In Sicilia

We arrived on Saturday afternoon and our first few days in Siracusa were spent settling in. Went to the mercato (market) and bought every day items to stock our fridge and cupboards. We live in an area with bakeries, fruit and vegetable markets, pastry shops - even the most unlikely doorway has a little business inside. Buildings are quite old on the outside and modern inside - at least that's what ours is like.  Quite deceiving facades.

We had a car for a few days so on our third day we visited Noto and Ragusa. Both towns were rebuilt in the Baroque style following a devastating earthquake in the 17th century.  Each are built on hillsides and from a distance buildings appear huddled with little or no space between them. More deception, but not much.  Streets are very narrow and Albert did some pretty wicked driving.  We didn't take the autostrada on the way back but went up and down hills on some of the windiest roads.  Good thing we have strong stomachs.


Noto, Sicily

Day 5 in Sicily was beautiful!!  Sun was shining and it was a warm 17 C.  I had to go out to get some fruit and vegetables. There is a vendor right across the street.  How convenient!!  The vendor was so sweet.  Of course no English possible there and just perfect for me.  Time to practice Italian.  Well, I'm so proud. I bought bananas and oranges in Italian.  He was quite adorable - wrinkly and very gentile.  When he found out I was a tourist, he gave me a couple extra oranges.  Nice way to start the day or what? Continued on and passed a bakery and bought some fabulous looking buns.  Stopped at another vendor and bought some tomatoes (my man across the street didn't have any).  I didn't have any change and caused a bit of a ruckus when I paid the .50 Euro for my 5 tomatoes with a10 Euro bill.  The vendor didn't have any change.  Lesson learned.  Bring change next time.

We walked to Ortigia for lunch in the afternoon and had the most incredible sandwiches - huge and full of vegetables, cheese and meat.  The place has been there since 1930 and called Caseificio Borderi.  Wow sandwiches like you've never seen and all made by the owners.  A real find!!!  It's not a sit down place, so we carried our meal to a bench by the water and tried to eat as nicely as we could.  Stuff was falling out every which way with each luscious bite.

It's Thursday, cloudy and rainy.  It's cleaning day at our apartment so we left at around 10 and walked to Ortigia to the fish market.  We bought fish and cooked them for lunch, along with pasta and fresh tomato salad.  They have real tomatoes here!! Have no idea what kind of fish we bought but so fresh and delicious. We've decided that Siracusa has the best food. The olive oil is to die for, the balsamic vinegar sweet with no acidity.  Every meal we've had has been DELICIOUS!!!  and we haven't been out to restaurants except for our Dagwood sandwiches yesterday.  We will take pictures of them just to show how crazy big they are and only 2 Euro each.  What a deal.

Day 3 in Rome

Up and at 'em
The day started with a bang. We were supposed to be up by 6 a.m. and down for breakfast by 7. We were late getting to breakfast and it was a fast walk to the Vatican.  Our rendezvous was at 7:55 a.m. Traffic at that time of the morning is wild.  Everyone was madly whizzing on their scooters and tiny European cars to get to their place of work. We were late but so were our fellow tourists. In fact, they missed the tour entirely so Albert and I had a private tour through the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica.
 
The Tour
Our lovely guide, Sabrina, was quite knowledgeable and our 3 hour tour was a run through the museum. There's so much to see and definitely not enough time in 3 hours to see everything. We saw the important stuff:  The tapestries woven in Brussels, hall of maps (incredibly accurate maps of every section of Italy done as frescoes in the early 1580's), mosaics painstakingly transferred from ancient Roman homes. The Rafael rooms with frescoes completed by Rafael's apprentices and the Academia (School of Athens) done by Rafael himself, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's.

Rafael's Academia

Sistine Chapel
Needless to say, the Sistine Chapel was the highlight of today's tour. Completed by Michelangelo in 4 years!!   Glad we're here in January and not summer or fall when the crowds must be overwhelming.  No picture taking allowed in the chapel.

St. Peter's Basilica
Another Michelangelo moment with the Pieta and St Peter's dome which he designed. He was a true Renaissance man!!

Ah!! The Pieta

Cupola
We skipped the 500 something stair climb and opted to take the lift for 2 Euro more.  However, we still had over 300 stairs to climb to get to the top of the cupola, but what a view of Rome and of St. Peter's Square!!  Worth every claustrophobic and endless stair climbing moment.  The very last set of stairs takes you up some very steep spiral stairs that seem to close in on you the further up you go. 

Dinner at Alfredo's on the Piazza Augusta Imperatore- apparently this is where Fettuccine Alfredo was invented. Food was fine and we didn't have the Fettuccine Alfredo and we probably should have.

Day two in Rome

Day two in  Rome

 Here we are in the eternal city!!  Our hotel (Hotel Adriano) is in the city centre (in Centro as they say in Italy) on Via Pallacorda 2.

The day started slowly.  We rose at 7 a.m. and took our time getting ready.  Breakfast is from 7 to 10 a.m. each morning and we were there at around 9:30 a.m.  Good food!!!  Eggs, bacon, cereal with yogurt, croissant, toast, pastries, fruit, etc., etc.  We won't go hungry here.

After breakfast we visited the Pantheon - built by Marcus Agrippa in 27 BC - 14 AD (during the time of Augustus) and rebuilt by the emperor Hadrian about 126 AD (Hadrian was a building maniac). 

Almost 2,000 years later, the Pantheon's dome is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome.  The Roman's loved concrete.  The Pantheon is one of the best-preserved of all ancient buildings in Rome.  Today it is the church of St. Mary and the Martyrs and has been since the 7th century.  Rafael is buried in this church.

 

Pantheon Dome

We came back to our room and I put on more clothes.  It was 13 today but felt colder. You'd think I'd be happy with warmer temperatures.  Albert was sweating and I was freezing.  Go figure??!!  We then made our way to the Vatican.  We had to make sure we knew where to go and how early to leave to make our rendezvous with the tour  group at 7:55 a.m. We crossed the Tiber River. It's pretty disgusting but it is the famous Tiber. Ah!! history in this city is something else.  You can understand  Italians being proud of their history and especially Romans.

The dome of St. Peter's is visible in the distance as you walk up the Via Della Concilliazione. 

 

St Peter's in the Distance

 

Hawkers on all sides of you.  We had some trouble finding the entrance to the Vatican Museums. We were plainly lost and managed to get ourselves to the entrance  reserved for employees and special visitors to the Vatican. Luckily we met a very nice young guard who as it works out loves to surf and has been to Hawaii 3 times. Happily he pointed us in the right direction.
 Our walk back was lovely (more hawkers) and as we drew nearer to city centre, got lost again. The streets are so narrow and look pretty much the same. We finally found our way.  Stopped in for some delicious pizza and wine before coming home for a welcomed nap.  Ah!!!  The 5 hour difference in time is catching up with us.  Tonight we head out to ristorante da Antonio di Pantheon.  Stefania, our Italian teacher, recommended it. After dinner, it's early to bed.  We rise at 6 a.m. and get ready for our 8 a.m. tour of the Vatican.  Can hardly wait.  Ciao.

January 24 in Sicilia

We walked well today.  Left at around 11 this morning and returned at 3:30 and were absolutely starving.

Stops today included the Sanctuary of the Madonna delle Lacrime and the archaeological museum (Museo Archeologico Regional Paolo Orsi). The museum is chock full of antiquities from archaeological digs around Sicily.

The chiesa (church) is an impressively grand circular modern structure situated in the middle of the city dedicated to a miraculous statue of Our Lady of Tears, which as legend has it, cried real tears. For such a grand looking building, it's eerily dark inside. Nevertheless, we were able to catch glimpses of the what appeared to be icons in each of the various chapels around the church.

Sanctuary of the Madonna delle Lacrime



Across the street from the church, is the archaeological museum. We had fun trying to figure out what days the museum is open. The guys at the entrance had different ideas from the people inside the museum.  Hilarious.  It was either open or not open on Sunday, open on Monday and maybe not open, definitely open on Tuesday, though.  It was important to us since our ticket is good for 3 days and we wanted to make sure we could come back on Tuesday and continue our museum visit. 

Our friend, Bill Couch, would love our first stop at the museum - an incredibly huge collection of ancient silver, gold, and bronze Greek and Roman coins. Syracusans are quite proud of this permanent exhibit. How do we know? Every time we come to the museum, we are repeatedly encouraged to visit the collection. The docent was memorable - as excited as if this was her first day on the job. However, she was so knowledgeable you knew she'd been doing this for ages.

One of the highlights of the museum is the statue of the Venus Landolina. A Greek sculpture from the second century BC. Such a demure young lady in spite of her almost total nudity.

Venus Landolina


Our walk back home in the afternoon was very quiet.  The streets are nearly deserted with little human or car traffic. The shops close at 1 or 1:30 and reopen around 4 or 4:30 so during those hours everyone is home napping or something. We now know it's not possible to buy anything in the afternoon.  It's either done in the morning or later in the day. 

Thankfully, the gourmet food shop was open and we picked up some pizza and meatballs.  Naturally we had to stop at the pasticceria to pick up some kind of dessert. It's too easy a stop. We will have to exercise control whenever we walk by. Good luck to us.

Day one in Rome

Day one in Rome

After a truly long day of travel we arrived in Rome at 6:45 p.m. We waited forever for our bags to make it to the carousel.  Getting through Italian customs was incredibly easy and our dear driver, Fabio, was waiting for us at the arrivals lounge as promised.  We passed the Circus Maximum on the way to our hotel which is located on a cobblestone street somewhere in central Rome. These streets are incredibly narrow. Fabio did some crazy maneuverings to get us to our hotel.  (Adriano)

Our room is on the 5th floor and our skinny little porter, Stefano, had some trouble carrying our bags up the narrow staircase.  Good thing there's a lift; however, it only goes up to the 4th floor and the poor fellow still had to haul our bags up another steep flight of stairs.  Good old Albert assisted and a good thing too.  Otherwise Stefano would have ended up with a hernia for sure.  Our room is quite nice with a big bed and a big tub and painted quite a vibrant red. Took a bit of time to figure out how to make the shower work. Duh!!!  We also have a bidet - a nice European custom of washing your bottom parts every which way you like.

Day one and travel day done.  We opened a bottle of wine and ate nuts for dinner and settled in for a good night's sleep.