Ah yes, it’s been too long since we had a ridiculous Sicily driving story, hasn’t?

(Though the rabbit incident should have been enough to fill my driving-stories quota for like a year and a half).

Caltagirone is a city in central Sicily (about an hour from Sigonella) that is known for its gorgeous painted pottery. Chris and I took the kids there in March. Its biggest attraction is an enormous 142-step staircase on which each step is decorated with its trademark painted ceramic pottery.

Beautiful, right?

Yeah, we almost ran it over. Almost. 

At worst, I’d say we nudged it.

Backing up — my friend Amanda and I decided to head to Caltagirone for  some Christmas shopping this morning while our kids were in school. Amanda graciously offered to drive her small SUV, which is most likely the reason I am at home writing this right now instead of still stuck inside my minivan in a situation like this:

Though actually we did have a random Sicilian of our own to help us. Lucky for Amanda, Aziz and I that Sicilians are so helpful!

Anyway, I was navigating and blindly following our Google Maps directions to the general direction of the staircase. We didn’t realize that we were being led (through numerous small streets) to the top of the stairs until we looked right and bam! There it was. Like, right there.

So, locals told us we couldn’t park up there so we decided to uh, just figure out how to get to the bottom. Which was fine! Admittedly we had to stop a few times to pull in mirrors and I at least held my breath through quite a few suuuuper tight turns, but all was fine.

Until we looked ahead and sticking out into the narrow roadway … a stoop. Or what we thought was a stoop. Until we got closer and realized it was the bottom of the fucking staircase.

So I got out of the car in an effort to help Amanda thread the needle and avoid smashing the stairs. Turns out I suck though, so Random Guy across the street started shouting instructions instead and we all found that a much better strategy. We made it out having just, I’d say, nudged the stairs. And then basically dissolved into hysterics.

The fabulous Amanda and her daughter Maggie! Arms stretched for scale. On the bottom right, the stair we nudged. Fortunately, this one didn’t have ceramics on it, like the one directly above.

Anyway, we had a fabulous and super quick visit. I finished up a bunch of Christmas shopping at Ceramiche Artigianali di Salvatore Gurreri and also got a quick tutorial from an employee there.

Gorgeous, no? But I’m not telling what came home with me!

The post The one where we almost ran over Caltagirone’s most famous attraction first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post The one where we almost ran over Caltagirone’s most famous attraction appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

For whatever reason with my family, we always seem to have various mishaps while traveling. Get a group of us together and invariably we’ll end up with a slew of “remember that time in Pisa …” or “remember that time with the crowded train …” as a springboard into a story of misadventure from our family lore.

Even still, Tuesday was one for the ages.

Where I thought we’d be at 2 p.m. on Tuesday: at my house, eating some lunch and watching Moana while doing laundry.

Where we actually were at 2 p.m. on Tuesday: the home of a stranger, lamenting my lack of Italian skills, but eating at a feast that included pasta, vegetables the stranger (Pino!) and my dad picked from the garden ten minutes before, and rabbit he’d shot on his farm.

Again: I am overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers! The world seems like a pretty jacked up place lately, but it is a relief to know there are still good people out there.

So, let’s back up.

My parents came to town Sunday after finishing their month-long traveling adventure in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France, Germany and Italy. My brother-in-law Brett, who met us in Germany for Oktoberfest, has also been visiting us in Sicily since we got back. We had decided to take the crowd to Cefalu for some beach time Sunday and Monday (it was great, by the way!), then Tuesday morning Chris and Brett left early to catch a plane for Rome, where they are spending a couple days before Brett’s flight home. That left me, my parents and the kids to drive the van home Tuesday later in the day after we explored some more and packed up.

As we were heading out of town, we passed a gas station. I looked at my dash, noticed I needed gas fairly soon and decided I’d better stop at the next one we spotted. We were going on a major highway, so no problem, right?*

Wrong. So wrong.

On the way to Cefalu, we’d stopped at Taormina for a while and thus took a longer route along the (highly populated) coast. On the way back we planned to take the quicker route down the middle of the island and over.

So, we were on the lookout from the beginning for a gas station but it didn’t immediately become a huge issue until we’d gone miles and miles and miles without seeing one. Getting nervous, we decided we needed to get off at one of the exits on the theory that surely, surely there will be a gas station somewhere. Nope, waste of gas trying one area and realizing there was nothing there. Next, decided to get back on the highway and keep driving but things were getting critical. Finally, Google informed me there was a middle-of-nowhere gas station only about five kilometers away. Sold.

Except that GPS just led us to a farm. And then informed us we could walk the rest of the way. Our car hadn’t actually spluttered to a stop, but the range had been on 0 for quite some time and we knew we didn’t have much left, so we decided to ask whoever lived there where this mythical gas station was.

So, my Italian continues to be very poor. The farmer, Pino, spoke Italian and Dutch only. We had Google Translate but it honestly isn’t as helpful as it could be a lot of the time (a post on that to follow) and we were struggling with communication. Finally I remembered my fabulous and fluent friend Brooke, who I was able to call on messenger. To my immense relief, she was available and talked to Pino for us – who informed us that the “gas station” we were looking for only had fuel for scooters and that the nearest real gas station was about 15 kilometers away. Uphill. His opinion? There was no chance we’d make it. Since we hadn’t the slightest idea where it even was, we tended to agree.

So, this is where Pino is especially amazing. First he was trying to convince us he could mix some of his diesel with oil and put it in the car, since he didn’t have benzina (we declined). Our next plan was to call our roadside assistance through insurance, but Pino said it would take hours to get to the middle of nowhere and that they would charge a fortune and insist on towing us. He insisted that his son would be there in an hour and a half and either bring us some benzina or drive us to get it. With few other options – and a fear that if we tried to drive back to the highway we’d actually run out of gas somewhere less friendly – we decided to wait.

And then he offered to make us spaghetti. I was in a state of complete nervous panic at this point, but the kids hadn’t eaten and well … it was almost 2 p.m.

So, we explored a little bit while Pino (with help from my dad to go pick some vegetables straight from the garden!) got to work. He either rebuffed my offers to help or didn’t understand my offer because “aiutare” is a hard word for me to pronounce.

In the meantime, we mostly explored the farm (he had chickens, sheep, pigs and a gorgeous bay horse named Farfellina) and played with his rambunctious puppies, while I fought anxiety-induced nausea and apologized profusely to my parents for getting us into this situation. Owen and I also rehearsed what he would say to very politely refuse the spaghetti because – as most of you know – he doesn’t eat pasta and we were worried about offending Pino.

Turns out, we didn’t need to worry because we were served an epic meal and even my picky Owen found something to eat!

First course: pasta with marinara sauce, plus chunks of cheese; Fiona devoured the first and Owen ate cheese.

Second course: bread, roasted bell peppers straight from the garden, a tomato/oil salad straight from the garden, and a platter of meat that we didn’t immediately recognize. Eventually, Pino pointed and said “coniglio” (hey! A word I recognize!) and mimicked shooting. My dad later told us he was pretty sure he was telling us to look out for pellets in the meat because he’s used a shotgun?

Anyway, to my very great surprise it was after we clarified what we were eating that Owen piped up that he wanted some rabbit. We pulled some off the bone for him and – shockingly — he devoured it and said it was great (Pino seemed tickled!). Fiona ate it too. I was actually the only one who didn’t, not because I was opposed but because I was still fighting some really bad nausea (lame!). Our only contribution was a couple bottles of wine that we’d had in the car, and he ended up serving his own wine anyway. Ooops!

Anyway, we used my extremely limited Italian, Google translate and sign language to do our best to carry on conversation with Pino and learned he had two sons, had lived on this farm since childhood, enjoys painting, and loves to cook for his friends. He ribbed me a bit for having been in Sicily for almost a year and not having learned more Italian, which ok, fair point. Later we learned that one of his side businesses is roasting pigs for parties; if anyone I know in Sicily ever needs a hog let me know and I’ll give you his contact information!

Photo courtesy of Pino

So, about three hours passed. Eventually, one of Pino’s sons, Roberto, arrived with a couple liters of benzina to funnel into our tank and (after a bunch of back-and-forth with Brooke on the line to negotiate what happened next) the son agreed to drive back into town so that we could follow him to the service station.

And thank goodness, because I don’t think we could have ever actually found our way there ourselves. Roberto drove on the craziest back roads and through puddles and what seemed like craters before we actually made it to the town, which highlighted pretty well how in the middle of freaking nowhere we had ended up. Added to the fact that my tank is so enormous that the couple liters we’d put in actually didn’t move the range from “0” and it was a somewhat nerve-wracking drive!

We caused a bit of a scene at the gas station as Roberto and Maria (unclear on relationship there — she came along for the ride and was very sweet!) told the story to a couple of attendants who ended up laughing pretty hard as Roberto (I believe) explained exactly how deep in the country we’d ended up. And then they couldn’t believe how much gas the van would take, and kept asking me if I was sure I wanted to fill it up entirely. HELL YEAH I DO!

In total, the day’s finances worked out like this:

Gas purchased on the economy: 116 euro

Lunch/rescue square: 20 euro and two cheap bottles of wine. (We tried to convince them to take more but they wouldn’t hear of it.)

Lesson learned and a story to tell: priceless.

Us and Pino and Maria 

*Chris, later: “Didn’t you notice the sign that said it was the last gas station for 67 kilometers?” NOPE. Sure as hell did not.

The post Exploring our island: The one where we run out of gas and eat rabbit first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Exploring our island: The one where we run out of gas and eat rabbit appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

“I thought you were bringing a car, but you brought a ship!”
-Owner of an apartment where we stayed on our trip to Cefalu.

Yep, that’s about right.

When we announced that we were moving to Sicily, we got a surprising number of questions about whether we were bringing our van. Now, something like seven months after it arrived, I thought I’d update you on how it is going.

First thing: Our van looks like it has been to war.
Second thing: I don’t actually think having a van here has been a big deal.

After all, this hasn’t even happened to us! (Yet.)

OK, so the first thing is that some of the roads here truly are TINY. Others, in particular the highway, are pretty much what we’re used to … at least until they randomly narrow because buildings are in the way. I actually decided to do this post after being reminded about how small roads can be (I’m totally used to the narrow spots on my usual routes now) because on Tuesday I ended up going the wrong way on a tiny residential street in Raglna and having to do a one-million-point turn to turn around. On Thursday, en route to a friend’s house, our phone conversation included a “hang on, I’ve got to fold in my mirror or I’m going to hit a post.”

Parking can also be a bit of a challenge because of the van’s length, which makes it hang out over some of the smaller parking spots. Luckily, “creative” parking is pretty much the norm here.

The white car in the background isn’t mine. 

I did scrape up the front of the van on a ramp in a Taormina parking garage where I kept hitting the wall, in a situation I can only describe as “sitcome-esque.” Chris was on one side of the car telling me I was hitting the wall (as if I didn’t know) and advising me to get closer to the other side, while on the other side of the car my mom would immediately warn me that I was on the stairs and about to hit the wall on the other side. Fail!

That said … my biggest nemesis isn’t out in the world. It is my own gate. Yes, that is ridiculous. But seriously, there just isn’t that much clearance on each side — maybe six inches? — and you have to go out pretty much dead center. I, uh, don’t always achieve this. But in my defense, I will say that I DON’T hit the gate about 100 times as often as I hit the gate. But of course no one ever comments on THAT.

This picture is from right after we moved here, which is why the side of the car doesn’t have a bunch of scratches in this picture. 

A casualty.

Now, after all that — on to point two. It really hasn’t been that bad. Maybe it is because I’m used to it, but for the most part I get through the roads just fine. Once in a while when the GPS is taking me a weird way down some tiny dirt path I’ll give it a big ol’ NOPE, but for the most part there haven’t been many places I actually can’t go — even if I do end up weirdly holding my breath through some places as if that will help me squeak through. And on the roads, people are surprisingly tolerant of other motorists dong dumb things, at least in my experience. In some busy places where there are cars parked (or double parked!) on both sides of the road there is no way more than one car is getting through at a time regardless of size, so they are used to taking turns. And frankly, my car is a hell of a lot bigger than most others so people just get out of the way.

While we do have a smaller car that we sometimes take when driving around the island as a family (more fuel efficient and easier to park), it has been extremely useful to have a big car when we have visitors. The four of us, my parents and my sister were all able to cram in there for visits to Siracusa and Taormina when they visited, and on the way back from the airport with my inlaws in May we very easily fit all our luggage in there as well.

Anyway, would I bring the van to Italy again? Probably. If we had to pay Italian prices for gas, however, it would be a different story. We buy gas coupons from the base at U.S. prices, which we can redeem at specific local gas stations. Given that a gallon of gas here would come out to approaching $6 in the states, this is a big deal. I recently filled up the tank and the cash price would have been 106 euros. No thanks.

Lastly, I just wanted to report that I just asked Chris for his assessment of driving the van here in Sicily. His response:

“It’s like driving a bull through a china shop.”

Fair enough.

The post Cracked mirrors; or, On having a minivan in Sicily first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Cracked mirrors; or, On having a minivan in Sicily appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

Fun. Fairly chill. Easier than expected. 

Words I use to describe our experience driving around in Ireland, with me (exclusively) at the wheel.

Nerve-racking. White knuckles. Life flashed before my eyes.

Words my husband used to describe our experience driving around Ireland with me at the wheel.

Clearly, we’ll have to agree to disagree on this. But, I do assure you he’s being extremely dramatic. We hit nothing* and, contrary to his beliefs, we were not particularly close to hitting anything either. I’d also like to note that his account of it all has grown more dramatic with each retelling.

Anyway, THE TRUTH** 

It really wasn’t nearly as scary as I expected to be. I’ve only had one other experience driving on the left side of the road — I rented a scooter for several days in Thailand in 2008 — but on the motorway (highway) the traffic is completely divided so the only thing to remember was that the “fast lane” is on the right. In towns it took a smidge more gettng used to, particularly going “the wrong way” on roundabouts, but I felt pretty adjusted by the end of the first day. As in Sicily, the roads were quite narrow in a lot of places, but overall they were much better maintained and tended to be better marked than they are here. And the signs were all in English! (Also Gallic, as were all signs in Ireland).

I do think it would have been more stressful if I hadn’t already spent about eight months here driving a large van through very narrow streets and a lot of traffic. I mean, it was still stressful but much less than just driving in downtown Catania can be. Chris’ chief complaint came from his belief that I was driving too close to the edge of the road on the narrow streets on the passenger side, but I’d point out that while it was an adjustment — I kept feeling like I was driving headfirst into traffic on my side — I ultimately threaded the needle well enough to avoid hitting anything. Also noteworthy: I was the only one to drive in Ireland at all because it was deemed “your big idea.”

Anyway.

The one thing that actually did prove somewhat stressful was the car itself. Thursday morning we had to be out of our AirBnb by 10/10:30, and had plans to pick up the van I’d rented at 9 a.m. Since it was some distance away, Chris and I took a cab to go fetch it and left Gail and David with the kids and the bags. We expected to be back in plenty of time to load the kids and all our baggage into the car and be on our way by 10.

Instead, a mess. The van I reserved from Thrifty Car was billed as being a minivan for seven people and five bags. I pictured something akin to my own minivan. Instead, we were showed to a car that would have been a small five-seater vehicle. The sixth and seventh seats that could be pulled up in the back were ludicrous, no adult could reasonably have sat there and I’d doubt if we could have even gotten Fi’s carseat in. And the “space for five bags”? HAHAHAHAHA. The Thrifty Car representative feebly offered that the website had perhaps meant “space for five carry-on bags.” Again, a complete joke — you could perhaps have fit five small purses, and only if you pushed the back seats so far forward as to make them useless.

So, cue panic. We asked about bigger, automatic vans and they had a 9-passenger automatic one … for 1,300 euro. So about what my family had paid for our flight to Dublin PLUS all four nights at our AirBnB. We considered renting another car, but two cars for the trip? A nightmare. We considered storming off and trying to find another company with a more reasonably-priced van, but again that would take time and what if we couldn’t find one?

I probably don’t need to tell you how I was feeling at this point, but here is a visual representation of my mood all the same:

Finally, the Thrifty Guy suggested that he had a 7-passenger (actual) van at their location at the airport, which they could give for “only” almost twice what we were paying for the original van we’d reserved. That didn’t thrill me, but it was the best we could do. Awesome Thrify Girl offered to drive us to the airport to save time, which we really appreciated. However, it still left us in the quandry because a considerable amount of time had passed and now Gail, David, the kids and about six suitcases of varying sizes were hanging out outside our apartment. A regular taxi to send them to the airport wasn’t an option — too much luggage, too many people and no carseats. I tried calling the carseat-possessing taxi guy that I had used before and got him to agree to come with his van, but he didn’t have the carseat or booster seat with him. This is when Awesome Thrify Girl earned her name and offered to drop off the carseat and booster we were renting from them at the AirBnb. {Also at this point, the original taxi guy called back to say he had decided he didn’t have time after all — panic! — but ultimately he found someone else to send.}

Once we arrived at the AirBnb, Awesome Thrifty Girl agreed to have us take Fiona in her car as well as some of the bags, which mercifully took some pressure off Gail and David. She was also able to just go grab the keys for us from behind the counter once we got to the airport, which was a relief because there was an unbelievably epic line there.

The van itself proved to a Volkswagen, and very similar to the Eurovan I learned to drive on (minus the distinctive bright blue color of our beloved family van, Zippy). It didn’t have much giddyup when trying to accelerate, but I did manage to get it up to a reasonable 140 km/hour on the motorway at various points. It was certainly very wide and long, but it had room for everyone so no complaints here. We drove from Dublin to Cashel to a town near Ennis without incident that day, but of course our car drama wasn’t quite over …

Flat. Tire.

We were actually really lucky that this happened when it did, rather than on the highway. And we’re lucky that we discovered it when we did, as it would have been a huge hassle to have to change in the following morning when we were trying to go to the Cliffs of Moher and it was raining a ton. Instead, Chris and I discovered it in the evening as we were about to make a run to town from our beautiful countryside AirBnB into the town of Kilysdart to grab some dinner for everyone.

Locating the spare and getting it detached proved problematic, and resulted in three of us laying on the ground at various points and Chris whacking himself in the head with the wrench. But once it was off, Chris and David got it replaced pretty quickly. This was a particularly good thing because I had called the Thrifty helpline (back when I thought there wasn’t a spare tire in the car) and was told that it was $200 for someone to come out and replace it.

I need hardly say how unimpressed I am with Thrifty Car as an organization, though obviously Awesome Thrifty Girl was Awesome.

At any rate, I would still overall highly recommend driving in Ireland (with the exception of Dublin, where parking would suck). We’ve now done two consecutive trips that included a renting a car for a portion of it, and I’ve really enjoyed it both times (though obviously the process went a bit less smoothly this time compared to our time in the Loire Valley). Driving on your own gives you the opportunity to see the countryside as you are going, stop when you want to, linger at sights that catch your interest and — spoken like a mom here — store all your stuff. When we are walking around a city, we tend to take everything we need for the day and carry it in a backpack. WIth a car, you can prepare for all eventualities without actually having to carry around a snowsuit in July “just in case” your kid gets cold. Winning.

I do, however, recommend triple checking what kind of car you are actually getting. GRRRRRRR.

Road right outside our Kilysdart rental house. In the distance, the River Shannon. 

*Except some branches overhanging into the road, which do not count beause they are branches. hanging. in. the street. Chris disagrees that these “don’t count,” but also hit some branches just the other day while we were driving around in Sicily. So.

**Because it is my blog, and I get to decide.

The post IRELAND, interlude: Renting a car on the Emerald Isle first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post IRELAND, interlude: Renting a car on the Emerald Isle appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

Our family spent the last half of our trip to France visiting the Loire Valley with kids, and I can honestly say its been one of my favorite trips ever. One this particular day, we saw the Chateau d’Usse (Sleeping Beauty’s castle), Fontevrault Abbey and the Saumur wine caves. I’d recommend all of them!

To read more about our visit to the Loire Valley with kids, click here. 

In a day marked by some great sightseeing, the best moment of our visit to the Loire Valley with kids came not inside a great monument but just outside of it: sitting in a sweet little restaurant (Le Comptoir des Vins) just outside Fontevrault Abbey, having a great meal and two good glasses of wine and telling Owen the history of one of my favorite historical figures, Eleanor of Aquitaine.

I swear one of the best things about having kids is that they are a captive audience …

Visiting the Loire Valley with kids

So, backing up a bit. Thursday dawned in our shared hotel room (after a night that reinforced why we usually rent apartments) and we headed off for the first of two full days planned in the Loire Valley. The Loire Valley, an area sometimes described as “The Garden of France,” is in central France surrounding the Loire River. This area was of strategic importance in previous centuries, and the result is that there are literally hundreds of castles of varying sizes and levels of opulence throughout this region.

When we first planned by 30th birthday trip, my first priority was going to Paris, with the idea of doing “something else” as well. A little research led me to the idea of going to the Loire Valley, and soon enough I was more excited about that part of the trip than anything else. Luckily, it lived up to the hype! Because there are so very many castles and historically significant sites in the Loire Valley, and mostly all within very easy driving distance of each other, deciding what to prioritize was our biggest challenge. We ended up deciding on three activities per day, split up by location.

I’d also like to mention that this trip has completely inspired me to want to visit basically all of France. There’s so much more than Paris, and so many wonderful places to see. In particular, I’m looking forward to visiting Alsace and Provence some day soon. My bloggy friend Sabrina has an awesome post up right now about her hiking trip to Calanques National Park and visit to Cassis (which she calls one of the most beautiful towns in Provence). 

Visiting Sleeping Beauty’s castle: Chateau d’Usse

Thursday started with the Chateau d’Usse, a castle that I chose specifically with the kids in mind. Unlike the others we’d see in the next two days, it does not have enormous historical significance — choosing it over nearby Chateau de Chinon was a bit of a wrench for this history nerd — but it is gorgeous and is believed to have been the inspiration for the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale.

Although I would still like to see Chinon at some point, going to the Chateau d’Usse was the right choice for a visit to the Loire Valley with kids. It wasn’t overly busy, which meant we felt like we were just getting to wander around Sleeping Beauty’s castle all by ourselves.

The castle has definitely leaned into the idea that the author of Sleeping Beauty had Chateau d’Usse in mind for Princess Aurora.

Fiona loved the princess stuff at Chateau d’Usse, even though her questions about when we’d see a “real princess” persisted. I guess we’ll have to try and search for the Princess Charlotte in London some day, ha! Though if we ran into them at the park I expect she’d be disappointed by the lack of tiara.

These stairs led to an underground chamber that at one point was the beginning of a tunnel that ended in the forest. It was a way of escaping the Chateau d’Usse in case of attack. 

The Sleeping Beauty motif was contained largely to one tower of the Chateau d’Usse. Elsewhere, the mannequins were dressed in 1920s style. 

Overall, Chateau d’Usse made an excellent stop for anyone visiting the Loire Valley with kids. What it lacks in historical significance, it more than makes up for in beauty and kid-friendly Sleeping Beauty decor. And if you go early in the day during the shoulder season, you might even find you have the place practically to yourself!

Loire Valley with kids: visiting Fontevrault Abbey

If the Chateau d’Usse visit was chosen in part because it would appeal to the kids, our next stop of the day — I freely admit — was entirely for me. If you are not overly interested in history, I encourage you to let your eyes wander down to the pictures now and rejoin us toward the end. I’ll back back with wine after this!

The Abbaye de Fontevrauld is a fascinating part of Angevin history, and it dates back to 1101. During its heydey, it included four religious houses and though there were both nuns and monks in these houses, it was a woman who had the running of the overall establishment, the Abbess of Fontevrault. The abbess was usually a highborn, often well-connected woman (widow of the Duke of Burgundy is one example) and this was an important position. The abbey was patronized in particular by the Plantagenets, the family who would ultimately end up ruling England for centuries. Highborn children were often raised at Fontevrault, including at least two of Eleanor of Aquitaine’s children.

My interest in going here was partially because of the history,and partially because I was interested in seeing the effigies of Eleanor, her husband Henry II, and her son King Richard “the Lionheart.” If you aren’t familiar with Eleanor, she was one of the most powerful women in Europe during the Middle Ages. Here are some highlights:

-She became soverign duchess of Aquitaine as a young teenager after the death of her father

-Almost immediately marries Louis VII, King of France

-Goes on the Second Crusade as one of its leaders

-Unsuccessfully makes a bid for an annulment from the Louis; Later, finally receives her annulment after 15 years of marriage results in just two daughters

-Almost immediately remarries, this time to the Count of Anjou/Duke of Normandy, a teenager 11 years her junior who would become the most powerful man in Europe in time — helped in no small part by Eleanor adding her lands to his. Henry Fitzempress was the son of the woman considered by many to be the rightful Queen of England, Empress Matilda. Matilda, only surviving legitimate child of King Henry I, was named by Henry as his heir but in the end lost the throne to her cousin Stephen after years of warfare. Her son Henry, therefore, had a claim to the English throne and ultimately convinced King Stephen to agree to name Henry as his heir in exchange for peace. Henry acended to the throne of England a year later, in 1154.

-With Henry II, had at least eight children, seven of whom survived to adulthood. Among them are four surviving sons: Henry, Richard, Geoffrey and John.

-During long periods of separation, Eleanor often ran parts of the now enormous and ever-growing Angevin empire, which stretched over England and wide swaths of France. In later life she returned to Aquitaine as its duchess again. Her court is known for celebrating troubadors, chivalry and courtly love.

-Joined her sons in a revolt against her husband/their father, in the process seeking help from her first husband, Louis VII. The sons wanted to weild more power in the domains they’d inherit.

-The sons lost. Eleanor is imprisoned by her husband for most of the next 16 years. During this time, her son Henry “the Young King” dies, as does her son Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany by virtue of his marriage to the duchy’s heiress

-Eleanor is freed upon the death of Henry II, who ended his days at war with his heir, Richard, after finding out that his youngest and favorite son, John, had also betrayed him.

-Eleanor is basically running things while her son, Richard, goes off on the Third Crusade, then plays a huge role in raising the enormous ranson set by the Holy Roman Emperor when he captures Richard. Richard dies a few years later.

-In her late 70s she was still running all over the world, including a journey across the Pyrannees into Castile to pick one of her granddaughters to marry the new King of France.

-Eventually, she retires to Fontevrauld for some well-earned rest after decades of badassery. She died there in 82.

Queen Eleanor, King Henry II and King Richard the Lionheart (and King John’s wife, Isabella d’Angouleme) were all buried at Fontevrauld, but their bones were scattered during the French Revolution. Their effigies, however, remain.

Seeing them was a surprisingly emotional experience, which I can’t really explain.

The rest of Fontevrauld was interesting, including learning about how it was converted into a prison after the French Revolution. From 1804 to 1963 it served as one of the toughest prisons in France, apparently. Members of the French Resistance were shot there under the orders of the Vichy Government.

Overall, I would say the place is worthy of a visit if you are interested in that particular history. It may be boring for young children, but there is grassy area to run around in when they need a break. And frankly, it doesn’t kill a kid to be bored once in a while!

Loire Valley with kids: wine caves of Saumur

Our final stop of the day was the second-oldest winery in (well, near) Saumur, a city known for its excellent wines. There were tons to choose from, but we ended up going to Bouvet Ladubay, which formed in 1851 when a married couple by the names of Etienne Bouvet and Celestine Ladubay purchased 8 kilometers of caves in which to produce and age their wines. The concept of “wine caves” seems to be quite common in the region, as we saw them advertised everywhere. I knew that this one had frequent tours of the caves and I planned for us to join one whenever we got there (instead of doing advanced tickets and being a slave to the clock), but unfortunately I failed to consider that the frequent wine tours might not be offered in English. Whoops. We joined a French one since you can’t see the caves without going on the tour and it was only a few euro anyway — plus it ended with a tasting. It was interesting to see the caves and we did have a pamphlet to read describing the things our guide would be talking about, but I’d recommend hitting an English tour.

I only have a few crappy pictures because it was dark and I was tired of carrying my big camera. 

The wine tasting afterward helped make up for the awkwardness of our tour, however. We liked some of the wines enough to buy a couple bottles, and even Owen got to try some sparkling grape juice (Fiona was asleep on my back). Had Fiona been awake, I’m not sure she would have loved being in the cave, but hey! That’s what baby-wearing is for.

From here, our exhausted bunch piled into the SpaceCar and headed to our final destination of the evening — the cottage we had rented with a mysterious address: “Le Parc, Veretz.” Fortunately, our faithful SpaceCar’s navigation system got us there.

A note about the driving: loved it. It was like driving in Indiana again — wide open spaces, pretty farmland, less honking and very chill. I ended up doing all the driving because I was the one who went to retrieve the car from the rental agency and didn’t know I was supposed to bring Chris’ driver’s licence with me. It worked out great though, because when you are driving it turns out you can pull over and take a picture whenever the hell you feel like it even when the rest of the car is begging to JUST GET HOME ALREADY.

Worth it. 

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The post FRANCE, Day Six: Sleeping Beauty’s castle, history and wine first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post FRANCE, Day Six: Sleeping Beauty’s castle, history and wine 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.

Reunited with our car, that is. It arrived while we were away, and we got custody of it last Friday. Yay!

Unfortunately, of course, it is missing its driver’s side wing mirror. You’d think when they noticed it was messed up in the shipping container, they might have picked up the mirror and chucked it into the car. But it seems not.

Anyway, based on comments I’ve received I’m sure some of you are wondering what driving a massive minivan on Italian streets has been like. To my surprise, it has been totally fine so far. Admittedly I haven’t been out a ton because it has been raining cats and dogs for days and we’ve had movers coming and going, but I’ve driven around town and on the highway and in the Ikea parking lot and so far haven’t had any major issues. Even merging — while somewhat frightening without mirror — is easier than it was with the rental car because a funny thing happens when I step on the gas. It actually accelerates!

I will say I am having one major battle with driving the van, however. And it is getting it in and out of our own damn driveway.

Whoops

The Sienna just barely fits through the gate, so you need to approach it dead center. Then, the driveway is pretty narrow and made more so by a million planters that line one side, so you have to drive far enough down to be past the planters so there is enough room to get in and out. The van’s sliding doors are actually a huge help with this.

Why do these need to be here?!

So far, I haven’t done any damage to the car but there have been some casualties.

Sorry, my dear landlord.

On the agenda: asking our landlord if she can have someone move those damn planters.

The post Reunited and it feels so good first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Reunited and it feels so good appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

The scene:

The four of us are driving along, enjoying the scenery as we traveled south and discussing whether the extensive stacked-stone fences we saw might have been built with rubble from old buildings.
And then our car got literally showered with golf ball-sized rocks.
And we yelled.

This is a carefully reconstructed photo of our reaction when showered with rocks.

A truck hauling these rocks (I assume for landscaping?) took a turn and literally hundreds of rocks came flying out of the back and POURED over our car. Nowhere to go, and no time to do it if we did. We are actually fairly amazed the windshield didn’t shatter and 100 percent certain it has a bunch of new dents, but on the bright side … it is a rental.

This is the kind of stone fencing I was talking about

The incident actually ended up being a taste of what would be a series of half-funny, half-alarming (and ultimately completely innocuous) car-related situations from this weekend. But despite a rocky start – I know, I’m hilarious – we ended up having a fabulous first weekend trip away!

This trip had been under consideration for a week or so since we knew Chris had Friday off, but we ultimately pulled the trigger on booking an AirBnb at about 6 p.m. the night before we left. From an Ikea. We had originally been thinking we might just do a day trip to Modica, Ragusa or Noto (or a couple other towns) because none of them are particularly far away, only about an hour and a half or so. As we were trying to narrow things down, however, we realized that we really wanted to see them all. We ended up booking a two-bedroom apartment in Modica for a couple of nights as our base of operations, with the intention of exploring one town per day. We obviously ended up spending a bit more time in Modica than anywhere else, which is probably why it ultimately ended up being our favorite.

A note to start: booking apartments is, in our opinion, the only way to do things when you are traveling with kids. At least, if yours sleep as noisily as ours do. We love being able to put them to bed and then still stay up talking since there are other rooms to escape to. Of course, this doesn’t guarantee a good night’s rest – Fiona woke me up by shoving an apple into my face at 4 a.m. Saturday morning, and Owen had a night terror in the wee hours of Sunday morning that had all four of us up – but in our experience the odds are a lot better. Plus, you get to feel like you are more a part of a city than you do when you are in an impersonal hotel and have the added benefit of having a kitchen. The top of the fridge, if you are wondering, is basically the only place to store $40 worth of chocolate where the kids (probably) can’t get to it while you think they are sleeping.
Another note: so far, we have only booked apartments through AirBnb or VRBO. However, I’ve recently heard there are some other sites that have lower service fees, so I’m planning to investigate that in the future.

THIS is how they choose to sleep?

Modica
Located on the southernmost part of Sicily, Modica is a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the late Baroque towns of the Val Di Noto. It (and the cities around it) are built onto the mountains and valleys of the Hyblaean Mountains. Driving there is a very up-and-down, curving experience with absolutely gorgeous scenery along the way. In addition to its architecture, it is known for its chocolate. This may or may not have been a major motivating factor in going – I’ll never tell.

The sites:
We actually only explored a very small part of the city, so we’ll need to go back sometime for sure to see more of the medieval part of the town, Modica Alta (Upper Modica). We stayed in Modica Bassa, the place where residents rebuilt the city after the 1693 earthquake destroyed most of it. If that sounds familiar, by the way, it is because that must have been one hell of an earthquake because it also destroyed most of Catania. Anyway, the city has some gorgeous architecture, especially along the main drag, Corso Umberto 1. In particular, we enjoyed looking at the ornate carvings on the supporting beams of balconies here.

Its most well-known site is the Duomo Sant’Giorgio, dedicated to St. George. We weren’t able to go in, but walked by it several times and always stopped to admire it. One Italian art historian has apparently referred to its as “one of the seven wonders of the Baroque world.” It is made of what I’m thinking is sandstone, which gives it an interesting golden color. It actually reminds me a lot of some sites I saw in Jordan and in India in 2008. The kids enjoyed looking at the statues of all the apostles outside the church, and climbing the stairs.

We also visited the Museo degli Arnesi di Una Volta by chance, as we stumbled across it while waiting in the Piazza Matteotti for our apartment to be ready. It certainly isn’t a particularly fancy museum, but it was an interesting building (a former convent) and our tour guide was extremely charming. He also kept encouraging the kids to touch stuff and telling me to quit worrying when they were grabbing at things, so that was a welcome change for us all, I think. Mostly it was full of artifacts showing every day tools used by Sicilians of the past – looms, reeds weaved into containers for ricotta storage, infant beds suspended on ropes above the parents’ bed, etc. Having a tour guide to explain what things were definitely made it worth going; without him, it would have been pretty boring and basically a guessing game since nothing much was labeled.

View of Piazza Matteotti from our balcony; the museum was in the building you see in the center

Owen and I also took a tour at a chocolate shop (more on the chocolate below), which turned out to be quite interesting. It was just the two of us, and Owen got a kick out of having to be wrapped up in a hospital gown-type thing to go into the kitchen. Our guide gave a brief explanation of where cocoa beans come front, then explained how Modica chocolate differs from traditional European chocolates. Owen and I got to see them pouring some of the chocolate into molds, and Owen took a turn rattling a wooden box where the molds are placed so that the chocolate settles before hardening. These days they put the bars in a fridge for about three hours to settle them, but before refrigeration the bars were often stored in caves. We also got more than our fair share of samples, which our teacher wrapped up for us to take home for Daddy and Fiona because she pulled out way too many samples for us. That meant that Chris (and ultimately the kids) got to try a Modica speciality – a cookie made with chocolate, nuts, fruit and minced meat. I can’t report on the taste because that wasn’t happening, but Chris said it just tasted like a chocolate cookie. Our guide explained that since the chocolate from Modica can last for a long time and does not readily melt, sailors baked meat into the cookies as a way of preserving it. Ingenious, I guess. But I still wasn’t trying it.

The chocolate:
Modica is known for its chocolate, so obviously investigating its claims to fame was high on our agenda. Especially for the kids, who had been told we were going to “a chocolate town” on the ride there. We went to Antica Dolceria Bonajuto, which we’d seen recommended several places. It ended up being a great place to sample everything (including hot chocolate and chocolate liquor) and we bought a boatload of chocolate to spare ourselves from having to really make decisions.

The chocolate itself is, for lack of a better word, weird. It is delicious in its own way, but it is like no chocolate I have ever had. When you bite into it, it doesn’t melt – it crumbles. This chocolate came to Sicily with the Spanish, who had acquired it from the Aztecs in the so-called “New World.” Today in Modica the Aztec technique of cold-processing is still used. This, apparently, is what makes it so distinctive. While chocolate that most of us will be familiar with is heated to high temperatures and usually mixed with butter, milk and sugar. Modica chocolate, however, is ground with sugar and basically nothing else (other than whatever its being flavored with). It is “cold-processed,” meaning the temperature of the mixture never gets above 40 Celsius, so the sugar doesn’t melt. The result is somewhat grainy but more pure mixture – one that I’m certainly hoping there is an argument for describing as “health food.” That would definitely make me feel a little better about the state of our cupboard right now …

Anyway, the chocolate comes in a wide variety of flavors, our favorite of which was, oddly enough, vanilla. We also ended up buying some flavored with chili, orange, lemon, salt, cinnamon and one specialty one with chocolate from Peru.

The food:
We had some great meals in Modica! It was a bit of a nice change because in the town where we currently live, the restaurants all seem to have more or less the same menu (pizza, specific varieties of pizza, spinach with butter, etc). Perhaps appropriately given that we were in the ‘Ragu’sa province, red sauces featured prominently on the menus we saw. I’m usually not such a huge fan of tomato sauce, but we had some really amazing meat sauces over ravioli (ricotta is also big here). I had the best ragu sauce I’ve ever had in my life at a restaurant recommended by a friend on Saturday evening – that is, until it was equaled Sunday in Noto. Delicious.

Of course, the only small complication was Owen. I’ve already talked about how he refuses to eat noodles, but I haven’t mentioned that he’s also off of pizza lately. In other words, the STAPLES of Sicily. He’s been pretty much ordering a chicken or veal Milanese (breaded cutlet) everywhere we go, but while they have that in every restaurant in our current town it didn’t seem to be a “thing” in the Ragusa area. In fact, of the restaurant we visited only one had chicken … and it came in the form of this pizza:

Yes, that is a pizza with chicken and French fries as the toppings. No, my son would not eat this, or the fried fish he insisted on ordering. I actually wasn’t a fan either, though my four-cheese pizza was decent.

The pizza place, Restaurante Pizzeria La Contea, redeemed itself with this appetizer though, at least for Chris and Fi. Also a fun fact about this particular restaurant, while we were placing our order Fiona inexplicably picked up the bread basket and dumped it over her head.

We finally found him a veal cutlet in Noto on Sunday, but feeding him the rest of the weekend was pretty hit or miss. At our favorite restaurant in Modica, he ate a bunch of the mixed cheese we ordered as an appetizer but wouldn’t touch the sausage he had agreed to order. He mostly survived on apples, chocolate and bread baskets since he wouldn’t. eat. anything.

Our favorites:
Osteria dei sapari-perduli – Recommended by our host, we had a nice lunch here shortly after arriving. Chris has a delicious ravioli with meat sauce that we both loved, and we both liked the table wine. Which we got accidentally a little drunk on because when we asked for two glasses, this giant flask was what we got:

A Putia Ro’Vinu – This one was recommended by a friend, and I’m grateful because we definitely wouldn’t have stumbled across it. While it wasn’t far from the main street, Corso Umberto I, it was a bit of a walk through some tiny little cobblestone streets to get there. I had the ravioli with best meat sauce I’ve ever had, and Fiona absolutely devoured her cavati with tomato sauce. Even Owen ate the cheese platter we got for an appetizer, though he wouldn’t even try his entrée. We would definitely go back the next time we are in Modica – highly recommend!

I also tried my first espresso here, which was pretty shocking on first sip but definitely drinkable after an entire sugar packet. I think I need more practice.

I’ll talk some more about Ragusa and Noto, our other two destinations, sometime soon. In the meantime, however, I’ll just finish up by saying that we really liked the staying overnight vs. day trip experience. This way, we were able to walk around a lot more, especially in the evenings, and really not feel all that rushed. I also loved that Modica was so walkable in general – the area where we were in, the main street, had excellent sidewalks (which isn’t the case in the two where we are currently staying).

The post A weekend away — Modica first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post A weekend away — Modica 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.

… ok, Chris keeps insisting that I’m being unfair to Google Maps here because it is (probably) not its fault. But my phone’s entire GPS system is dead to me, at any rate.

The good things from today:
-We had a great play date with our friends/sponsors! Owen and Fiona had a blast playing with their kids, and I had a great time hanging with Natalie and her mother. A friend of hers also brought over cioccolata calda, so I got to try that for the first time. It is Italian hot chocolate, but it is so thick that it is almost more like a warm, thin pudding. We ate it with a spoon and damn, this is going to have to be a regular thing.

-Continuing on the food theme, we followed up our dinner tonight by (finally) stopping at one of the many local pastry places near our hotel. I ran in with the intention of just picking up some of whatever looked good, but since everything looked good we ended up with a full plate. Almost everything was awesome, especially those little tarts.

Funny story, as they were starting to wrap these up in a kind of nice-looking box I suddenly started panicking because I only had 20 euro on me, and wouldn’t it be embarrassing if it rang up more than that? It ended up being 4.5 euros. I should have known better — all the food we’ve had so far here has been quite reasonably priced.

-The kids were mostly sweet to each other and well-behaved today. Though Owen, for some weird reason, did suggest that I change my name to Margaret. Or name our next baby Margaret. Random?

So onto the bad — I’m not going to go into it too much because it was truly stressful, but basically I spent more than an hour trying to get to our friend’s house, approximately six miles away. My GPS just well and truly will not work at the moment. I kept thinking it would suddenly kick in like it did last time but no dice. I tried resetting it a few times, but nope. (This evening Chris also messed with it, and nothing.) Anyway, so after driving around for an eternity I somehow magically ended up at the mall I went to last time, and at that point I was about to call it because my concern had shifted from “how will I get to Natalie’s?” to “how am I going to get us home?” and I at least knew I could make it home from the mall. I called her to cancel, and she was like — “ok, I understand, but you should know that you are only like seven minutes away so…” That pissed me off enough to not want to be defeated, so with her assistance we eventually made it.

Obviously, I also got lost on the way home. But less disastrously.

I suppose the silver lining, however, is that I did realize later that the actual driving hadn’t scared me much at all during the debacle. Except for the one time when the road suddenly became a one-way and I was facing oncoming traffic unexpectedly. And the time when my car couldn’t gain traction on the wet cobblestone street going up a hill, which resulted in it skidding and sliding while I begged it (out loud) not to give up. But anyway, people told me that within a few weeks I’d be feeling more confident about driving. They may not be wrong =-)

But I’m buying a fucking GPS tomorrow.

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The post Google Maps is dead to me appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

Yesterday, I tried driving somewhere other than to the two bases and I’m pleased to say it went pretty well! We made it to McDonald’s at a local mall a few miles from our hotel, and you know what my fries tasted like? VICTORY. That’s what.

Anyway, the trip was not without some minor misadventures and an unreasonably long time spent driving around the city where we are staying. If you know me in real life, you know that I have no sense of direction at all. Like, if there is a diagnosable condition that describes never knowing where the hell you are, I have it. Last year, I got all turned around in my own town because I took a wrong turn coming home from our local Target on the way to pick up my son at our local YMCA. I lived in Bloomington for three years for college, and had been living there for a further three at the time of the incident. I joke about it a lot, but it is actually kind of crippling and, at times, frightening. And people who have a sense of direction just honestly can’t fathom it.

Anyway, this is pertinent because I rely on GPS to get me just about EVERYWHERE in the US, unless I’ve been there like a million times. So naturally, it is super important here in Sicily because a) I have no idea where anything is, b) I can’t read Italian and c) streets are mostly unlabeled anyway.

So immediately after I left on our epic journey, my Google maps decided not to cooperate. Freezing on various screens, acting like I’m on the right road when I’m clearly not, just generally not doing its GPS thing. As a result, we ended up driving all around the city we are in as I struggled to figure out what its problem was.

In a way, this was actually kind of good because now I have a better idea of where things are in the town and, most importantly, more confidence in driving around. I had a few minor heart attacks at various points when I thought my car wasn’t going to make it up the GIANT hill (it was struggling), and when I had to stop on that hill because of traffic and had to slam on the accelerator to keep from rolling backwards into the car right behind me. Probably the scariest moment was when a bus pulled up alongside me literally less than an inch from my driver’s side mirror. Looking back, it was actually kind of funny and I wish I’d taken a picture (we were sitting there for long enough to do that), but at the time I was scared to take my hands off the wheel because it was so close. But for real, these drivers really know what they are doing. I’m positive he, at least, knew he wasn’t going to hit me.

Anyway, it was good practice for Italian driving — I weaved through traffic, parked in random places to mess with the GPS and rolled through “unnecessary” stop signs — but I still wasn’t getting to the mall. So finally I got frustrated and started looking for my Apple maps, previously deleted for being useless. Apparently this scared the hell out of Google maps because it suddenly roared back into life and was perfectly functional. I’m serious, I did nothing to it. It just started to work and 10 minutes later we were at the mall.

I had meant to go shopping, but Owen had fallen asleep (and badly needed rest) so Fi and I ended up just eating McDonald’s in the car. Naturally, I had to give myself one last scare though. Have I mentioned that this car doesn’t have a park mode? Well, guess who forgot to pull the emergency brake? Next thing I know, we are rolling backwards while I’m looking down and struggling to open a Happy Meal toy for Fi. Whoops.

Our way home was way less dramatic because even though the GPS decided not to work AGAIN, there were enough signs to easily get back to our hotel and the way to base only has two turns (marked with easy-to-remember landmarks like “that building with the giant strip club sign on it”) so we made it without incident. By the time we picked up Chris from work, I was basically feeling like rock star. Or a NASCAR driver.

But I still made him drive home.

The post On driving: A for effort, B for execution first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post On driving: A for effort, B for execution appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.