outage throughout Taormina. From what the waiter could tell us, it was related to construction work being done in the run-up to the G7 Summit being held in Taormina in May (I was unclear whether it was a planned outage or an accident). We kind of shrugged it off at first, but it wasn’t until after we had ordered and started eating a whole bunch of food (and beer) that it occurred to us that no power = no credit card payment. Cue panic mode. I had almost no cash because we’d spent it all paying the guy to cut open our door Saturday and I hadn’t yet found a working ATM yet in Taormina (mystery solved on that one). My dad, fortunately, had some that we thought would juuuuuuuuuuuust cover it, so we breathed a bit easier. Until the bill arrived and we saw that the table charge had bumped our bill up by 20 euro, and therefore beyond the amount of cash we actually had by about 10 euro (plus tip). We debated offering them some U.S. dollars on top on the euro, but in the end we talked to the owner and promised we’d come back another time. Luckily they were cool about it and sent us on our way.

To be fair, a “table charge” for a restaurant that was literally empty seemed a bit silly anyway … but it was pretty embarrassing still.

Tuesday 

Tuesday dawned with Fiona even sicker, so she and Chris had to stay home while Owen, Mom, Dad, Torie and I headed out for the day. First stop was the Oleificio Peltom olive oil factory, as there was a critical shortage at our house and the family was interested in picking some up anyway.

Sick Fiona. 

From there, it was on to Siracusa, a city about an hour south of base that was once the biggest city in the world. They have a great archaeological park with the largest Greek amphitheater in Sicily, which Chris and I have taken the kids to in the past. There wasn’t a lot of interest though, so we headed instead for Ortigia, a small island connected to Siracusa by a couple of bridges. According to legend, it is the place where the goddess Leto gave birth to one or both of her twins, Artemis and Apollo.

We parked near the ocean, then set off through the twisty alleys and roads until we ran into the area’s various landmarks. Chris is usually the one who knows where we are going at all time (I have no sense of direction at all), but in his absence it was my sister who kept tabs on where we were. Thanks, Torie! (Travel tip: my own advice for keeping track of your car when you are directionally challenged is to take picture of the closest landmarks around you, so you can ask for directions or look them up when you need to get back. If your GPS isn’t busted like mine is, dropping a pin is also a great idea).

Fountain of Diana (Artemis!) with a couple of Gryffindors in front of it. 

We also visited the Duomo di Siracusa (Cathedral of Siracusa), another UNESCO World Heritage Site as of 2005. It was fascinating because apparently it was built on the site of an ancient Greek temple sometime around the 7th Century A.D., then converted into a mosque a couple hundred years after that when the Moors captured Sicily, then converted back when the Normans took over about 200 years after that. The exterior is that Baroque style we’ve seen a lot of here, especially on our trip to Modica, Noto and Ragusa, because it was also largely rebuilt after that 1693 earthquake that destroyed so much of this part of the island. Inside, however, it is a bit more of a mix from throughout the centuries: rustic columns in some places, ornate, gilded surfaces in others. And according to its signage, they have St. Lucia’s left arm there as a relic. 

This photo is a little dark, but you get the idea with the columns. 

Included in the entry fee for the Duomo was a visit to the nearby Municipal Building, which has the remains of an ionic Greek temple in what is effectively its basement. It wasn’t the most exciting thing ever, but it did have signs in English explaining what things were (always a plus).

From there, we wandered over to the Temple of Apollo en route to our car. The Temple dates back to the 6th Century B.C., which is fairly boggles the mind. Obviously, the only thing to do in the face of such ancient history was to take a selfie.

We also stopped and got gelato, because that’s basically a requirement for every day when you are visiting Italy.

Daily Drama: A lot of little things. I forgot my jug for the oil at the olive oil factory, I forgot gas coupons and had to pay (gasp!) full price for gas and the restaurant we spent some time hunting for proved to be closed on Tuesdays. Also, I got my first parking ticket in Italy.

Wednesday 

The theme of the day was TRAFFIC. This time it was Fiona’s turn for a solo trip with the family, as Owen needed to return to preschool after several days off. We set off for Catania (Sicily’s second-largest city) but our GPS proved to be a major problem. While admittedly it did ultimately get us there, it chose to send us directly through the city rather than a more logical route that was a little longer but avoided the traffic. Driving in Catania makes driving in the rest of Sicily — which had already alarmed my parents and sister at several points on this trip — look like an easy jaunt in the countryside. The place was absolutely packed, and the streets are tiny. In a couple places we had to ignore our GPS directions because we didn’t believe the van would make it down such a tight street. At several points, phrases like “You aren’t going to like this, but it will be fine …” or “Don’t freak out, but we’re about to do something weird” came out of my mouth before I made some moves in the car. The good news, however, is that I really have gotten so used to driving in Sicily that it didn’t actually make me anxious — just annoyed because it took at least twice the amount of time it should have to get there, both on the way in and way out. What a difference five months makes!

Because we got a late start and the drive took so long, we didn’t have much time in Catania. Basically, we just parked near Elephant Square and walked through the fish market. My sister got sprayed by a clam/mussel, while my mom was grossed out by the calf intestines hanging in one shop. It was quieter than it normally would be because it was nearing closing time, but still an impressive sight.

Most of the snails, mussels, clams, etc. we saw were still alive. We could have brought home a wiggling bag of snails to cook if I didn’t think that was so gross. 

From there, we just decided to have a little coffee and wine at a restaurant right on the Piazza del Duomo, otherwise known as Elephant Square. They also turned out to have a bit of a tapas situation going on (free baby pizzas, mini arancini and small ham rolls) so we ended up with some lunch too. The Basilica Cattedrale Sant’Agata is right on the square, so we had a great view even though we didn’t go inside.

A picture of the girls since it was International Women’s Day, which in Sicily was celebrated by people selling bunches of yellow flowers absolutely EVERYWHERE. At dinner, we also got some free drinks because it was La Festa delle Donne. 

This is a picture from a different visit, but as a reminder this is where the “elephant” part of the name of the square comes from. 

Since it was my parents’ last night in town, we got a babysitter again and went out for dinner at the restaurant only a couple blocks from our house, which doesn’t open until 8 p.m. The size of Torie’s wine compared to Chris and Dad’s inspired some mirth.

Daily drama: The GPS tried to send us THROUGH Elephant Square, and we actually did briefly try to go that way since I’d seen other vehicles driving through. We ended up doing a U-turn in front of Sant’Agata’s  when the passengers in the backseat expressed some, er, reservations about driving through the piazza.

This is an old picture, but for reference this square (between the restaurant and the cathedral) is what we were trying to drive through. 

Thursday

This morning started off rocky, as we thought Fiona had an ear infection but an accident on the highway meant I couldn’t make it to base in time for the only available doctor’s appointment). Fortunately, I learned that you can buy amoxicillin for 3 euros in the local pharmacy without a prescription.

I dropped by parents off at the airport in the morning (sob!) and then Torie and I just hung around with the kids for a while, recovering from the night before. Eventually, we mobilized to try to drive as far as we could up Etna with a vague idea of hiking along a trail I’d read about on another blog. We didn’t have solid directions, but over the last five months I have learned that the directional signs all over Sicily are actually very helpful. We just started following signs for Etna Sud, and next thing we knew we were driving up the mountain. We had to pull over several times to take pictures because it was just too gorgeous.

We could see the lava fields, and the higher we got up the more we felt like we were disappearing into the clouds. We actually only made it to about the snow line, but the roads were good and we could have gone further. Have I mentioned that Etna is huge?

Daily drama: Annnnnd here’s the stupid part. I left the house with not all that much gas, but failed to notice until we were beyond all the gas stations. Because idiot. So we were driving up and realized that soon enough we were going to have to turn around, since the range was getting under 40 miles. So, we whip around and … the range hits ZERO.

Thinking about it logically now Torie and I agree that the most likely it was just the massive change in angle from uphill to downhill that made the sensor go to zero. Even at the time we agreed that we “probably” still had gas. But that didn’t make it less freaking TERRIFYING as we were driving back, growing increasingly sure that we were going to run out of gas ON the mountain. And remember how our GPS the previous day had taken us the most populated possible way home? Ha. On the way back, it decided we needed to drive through the most isolated possible spots for maximum worry. And naturally it was riposto, so the first couple of gas stations we managed to find were closed.* At the end of the day, we actually did make it to a gas station near our house without incident, but I probably shaved a year or two off my life with all the anxiety during that trip.

Yes, I realize that one is completely my fault, by the way.

Torie and I wrapped up her visit by going out to dinner on our own in Motta Sant’Anastasia, the town where we lived for about six weeks after we arrived here. It was great to spend time some one-on-one time with my sister!

Torie left Friday morning, and since then I think my kids are having a bit of an adjustment to everyone being gone. They’ve both been absolutely crazy the last couple of days, and are talking about wanting Aunt Torie, Oma and Don Tomas. Luckily, we’ll get to see them again in September!

*It has since been pointed out that some of these gas stations do have self-service that still works with a credit card even when they are closed; I’ve never done this since we have gas coupons so it didn’t occur to me to check when I saw them all locked up.

The post Visitors! A recap first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Visitors! A recap appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

No day trip to Catania is complete without a visit to the Catania fish market and Elephant Square! Despite some insane driving “techniques” common in Catania, we enjoyed our day trip here. If you are visiting Sicily, a day trip to Catania is worth the hassle of driving!

It’s only about 3 p.m. here* at the moment, but I’m already feeling like this was a great day. And like I’m a total badass, because I DROVE during our day trip to Catania.

So, to back up we finally decided last night that we should check out Catania, the biggest city near us. We’ve been putting it off because whenever you read about driving there, the main advice is “don’t.”

With almost a month in Sicily under our belts, however, we decided that we might as well try. And I’m so glad we did – I liked it way more than I expected! I had fairly low expectations, but it was really a cool city.

So, the driving was ridiculous but didn’t end up being too dramatic. Fortunately, Chris drove there and he is a freaking rock star. We did get a few surprises – like discovering that the road we (and Google Maps) believed was a one-way street actually had periodic traffic going the other way. Including a bus. To be fair, this doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t a one-way street because motorists here often ignore that when inconvenient but nevertheless it gave us a jolt.

We found some street parking eventually and looked around a bit for “a guy” to pay to watch the car but no one materialized. I was actually a teensy bit disappointed that we didn’t get to bribe someone after all – we got small coins specifically for that purpose on the way. UPDATE: I’d suggest downloading the EasyPark application to pay for your parking in Catania. The app locates your position, you enter the time you’ll be there and you leave a sign letting parking monitors know you’ve already paid. 

Day trip to Catania: About the city

Catania is the second-biggest city in Sicily, and in the top 10 biggest in Italy with a population of about 315,000. Luckily for us, however, pretty much all the sights we were looking for today were all in the same small area so walking everywhere was easy.

A quick history of Catania, as told by The Internet: it was founded in the 8th century BC and – like the rest of Sicily – has changed hands a lot over the centuries: the Carthaginians, Romans, Moors, Normans and Spanish, to name a few, have all held it. Catania has been repeatedly destroyed by natural disaster, usually earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. Accordingly, a lot of its architecture is “newer,” done in the Baroque style after a 1693 earthquake.

Day trip to Catania: A visit to the fish market and Elephant Square

So, one of the city’s popular attractions is its market, especially the fish market. Since the kids aren’t generally overly impressed with churches, we talked up the fish market a lot on the way and so as soon as we arrived Fiona was demanding the “fish marker.” We’ve found it is best to give the people what they want early on, so off we went. It did not disappoint.

The market was huge, with plenty of stalls selling fruits, vegetables, meat, cheese and random items like hats, but the fish section was most exciting. Row after row of fish, crabs, mussels and every other sea critter – living and dead – were available for sale. Fiona kept repeating, “I eat that fish!” over and over. I’m not sure whether she meant for us to take them home and cook them for her first, but I hope so.

The place was amazingly busy, and I actually do wish that we were in our house so that it would have made sense for us to buy some meat, cheese, fish, etc. In the future, for sure! We did pick up some strawberries and small berries that looked like a cross between strawberries and raspberries (not sure of the name). Fiona destroyed them while Chris and I had a couple of cappuccinos in the nearby Elephant Square, starting by taking a single large bite out of each one. Once she ran out, she went back to finish them off. Owen was scarfing down the little berries in the meantime, albeit not at quite the same rate.

The view from our cafe in Elephant Square. 

While we were waiting for a bill for the coffee, the kids wanted to go check out the elephant statue in the Piazza del Duoma, a square just outside the market. There we ended up befriending a nice woman named Danielle, a native of France who has lived in Los Angeles for at least a decade but spends three months of every year traveling in France and Italy. We actually ended up chatting for a long time, which was great. One of my favorite parts of traveling is meeting new people, and she had lots of interesting stories and advice for us. She also became fast friends with Owen, after he straightened her out when she asked if Fiona could go home with her. He was not amused. Anyway, he ended up coming back to the table to see Daddy and insisting that he come meet “my new friend Danielle.”

Day trip to Catania: A visit to Sant’Agata

After that, we went to the Basilica Cattedrale Sant’Agata, a church dedicated to St. Agatha. We read about her martyrdom on the way to Catania, but I’ll spare you the details since it made us shudder. The church is said to be built on the site were Saint Agata was killed in 251, and construction started sometime around 1090 after the Norman conquest. It too was reconstructed after the 1693 earthquake destroyed it.

The kids did an amazing job of being quiet, since they requested silence upon entering.

Day trip to Catania: Creeped out at Castello Ursino

Our last spot was the Castello Ursino, which dates back to around the 1200s. It definitely is more utilitarian-looking than decorative, which obviously makes sense given how many times the city has changed hands.

It was originally located on the coast for defensive purposes, but when the volcano erupted a few centuries later it sent enough lava to extend the land considerably and now it is a little further out.

An artistic rendering of what happened with the lava.

On the inside is a museum, which we didn’t necessarily have interest in seeing on its own but getting a ticket for the museum is the only way to look around the castle itself. It was pretty interesting, but regrettably a little too creepy for the kids. For example, I looked into the “salt tower” – supposedly where salt was once stored – to find a lifelike scene of a man sitting at a table, playing chess against a pair of disembodied hands. Another whole exhibit was about madness, apparently, and there was a lot of creepy stuff so we covered Fiona’s eyes and sped through.

Ok, this isn’t particularly strange (I should have taken pictures of the salt tower guy) but the super-creepy other painting I took a picture of — Mona Lisa with male anatomy surrounded by pigs — is probably not appropriate. But this was part of a random wall of self-portraits by the artist.

We decided that I should drive home for practice, so I ended up just deciding before I even started that I was going to be ridiculously calm. That I wasn’t going to freak out at all, because everything would be fine. So, I just refused to be worried about anything even when there was a random mishmash of cars coming from a couple different directions into a roundabout. Sicilians do this every day (mostly) without incident, so why should it be any different for us? And it wasn’t. Woo!

*It was 3 p.m. when I was writing this, but now I’m at the base to use with wifi since our hotel wifi no longer wants to work.

The post Day trip to Catania first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Day trip to Catania appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

Note: This was written last night (Sunday), but didn’t get posted. Whoops.

Today (somehow) marks two weeks since we arrived in Sicily. It’s been a bit of a blur with everything we’ve had to do and there have definitely been some “why the hell are we doing this, again?” moments, but all in all I think it is already clear that we made the right decision.

Helping us with that, of course, is the day trips we’ve been taking and the fact that we just booked our trip to Naples and Rome next month. How frustrated can I be with a dryer (why on EARTH does it take so long?) when places like this are a hop, skip and a jump away?

Siracusa

view from Taormina

We spent Saturday in Siracusa, an amazing town about an hour south of where we are now. I absolutely loved it, and will do a separate post because it is late and I’m tired.

Anyway, Friday we hit up an Autumnfest event that the base was hosting. The kids got to wear their Halloween costumes, go trick or treating, watch a juggler and play in various inflatable bounce houses. I was insanely impressed with Owen because he insisted on going through this enormous inflatable obstacle course thing, which included a looooooong climb up a huge mountain. Given we have some history with this sort of thing, I was prepared to be fairly annoyed when he bailed at the last minute (ala Jumpin’ Joeys in Bloomington) after waiting in the long line. I guess turning 4, however, has given him some new confidence because he DESTROYED the thing. Not a moment of hesitation.

Today was fairly low-key, with some shopping, a trip to the park and afternoon naps. Chris and I really feel like we could embrace the idea of “riposo” (afternoon naps — things tend to close in the afternoons. Like siesta time in Spain). Our children, on the other hand, need a lot of convincing.

We went out to dinner and to our delight ended up deciding it was our favorite place so far. This is actually fairly impressive given the following circumstances:

-Owen dropped a glass on the floor, and it obviously shattered into 10,000 pieces
-Chris tried to open some kebab sauce and it exploded all over his hands and my face
-Between the two of us, Chris and I spilled wine on the table three times

I have absolutely no idea how FIONA is the only one who didn’t wreak havoc on the place.

Chris feels it is important to note that we did not allow Fiona to eat the wine-soaked pasta

But honestly? We had a great time. The kids were in good moods, less crazy than usual AND both ate (you people with picky eaters know this is big). Of course, they did eat a considerable amount of grated Parmesan cheese for some reason but that one we (I) decided to classify as “not important enough to intervene” and “hey, calcium!” Our waiters were chatty and, as you can imagine, very understanding of our many mishaps. Mostly, we just laughed. A lot, at everything. (Like me accidentally ordering waaaaay too much food again). And it really wasn’t entirely because of the wine, though I suspect our waiters might have suspected otherwise. All in all, a great night.

The post Small explosions, (inflatable) mountains climbed and Siracusa first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Small explosions, (inflatable) mountains climbed and Siracusa appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

Well, yesterday was the one week anniversary of our arrival in Sicily so to celebrate we took our first day trip! As an added bonus, we made it through an entire day with only three major messes and one wardrobe change:

1) Fiona and Owen covered in chocolate ice cream from their first-ever gelato

2) Fiona’s random blow-out diaper, during which I realized that I’d blown through waaaaaay too many of the wipes from the ice cream mess. Thankfully no picture here.

3) Fiona dumping a massive amount of sunscreen on herself while I was trying to put some on Owen. Fortunately she just ended up really well protected from the sun.

Man, I’m seeing a theme here …

But I digress. We went to Taormina, a gorgeous tourist town about an hour north of us on the coast. We’d heard and read that we should go there at first opportunity and we weren’t disappointed.

“Could that water BE any bluer?” – Chandler Bing

We had meant to try and find the cable cars that will take you up to the city, but we ended up spotting a free shuttle and jumping on that instead so that we didn’t have to waste time searching further. The drive itself was really nice, a quick hop on a very nice highway along the coast — few potholes and separated lanes for traffic moving in different directions. After today’s accidental jaunt on a two-way road lined with fences but literally only big enough for one small car (I have so many questions) I’m even more grateful for nice roads.

The kids liked the shuttle bus

So Taormina is a city on the east coast of Sicily that has been inhabited since around 700 B.C. (Thanks, Google). Its most famous site is the Ancient Theatre, which, if I remember correctly, is thought to date back to around 300 B.C. When we arrived, we basically just followed the crowd and wound up at the theatre almost immediately. It was very impressive, to say the least.

I spent a fair bit of time trying to impress on Owen exactly how old “more than 2,000 years old” is, but I don’t think I quite made an impression. About the furthest back he can imagine is “older than great-grandma?” as far as I can tell.

The city was exactly the mixture of old, interesting and lovely that I think of when I hear “Italy.” Tons of old stone and brick buildings. Hundreds of little restaurants with tables shoved along the outside wherever possible. Wandering streets with a million small side-roads/alleys you can disappear down. Just beautiful.

The kids did quite well all day long (probably helped by the fact that we kept buying them snacks — so far, this is my top “traveling with children” tip), though early on Fiona gave us some scares by her insistence on trying to navigate all the steep, uneven steps alone all the damn time. “I do it by my big self” is her catch-phrase lately. However, once we settled that she was actually helping ME navigate the stairs, things went more smoothly.

The views from near the Temple were absolutely incredible, and we lingered there for what seemed like ages just looking. Because how could we NOT?

This last one is the outtakes from the first two …just keeping it real.

City view

We had lunch at a nice little restaurant not far from the Theatre, where Owen got super excited about ordering fish with Daddy. Obviously, that enthusiasm didn’t extend to actually eating it though.

From there, we wandered down some of the streets just looking for a while until we ended up at the public gardens, where we spent a lovely time talking to a pair of British grandparents about their kids and grandkids (and their son’s ex-wife and her new husband, ha!) and about our little munchkins. And about how worthless Donald Trump is on every level, and how insane the Brexit was and how much people regret it. They were on holiday in Sicily before heading over to Connecticut to see the grandkids and probably give their eldest grandson a lecture about how he should hurry up and propose to that nice girl he’s dating soon.

After a final snack of fresh cannoli — the owner pulled the cream out of the shells and stuffed it right there — we decided to head home. Our usual impulse when traveling in Europe together has been to spend all day out and about walking and try to see everything, but it is so different now since we know we can come back whenever. And with the kids being clearly so tired after miles of walking, we decided to quit while we were ahead. Unsurprisingly, they were asleep before we hit the highway.

All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a more auspicious start to our European travels as a family of four. There is so much to see here, I imagine we’ll spend a lot of weekends doing trips like this (though I freely admit most probably won’t go this smoothly.)

Ah! As I type this, I am remembering one negative of the day … this mime scared the shit out of Fiona, just by existing. We reassured her that he was trying to be silly, not scary, and I swear to you she spent half the day repeating those words — “silly, not scary” — like she was trying to convince herself it was true. Today, Owen and Chris were talking about Taormina and she randomly brought up “that guy” again. I think he’s haunting her.

I mean, he is a little creepy.

The post Our first day trip — Taormina! first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Our first day trip — Taormina! appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.