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.

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.

Since getting to Italy I’ve spent a (probably ridiculous/borderline compulsive) amount of time online researching places to stay for upcoming trips with the kids. I’ve outlined our thought process in determining where to stay before, in this post. This week, however, had me doing researching a type of accommodation that has been out of consideration since we got here: hostels.

I’ll get to the why in a minute.

Before I got married (almost seven years ago!), most of my international trips involved staying in hostels. I’ve stayed in them throughout Europe and in Australia, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Singapore and possibly another that I’m forgetting. My parents had us staying mostly in hostels during our big three-week trip to Europe when my siblings and I were 13, 11, 9 and 7 years old — a fact that seems even more impressive now that I’m a parent myself. During that time, I’ve had good experiences and bad, but by and large it is something I highly recommend to single travelers.

So, the hostels that I remember most fondly are notable less for what they are than how they are. I’ve twice stayed at the Yoho Youth Hostel in Salzburg, once at 13 and once at 18 years old. Despite that I can’t even remember what the actual rooms were like (dorms, of course, but comfortable or not I couldn’t tell you) but what I do remember is constant screenings of The Sound of Music, meeting fellow travelers in the hostel pub and fun employees. Likewise, while I remember being beyond grateful for bedding that didn’t feel like horse blankets and air conditioning that actually worked at my favorite hostel in Cairo, Hostel Brothers, my best memories are of making friends there.

For the single traveler, hostels are great because a) they are cheap and b) they offer companionship. When I spent two months in the middle East and Asia in 2008, I loved hostels because I almost always ended up making friends and having people go out to dinner, see sights or swap stories with. By contrast, once I hit the India portion of that trip I switched to hotels because it was so cheap (not much point in sharing a dorm if you can have a private room for $5) but I found that I got pretty lonely. That’s not to say it is all upside — crappy mattresses, noise when you are trying to sleep, complete lack of privacy and perpetually and infuriatingly wet bathrooms are pretty much the rule, not the exception — but while on my own and focused on saving money it was a pretty decent trade off.

Chris and I haven’t  been into staying in hostels together, but this week I was revisiting hostelworld.com again on behalf of my brother-in-law, Brett. He’s decided to join us in Munich for Oktoberfest (as I’ve mentioned, we are meeting my parents, some of their friends and some of our friends there) and needed to find somewhere to stay. Hotel prices are pretty inflated and many are booked up, so at a minimum he was looking at either about 500 euro for two nights’ accommodation or staying way on the outskirts to get a better rate. Another complication in our search was that we already have reservations at a nonrefundable, fully booked-up hotel, but he was hoping to stay near us so that he wouldn’t have to be wandering around trying to find his way back to his hotel on his own. Especially after a few liters of beer.

Enter the idea of hostels.

There was actually one right next door to our hotel that was an insane €47/night for a dorm bed. It would have been perfect except for reviews saying things like “smells like a frat house” and “laptops got stolen” and “filled with drunk men and we feared for our safety” and “RUN AWAY!”

So maybe not.*

We ended up picking a hostel based on basically the same criteria Chris and I use for hotels — location, price and reviews. For the sake of convenience, we were particularly concerned with finding one close to our hotel (even if we did give up on the one RIGHT NEXT DOOR) and ended up finding one about a kilometer away. It certainly didn’t end up being as cheap at the horrible-sounding one, especially since Brett decided to shell out a little extra to get a room in the six-bed dorm instead of the 12-bed, but he’ll still be paying about half as much as he would in a hotel.**

I’m really hoping that he has a great experience since it’ll be both his first time in Europe and his first time in a youth hostel. We’ll see! At the very least, hopefully jetlag and beer help him sleep through any potentially noisy bed(room)fellows.

*Despite this, he actually did still consider it because €92 for two nights? I mean, that’s cheap. And it was SO CLOSE to our own hotel …

**Worth noting that hostels would normally be more than 50 percent cheaper than the hotel, probably. The youth hostel price was inflated because it was Oktoberfest; the bed he’ll end up paying €117 for would normally be €34 per night.

Oktoberfest 2010

The post Hunting for hostels first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Hunting for hostels 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.

So, yesterday Tuseday our first-ever overnight guest arrived! Our friend Mike (who we stayed with in Naples) is on the island for work, so he is staying with us so we can all hang out. If we haven’t scared him off by Friday, his wife is also going to join us and we are going to Carnevale for some party-time.

We also took the kids to Carnevale in Acireale on Sunday — post on that to follow

Mike’s arrival kicks off about two-and-a-half weeks of guests, and we are pumped. My mom gets here Saturday, followed by my dad and sister a week later. Mom will be here almost two weeks, while my dad and sister will have about six days.

So, what to do while they are here? I’ve been struggling to decide because there are just too many things I want to show them. We’ve been here five months and have already seen some very cool places, plus there are still plenty more that we hope to see soon. My family has been pretty consistent in saying they are “up for whatever.” Thanks for the input, guys!

Anyway, I’m trying to organize a perfect few days here on the island while also minimizing the amount of time we spend in the car, since they don’t have a lot of time (Dad and my sister anyway). Owen goes to school Monday, Wednesday and Friday too, so we’ll be working within that restriction since I won’t want him to skip all three days. I figure longer visits (and at warmer times of year) will be the time to do things like visit the Aeolian Islands to the north or drive the two-and-a-half hours or so to Agrigento, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the southeast that is apparently one of Sicily’s biggest tourist attractions thanks to its well-preserved temples. So far, this is where I’m at:

1. Taormina. The first place that we visited about five days after we visited, Taormina is only about 40 minutes from our house and absolutely gorgeous. The Corleone scenes of The Godfather were filmed in and around the city. I’m hoping we can take my family on the cable-car ride to the city center, as the cable cars were closed when we were there. We’ve been meaning to go back since our first trip there, so this is a definite yes. 
2. Siracusa/Ortigia. I didn’t blog about this trip, but we visited Siracusa a couple of weeks after arriving when we were still in the hotel. We saw the archaeological park in Siracusa at that time — lots of Greek/Roman ruins there — but didn’t have enough time to property explore Ortigia, a island connected to Siracusa by three bridges. There’s still tons to see (and some places I want to eat!) so I’m excited to go back with the family. It is a quick one-hour drive from here on a nice highway, so an easy trip during the week.
3. Catania. Driving in Sicily’s second-largest city might be insane, but isn’t that part of the authentic Sicilian experience? I’d like to take the family to the fish market and Elephant Square some morning while they are in town, especially considering the city is only about half an hour away. I assume the highlight for my sister will be watching me attempt to parallel our gigantic van in the city.
4. Agriturismo lunch. So far we’ve been to one of the famous, three-hour, multi-course eating extravaganzas at a local farm-to-table restaurant, and we’d like to take the family to a Sunday lunch while they are in town. I’m thinking of making reservations at one that is also a winery because two birds, one stone
5. Caltagirone. We haven’t actually been to this central Sicily town, which is known for pottery and pretty scenery. It is only an hour away and we’ve heard good things, so I think we’ll go out there one day (probably just with my mom because of the others’ time limitation).
6. Eating out. So, food is one of the things Sicily does really, really well. It also happens to be one of my favorite things to do while traveling. I definitely want the family to get to sample everything Sicily has to offer food-wise, but we actually haven’t been eating out much ourselves since moving into our new house. The reason? Restaurant hours. We have a nice restaurant just down the street from us, but it doesn’t open until 8 p.m. For most other restaurants, 7/8 p.m. seems to be pretty standard. Considering our kids usually go to bed between 7-8 in the evening — and meals are usually about two hours long at least — taking them out for dinner is pretty rare. I’m booking a babysitter for a couple nights while they are in town so that we can go out and actually enjoy ourselves while they are in bed. I’m hoping with can try some places in nearby Acireale, and also take everyone (kids included) to one of our favorite places when we were living in Motta. Bonus if we also take the time to explore the castle in Motta that we inexplicably never got around to visiting during the six weeks we stayed there!
7. Hiking. The only one to have spoken up about wanting to do something in particular in my sister, who is interested in hiking Mount Etna. It is still very snowy right now, but I’m thinking we could go to Nicolosi, a little town further up the mountain from us that supposedly has a good spot for hiking in the Parco dell’Etna. The town is also supposed to be cute and worth a visit.
8.  Our farmer’s market. Our town has a farmer’s market every Monday, less than half a mile down the road for us. It’s got plenty of food, but also tons of stalls selling everything from clothes, household cleaners, pots and pans, shoes, purses, fabrics and more. Fiona and I usually walk over while Owen is in school.
9. Every day living. This list is ambitious, but I also want to leave some time for them to see our day-to-day life here. We’ll drive Owen to school (possibly getting stopped by a herd of goats or sheep on the way), go to the bakery I visit pretty much every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, walk into the city center to buy some vegetables and embarrass ourselves by trying to speak Italian. I’ll enjoy watching them try to figure out our insane light switch situation and the six different categories of trash. We can all be peeved when we forget riposto exists when we want to do something. If we get really lucky, maybe we’ll be able to see some more lava from Mount Etna. Fingers crossed.

Runners up: Ragusa and Modica, both of which we loved but have likely scratched off the list because they are further away than the others.

The post Planning for visitors (woohoo!) first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Planning for visitors (woohoo!) appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.