Venice may have a reputation for romance, but Venice with kids can be its own kind of fun. Our kids had a blast exploring Venice’s canals, Burano’s colorful houses and Murano’s glass-blowing factories. Now, we are sharing our advice for what to do in Venice with kids — with recommendations straight from the kids themselves.

If you are following me on my new Instagram, you probably have already figured out we spent last weekend in Venice. We had fun! While Venice is perhaps better known as a destination for couples, we found there was plenty of stuff for the whole family to do. And despite my concerns that one weekend would be too little time in the city — we arrived midday Friday and left Sunday evening — we also found that two nights there was more than enough to get our fill of the city. Especially considering how pricey Venice with kids (or without) can be!

Speaking of going to Venice without kids — if you are, you’ll probably be up to a lot later than the four of us! If so, here’s a great guide to evenings in Venice for you to check out. 

In another post I’m going to talk about some the practicalities of visiting Venice with kids but for now we are going to focus on just the fun stuff — seeing the sights! Update: find the details of our transportation, lodging and more in this post. 

In honor of my son turning 5 last week (how??) I told him it was time for him to start earning his keep around here. To that end, I sought his advice for other families who are going to visit Venice with kids. His suggestions:

1. “Go on lots of canal rides.” (Fair enough)  
2. “Get an apartment so you don’t have to walk around all the time and can eat dinner.” (This seems to be a reference to Saturday night when Owen was “tooo tiirrrrrrrrred” to walk places and we ended up making the kids chicken nuggets at the apartment so they wouldn’t have to sit through a dinner. Details on the nice apartment he liked so much here.)
3. “Go to lot of chocolate and ice cream stores” and “buy lots of ghost cookies because they are really yummy.” (Easy to see what sticks out to him) 
4. “Go potty a lot.” (Accurate, though true for every single outing ever with two preschoolers)

Well, we have a little overlap in our lists at the very least! At any rate, if you are planning to visit Venice with your kiddos these are my own suggestions.

What to do in Venice with kids

1. Chase pigeons in Piazza San Marco 

I’m actually shocked this didn’t make it into Owen’s list, as he and Fiona enjoyed chasing those damn birds everywhere we went. And I do mean everywhere — there were a bunch underfoot even inside the crowded bar where we stopped for pastry and espresso every morning. Since people don’t really love it when you are chasing birds near where they are dining (ask me how I know …), Piazza San Marco is the spot to go — especially since those of us old, boring people can drink in the sights rather than pawing at rats with wings.

I should probably mention that feeding pigeons in the city is banned, but people still do it and as a result these birds are now tame enough that they’ll land on people. Owen and Fiona were both eager for a bird to land on them, but when any came close they chickened out at the last minute. They liked watching other people with birds on their heads though!

2. Take a boat ride 

I’m going to echo my son here in suggesting that no visit to Venice is going to be complete without a ride on the canals! During the course of our days there, we took the Alilaguna and vaporetto water buses (which I talk about here) and a gondola ride. The gondola ride seemed like the thing to do since we were there, but to be honest I don’t think that we (or the kids) would have really been missing anything if we skipped that one. It was obviously really cool, but apparently it didn’t even warrant an individual mention from Owen in his list! Ha.

Our ride took us under the Rialto Bridge, the oldest of the four bridges that span the Grand Canal. 

I’m not saying that to put you off or anything, as it was a cool experience and I’m glad we went. I just don’t want anyone to feel like they are missing something if they decide it isn’t worth it. Price-wise, it is expensive like just about everything else in the city. Before 7 p.m., prices are set at 80 euro for a 30 minute ride (up to six people per boat). After 7 p.m., the price rises to 100 euro for 35 minutes. I wanted an evening ride but didn’t want to pay an elevated price, so we ended up shooting for a 6 p.m. boat. We had to wait for one to show up, so we ended up getting in just under the wire at 6:30 p.m. Victory!

Our gondolier pointed out sights to us (though we couldn’t always quite catch what he was saying), and told us about how the bridges are sometimes impassable during the acqua alta times.

3. Watch glass blowing in Murano

If you are going to Venice, a day trip to nearby islands should be near the top of your must-see list! The island of Murano (well, islands — like Venice itself, it is made up of several islands clustered togehter) is only about a mile from Venice, an easy 10-minute ride from Venice’s Fondemente Nove station by vaporetto. We got off at the first stop, Colonna, which led us immediately to streets full of glassmaking shops. Several were offering glass-blowing demonstrations, and we stopped at one of them. The kids were fascinated!

Murano has been known for glassmaking for centuries, in particular since the fear of fire led Venetian officials to order all glassmakers to moved from the city center to Murano in 1291.

In addition to watching the glass blowing demonstration, we mostly walked along the streets looking in shop windows. We did go in a few, but as you can imagine having a pair of boistrous preschoolers in a shop filled with extreme breakable, extreme expensive things was fairly stressful. Almost as stressful as the prospect of me, an excessively clumsy adult, knocking over a bunch of shit myself.

There is a glass museum on Murano, but we opted to skip it because, honestly, we just weren’t interested enough. However, a highlight of the day did come when we ran into this sculpture, “Comtet Glass Star,” which Owen would end up demanding to take 10,000 pictures of.

4. Visit Basilica San Marco and the Campanile 

Chasing pigeons in Piazza San Marco is all well and good, but eventually I do recommend you leave the birds behind and head inside. It is free to get into Basilica San Marco, but once you get inside they want to charge you to see various parts of it. We paid 3 euro or so to see the treasure, but skipped the rest, such as going upstairs to see the original bronze horses from the facade (they were removed because pollution was damaging them and replicas put up. This was after they’d been retrieved from Napoleon, of course). I also paid 2 euro each to buy skip-the-line passes into the basilica online after reading some horror stories about two- to three-hour lines, though on the day we were there it wouldn’t have been nearly that bad.

The horses I mentioned are just above the central arch. 

The basilica is absolutely magnificent; per usual, the photos don’t even do it justice. Even more impressive is its age. Churches were built on this site, directly next to the Doge’s Palace, as early as the mid 800s.The five-domed building in its present form was probably built about 1063, though that is apparently debatable. No matter how many fantastic old structures I see, I never ceased to be amazed that they could have been created without the benefit of modern building equipment and tools.

Photos aren’t allowed inside the basilica (though, rather like with the pigeons, everyone was dong it anyway) so as a result I only have a couple of shots from the interior of the exterior, if that makes sense. It should give you an idea of the gorgeous gold-glass mosaic that covered almost the entire ceiling within, however. At this point we’ve been in an awful lot of churches, but this ceiling was something to behold.

As I mentioned, we also paid a little extra to see the treasure of Saint Mark’s, which was easily the kids’ favorite part. Predictably, Owen was most impressed with a massive sword. I was impressed by the opulence of the treasures, but even more so by the various relics — mostly bones — on display within the treasure. Chris, on the other hand, found the body parts a bit creepy.

If you are visiting in summer, I would definitely recommend skip-the-line tickets. Also, remember that the church has some dress code requirements — no exposed knees or shoulders.Obviously that wasn’t a big concern for us since it was in the 50s and 60s when we were there, but keep it in mind if you are visiting when it is warmer.

After the church, we walked the few feet to the Campanile di San Marco, St. Mark’s bell tower. The early iterations of the bell tower were built in the 9th Century, but it reached its current look in the mid-1500s. Today’s 323-foot tower is actually a reproduction of that original tower however, as the 15th Century one collapsed in 1902 and was rebuilt 1912.

Honestly, to me the Campanile wasn’t especially thrilling — it is just an elevator ride up to the top of the tower to look at the views — but for whatever kid-reason, Owen and Fiona absolutely loved it. I guess there is something thrilling for kids about being up high? After all, they are still talking about “being on top the Eiffel Tower’s head” to practically every new person they meet.

5. Visit to Burano 

While the kids loved Murano, another island was my personal favorite: Burano. Admittedly there isn’t a ton to do there, but for me it was all about drinking in the beauty of the town. Historically it has been a fishing village and one known for lace-making, but what drew me in was the colorful buildings. To be honest, the kids weren’t super impressed by this place but file this one under “it’s our vacation too!”

We took the vaporetto from Murano’s Faro station to the Burano stop, which took about 40 minutes or so. The return to Venice took about an hour on the way back. Worth it!

6. Visit the Doge’s Palace 

I spent an absolutely unreasonable amount of time obsessing over whether or not to take a tour of the Palazzo Ducale, the Doge’s Palace. On the one hand, I much prefer to know what I’m looking at while visiting a historical site. On another, even the cheapest tour (36 euro) was still a bit expensive for something that I questioned whether the kids would make it through. In the end, we decided to go with the one-hour tour in the hopes that Fiona would chill out in the carrier during most of it like she has in the past, such as at the Kilmainham Gaol. In the end she didn’t last too long in there, but I still felt it was worth it even if I missed chunks of what our guide said. As to whether you want to go that route, it is simply a judgement call on your part — you know yourselves, and you know your kids.

At any rate, I definitely recommend visiting the palace even if you don’t do a tour.

The Palace is right next to Piazza San Marco and is actually connected to the basilica, which was originally the doge’s chapel before it was consecrated as a cathedral in 1807. It has been rebuilt in whole or in pieces many times throughout the year, thanks to its nasty habit of catching on fire (what is with that?). The public areas were built to impress upon visiting dignitaries the wealth of the trading nation, and from looking at it I have to imagine that it worked.

Entrance to the basilica from within the palace’s courtyard. 

The ceilings were entirely covered with gold-framed portraits of the doges, all of whom are portrayed on their knees in a gesture of humility. Venice herself is portrayed as a beautiful blonde woman. 

Our guide, Gina, did a nice job of telling us about the history of Venice and of the building itself. I won’t bore you with the details, but it was quite interesting — especially some of the details of how the Venetian Republic influenced the United States Constitution.

This is a box in which Venetians could accuse their neighbors of not paying their taxes, a death-penalty offense in Venice! However, anonymous accusations were not allowed and if you were found to have made an unfounded accusations — well, you were in trouble instead.

The last stop was a walk across the “Bridge of Sighs” that connects the interrogation rooms of the doge’s palace with the prison next door. Lord Byron dubbed this the “Bridge of Sighs” because of the notion that prisoners would here be able to take their last look at the beauty of Venice before execution. Our guide, however, assured us that Venetians were a very practical, no-nonsense people and certainly would not have given the bridge such a fanciful name themselves. Ha!

7. Wander the city 

Seeing the “official” sights of Venice is all well and good, but in my view the most important thing you can do in Venice is simply to wander. Head down little alleys, stop and take a million pictures on some of Venice’s 400-plus small bridges, people-watch or pigeon-chase in various small plazas, stop and watch gondaliers in action — whatever strikes your fancy. Of course, if you are like us “your fancy” is likely to be stopping for snacks or wine more or less constantly.

If you are going to be in Venice before November 26, 2017, I’d also highly recommend seeking out “Support,” an enormous public art installation by Lorenzo Quinn. The piece is a statement about the risks of global warming and humans’ power to affect change, and it is truly impressive-looking in person! UPDATE: A friend who was there recently says they are still up in 2018. So that’s good news if you are going to Venice with kids because hey! These are cool. 

Another fun stop to check out as you walk is the Libreria Acqua Alta, a book shop known for keeping some of its books in gondolas for times when the high water floods the shop. It was pleasantly chaotic the way old bookshops tend to be, and we spent a little time poking around in there. Out back there are also book steps, which are pretty good fun to climb on. This was only about a five-minute walk from the Doge’s Palace and Google Maps managed to lead us there quite easily.

Psssst. Looking for even more ideas for kid-friendly museums and restaurants in Venice? Visit my friend Elizabeth’s blog here.

Overall, the four of us really enjoyed Venice. It is a nice little weekend trip, though I’d urge anyone thinking of going to Venice with kids wait for the shoulder- or off-season to visit. Hell, that’s actually for anyone going to Venice at all, not just with kids.The crowds weren’t too bothersome during a chilly weekend at the end of October, but I have to imagine that during the height of cruise ship season it would be absolute madness. In our view, three days/two nights was also plenty of time to see what we wanted to — certainly there are other sites we could have seen both inside and outside of the city, but we felt like we got to see the highlights without feeling as if we were rushing around too much. One last note — I realize that I’ve mentioned a few times in this post that things were quite expensive in Venice, and they were. However, it is worth mentioning that children ages 5 and under were free on public transportation and to get into every activity. That’s just one more benefit of traveling with small children! 

Happy travels!

*Pssssst! Like this post? Sharing is caring! Please also consider following me at my Facebook page, Babies With Backpacks, so you never miss a post (plus additional content!). 

The post Enjoying Venice with kids: Top 7 things to do first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Enjoying Venice with kids: Top 7 things to do appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

Agrigento is one of Sicily’s biggest tourist attractions, and this weekend we finally made it out to visit! We really enjoyed our visit (less than 2.5 hours from our house, so an easy trip) though straight off the bat, I have two recommendations:

1. Don’t go in summer

2. Definitely go some other time

To be fair, friends did try to warn me about the heat. (Repeatedly). But, eh, this was the weekend I wanted to go somewhere so …

So Agrigento has been occupied for thousands of years, and hundreds of thousands of people were living in then-Greek city — called Akragas at that time — as early as 580 BC. We traveled there specifically to see the Valley of the Temples, which has the remains of seven Greek temples, including one of the best preserved in the world. Also noteworthy: it is located on a ridge, not a valley.

If you are planning to visit, there is a convenient parking lot right near the Temple of Juno on the east side. We paid 30 euro to enter, which included the temples and the Garden of Kolymbethra (which we didn’t end up going to be because again — HOT). First stop was the Temple of Juno.

This is called the Temple of Juno, but apparently it probably wasn’t actually sacred to Juno/Hera. 

From there, parts of the old defensive walls lined the ridge between the various temples. Pretty views! It seemed like it would be pretty well protected from invaders, but apparently not THAT well protected because Akragas was sacked by the Carthiginians in 406 BC. Some of the stone in the Temple of Juno is now reddish, and this is supposedly because it was burned at this time.

It was a bit of a walk to the second temple; probably not actually that far (my phone put us at 3.5 miles for the entire visit) but because of the heat it seemed a farther. Fiona refused to ride in the carrier so our party was a bit slower moving to accommodate her as well. There WAS a small shuttle van you could ride for 3 euro each, but we figured we were fine on the way there and then it turned out to only go one way — at least, as far as we could tell. 

Although I’ve mentioned before that we prefer to use a carrier rather than a stroller, this is actually a place where you could probably get away with a stroller without too much trouble. The steps would be annoying at the Temple of Juno, but most other places was pretty much fine.

The next temple was the show-stopper, one of the best preserved Doric temples in the world. The Temple of Concordia (again, that name comes from a Latin inscription and is probabaly not accurate) was amazingly well preserved, quite different from others we’ve seen in Sicily. It likely owes its survival to being consecrated as a Christian church at some point; perhaps those early Christians figured tearing it down would be a waste of a perfectly lovely building?

There aren’t a ton of places to grab food in the Valley of the Temples (I’d suggest bringing your own drinks and snacks), but there is a small cafe near this temple. We got gelato there on the way back, and drinks since we’d powered through the many bottles of water and gatorade we’d hauled in.

At first glance, I thought these were just modern reproductions. Turns out they are Roman and date back to about the 5th century AD. 

Temple “of Heracles” — again, probably not really. But a temple anyway! Obviously in rather less impressive shape than Concordia. 

There were quite a lot of other spots — including the ruins of the massive Temple of Zeus and an area used as burial site for early Christians — but I won’t bore you with every detail. Suffice it to say that we were very impressed, but also very hot and after more than two hours of walking we were ready to hit the road. If it has been less hot, we probably would have stayed longer and possibly even considered a tour. The signage was good and in English, but having a tour guide to ask questions could have been nice.

By the time we escaped left, it was late enough that we could check into our rooms at the B&B Villa Carlotta Resort, only about 10 minutes away from the Valle dei Templi. I found this place on hotels.com and selected it because it had good reviews, free breakfast and wifi and a pool, all for 111 euro. We were not disappointed! The room we booked was the “family room,” which had one bedroom room in the middle with an enormous bathroom on one side and a secondary bedroom for the kids on the other. It worked out perfectly for our family because the kids could go to sleep while Chris and I stayed up, but without the added cost of actually getting two rooms. The breakfast the next day was excellent as well, and we ended up sitting on the patio outside for more than an hour Sunday, enjoying the day and chatting with another couple.

The most important feature though? PUPPIES! There were puppies! All four of us were pretty pumped to play with them. 

Table before my kids got hardboiled egg yolks and shells all over it. 

The diving board was also a crowd pleaser! And oh man, it felt amazing to jump in there after sweating all morning at the temples.

On Sunday, our intent was to visit the Turkish Steps (Scala dei Turchi) and then find a good beach spot nearby and swim for a while. However, the water was rough and there were red flags out in the morning, so swimming was a no-go. It might not have been the best spot anyway, as it seemed like there was a lot of seaweed near the shore. The water looked gorgeous from a distance though.

The Steps  were worth a visit even without getting to swim. Just beautiful! The cliff is made of a white rock called marl, and it does look somewhat like a staircase and can be climbed. The name comes from the fact that the town, Realmonte, was a port. According to legend, the “Turks” (Saracen pirates/Moors) could park their boats here, climb the “steps” and raid the village. How true this is, I couldn’t tell you.

We climbed on it a bit, though it was a bit slippery so we didn’t go up too far.

All in all, it was a great weekend! And for my Sicily friends, I’d highly recommend checking it out sometime soon because it is an easy drive and worth a weekend trip! … in the autumn.

The post Weekend in Agrigento first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Weekend in Agrigento 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.

So, as foreshadowed by this post our account of our weekend in the south begins with two more car-related incidents.

Incident One: Had to pull off in some grass because a truck approached on the not-one-way rural road we were on. While sitting there, Chris casually asked me how much longer until we hit Ragusa, which we couldn’t see yet.
Me: “Three minutes.”
Long pause. Long glance at the fields of cows and sheep around us.
Both of us: “Wait, what?”
Turns out the GPS was leading us to the middle of some random field, basically. Whoops. Easy fix, though.

This is where we realized we weren’t three minutes from Ragusa

Incident Two: We made it to Ragusa and were marveling at how little traffic was on the road. We were following our instructions and down a cobbled street that, again, one might have assumed was a one-way. Nope. The tiny Fiat in front of us squeezed past the bus, but it wasn’t even close for our Toyota. So we ended up backing up the better part of a block so that the bus could get past. This happens a lot though, so the cars behind us were obliging!

Anyway, it was a rainy morning in Ragusa but we still had a great time walking around, riding a tourist train and (mostly) eating. Most important of all was just admiring THIS VIEW:

We decided to park temporarily on a sidewalk (other cars were doing it!) to evaluate our options because the road looked like this:

For the record, we did end up driving this way to go home and it was totally fine.

Chris realized there were stairs into the center of town, so we decided to walk instead of driving. If anyone else is visiting, I highly recommend this. The walk was slightly perilous because the stairs were slippery from rain, but it was otherwise beautiful and not nearly as far as it looks in the pictures.

We just walked toward what we figured would be the center of town, and the next thing we knew we were coming up right next to the Duoma Sant’Giorgio, and the piazza next to it.

We stopped for some cappuccino in a shop right on the square to get our bearings (and because the kids are always better behaved when fed) and I went to investigate a small tourist train on the plaza. I assume the combination of it being the low season and rainy, but no one was out and the train driver agreed to take us whenever. We ended up being trend setters though, because a Rick Steves tour group turned up and ended up joining as well. We had a nice time talking to a couple from the Pacific Northwest, who we also ran into in Noto the next day.

When we ran into them in Noto, they announced they were apparently here just to take a picture of the four of us. So we ended up with two pictures of the four of us in two days, haha

The tourist train was pricey at 20 euro (I should probably have negotiated a free ride for the kids, since I didn’t specify when talking to the guy) but worth it because of the rain. We got a chance to ride around and see some of the sites and hear just a little bit of history along the way. I did wonder a tiny bit about some of the translation; for instance, it announced that people would go to the “Church of Purgatory” to be covered in honey so bees and other insects would sting them. Sounds a bit out there, but on the other hand … people did wear hair shirts and whip themselves, so who knows?

View from the train

Like many of the other cities we’ve been in, Ragusa was rebuilt in the Baroque style after the 1693 earthquake that destroyed so much of Sicily. It is one of eight towns that have been described by UNESCO World Heritage as “representing the culmination and final flowering of Baroque art in Europe.”

After the tour, we wandered and ate, mostly. We tried some kind of pastry that was basically fried elephant ears about the size of tennis balls (amazing) and some pistachio cream (vivid green and surprisingly delicious). We also ended up at an ice cream shop since I’d heard tell of Ragusa’s wine ice cream. (Really, it was all in the name of research.) It turned out this place had several flavors of wine ice cream, so I went with moscato. And dude — it did taste exactly like moscato. Not quite like regular ice cream, but not like a wine icee either. I had gotten it more for the novelty than with any expectation it would be any good, but it was actually really delicious. I did not see the olive oil ice cream, which is apparently also a thing, but I would have liked just a tiny sample. I really can’t imagine how that would taste?

We were staying in Modica, as I mentioned before, and it was an easy drive from there — maybe a half hour? We spent the morning and early afternoon there, then headed home in time for (we hoped) a nap before our 4:30 p.m. chocolate tour in Modica.

Day Three
We packed up our apartment Sunday morning and headed out to Noto, about an hour away. Noto has been dubbed “The Stone Garden” because of the sheer number of gorgeous churches, palaces and other buildings done in the Baroque style (yes, after the earthquake). We had a great time just wandering the streets and taking it all in (especially since it was a Sunday morning).

One of our first sights

I did decide to go up to the bell tower of one particular church (name escapes me, sorry) but only made it to the halfway point because it was making me dizzy. This is a terrible picture, but these tiny stairs included a rope for you to hold on since there wasn’t a handrail. I’m not sure how I would have handled it if someone had come down the stairs as I was going up, or vice-versa — I guess one of us would have had to reverse?

View from the spot I did make it to

This is the city’s most iconic building, the Noto Cathedral. On the inside, it was surprisingly white and light — very different from most of the European churches I’ve seen. It reminds me a little of the Sagreda Familia in Barcelona in that way, but obviously not a fraction as ornate as that place

That Rick Steves’ trip couple took this picture too!

On the steps of a palazzo across from the cathedral, waiting for me to climb down from the bell tower

We had a gorgeous lunch at Trattoria al Buco, which seemed to be a popular Sunday lunch spot for the after-church crowd, I’m guessing. We sat at a table outside just across from the Chiesa Santa Chaira and I had the tied-for-best ravioli with meat sauce I’ve ever had.

Chris playing with the kids at lunch

Mommy enjoying herself at lunch while he did this

We ended up finding a park to play in for a while, paused to watch the world’s largest cat baiting a tiny dog and stealing its food and wandered a bit longer before we decided it was time to call it a weekend. We had a great time!

The post Our weekend in Modica, Ragusa and Noto, continued first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Our weekend in Modica, Ragusa and Noto, continued 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.