Favorite Memory from Sicily

Hello there friendly blog readers!  Sorry I've been so absent.... but I've been unmotivated to write when the weather has been turning and getting gorgeous for spring, and we've been on the road, traveling!

In the last 5 weeks, we've traveled to the Northeastern most point of Spain (in Galicia) on a 4 day road trip, had 2 visitors from Nebraska stay with us in Madrid, Brian traveled to 3 states and 4 cities in the US in 9 days, I went to France and learned how to surf with wonderful old friends, and we flew to Sicily for a week during the Easter holidays.

Whew!  Time to take a breath...

I'm going to ease back into the blog, and remember our favorite thing from the week in Sicily.  Generally, we had great weather for the week we were there, but there was one day that things weren't looking so great, so we rented a car and decided to drive to Mount Etna.  Ideally, it wouldn't have been raining and foggy, so we could go see the top of the volcano as well, but lady luck decided to still surprise us another way.

As we plowed through a mountain road in the midst of these clouds, we saw a tiny sign, hidden in the fog, for a winery... and we pulled off, expecting it to be closed on a Tuesday afternoon.  But maybe you can guess where this is going...

We walked in to learn they had a full tasting menu with tastings of 2 of their white and 2 of their red wines.  We could help ourselves to as much of the wine as we wanted... and the food just kept coming.

It all started out quite properly...

The whites were paired with sun dried tomatoes, sun dried cherry tomatoes, olives & mushrooms, and homemade almond bread.  The reds came out accompanied by mild cheese, sicilian sausage, smoked ricatta, peppered parmesan, and sheep cheese with pistachios.

As the food kept coming, and the wine flowing, I really started to enjoy myself.  Brian mostly just laughed at me and rolled his eyes.  I didn't care.

Some steamed mushrooms and homemade pork sausages with ground pistachios, orange & balsamic showed up at some point too...

With our table full, we find ourselves giddy with joy over what we'd stumbled upon, the deliciousness of the food, and the can-i-just-have-a-little-more? amazingness of the wine.

Brian even starts to get a little goofy too... Look at that grin :)

After a lot of savoring and sighs of contentment, we finally sent away the last scraps of food.  To finish the meal, we devoured their homemade fluffy, nutty, rich pastry and a little shot of expresso.  I even asked for a second dessert, but I know that doesn't surprise any of you.

 It was perfection!

We walked out of there with a huge wooden box of wine - one of each of the four we tried during the tasting.  We didn't really have any trouble finishing those during the rest of the time we were in Sicily... though I would have loved to have brought some home with us.

I think we're still amazed that we stumbled upon such an incredible place... if you're ever near the slopes of Mount Etna on Sicily, I would recommend doing whatever you could to go visit Agricola Gambino!

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Venice!

Our last hurrah in Italy!

After Cinque Terre, we hopped on a train for 7 hours and went to Venice.  Let me tell you, I love this city.  It was completey overrun with tourists (they get an average of 50,000+ tourists/day) but I don't care.  I realize it's a city made up of more tourists than natives, but it's still so engulfing to be on this improbably floating island, surrounded by the tempestuous sea, embracing the decaying glory of an urban Renaissance city while surrounded by the remnants of a golden society...

 Gondola with a Pallado-designed church across the canal.

 Seriously, who builds a city on an island (and keeps using that city) that floods dozens of times a year and residents?  Crazy, yet awesome people.  These buildings are amazing, historical, and so full of character, and the canals have so much activity always happening on them.  I've never seen anything like it.  

Nighttime at the Rialto Bridge - the main one in town (the bridge during the day is pictured below).  It's amazing to watch the absolute traffic jams on the canals with gondoliers, ferries, taxis, water buses and personal watercraft attempting to navigate this place.  We sat, fascinated, for 30 minutes as the sun set.

 Crazy full of tourists. 

  This is from our last night in Venice.  Kay's feet were really tired, so we found a convenient place for her to rest. :)

St. Marks Square & Cathedral with the Ducal Palace to the right.  Seriously, a magical city.

 

Brian and I spent our last few hours in Venice away from the crowds, sitting on a bench in a park, watching the water traffic go by.  It was such a lovely way to end a busy trip to Italy.  Now that we've hit all the major tourist spots, we'll hopefully go back in the future and just feel the freedom to bask in the pasta, whoops, tuscan sun.

I hope that everyone who came to visit us this summer knows that I hope to blog about their trips here, but understand that it's been way easier to blog backwards (because of my memory) and this week I had some free time to slug out Italy (I think I wrote 6 posts in one day)!  We'll see how motivated I can stay...

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Cinque Terre part 2

The second day in Cinque Terre, we scheduled a cooking class, and went to the market in the morning to pick out our ingredients with the instructor and discuss the menu.  In the afternoon, we explored some of the other cities in the Cinque Terre, and then in the evening, headed to our cooking class to learn how to make some delicious things.

Manarola.  Wish we had more time here, the perfect place to go swimming!

Riomaggiore

 Brian's working really hard as you can see.  This Italian woman was great to work with, though we wish she had spoken a little more english.  It was plenty to get us by until Claudio, our shopping buddy from the morning came back and joined us for dinner.

We made stuffed sardines as the main course of our 10 course meal... they were really amazing.  I'm not going to bore you, or me, with all the photos of the food, I know that's overkill.  But let me tell you that if you know anyone who is going to visit Cinque Terre, I would absolutely recommend this class.  We learned a lot, we drank a lot, we ate a lot, and we really had a fantastic time.

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Cinque Terre

After Lake Como, we took a train down to Cinque Terre.  Though it was SO overrun with tourists, especially during the day, I still loved it in the evenings and for the environment.  So charming, and nothing like it in the world.

The view from our balcony, which was at the absolute highest point of the entire town.  I counted; we had to ascend 280 stairs to get to our room.  It was worth it!

 The view from the harbor looking back into the city.  Our place is located somewhere near the top of that hill in the background.

 We are a classy bunch, aren't we, sitting in the harbor with our beverages?

love him.

 What a good looking family...

We hiked the route between the cities, and as we descended into the last town, there was this dude in a hut, serving up fresh lemonade & lemoncello with lemons from his own farm.  Guess what this girl ordered?  Lemonello, of course.  Seriously Rich & Kay, you acted surprised at this?

After the hike, we went for a swim in the city of Monterosso al Mare.

 As night approached, we were given absolutely amazing views when we got back to our room. 

 Did you hear that about three weeks ago, Cinque Terre was almost completely destroyed by terrible flooding?  The city that we stayed in, Vernazza, has had most of it's main street washed away, and filled with 3-4 meters of silt - the entire first floor of most buildings are completely destroyed.  It's an incredibly sad situation.  We're so thankful that we got to experience the beauty of this place before this tragedy.  Thankfully, only 2 of the 5 cities were really damaged, but it will take a long time for them to recover.  Click here to see some of the before and after photos of the damaged areas.

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Lake Como

Did you know that George Clooney has a house on Lake Como?  No, we did not go in search of it (though I bet if I had suggested it, Kay would have definitely done it with me), but every person we met liked to inform us that he lived nearby...

We didn't do much while we were in Lake Como; a little sightseeing, a few ferry rides, and a lot of walking around & eating.  Here are some of my favorite photos.

I really love this photo... couple of guys, working on their boat in the shadows of the mountains.

Surprise, surprise.  These two found beer at a little sidewalk market.

We like good food, obviously, but we also like to be economical in our travels... most evenings we would stop at a store to pick up some cured meats, cheeses, bread, beer & wine, and sit on the balcony of our hotel munching away.

I win the award for most awesome hair on this whole trip.  Medusa, anyone?

The little town of Bellagio that we stayed in.  In the photo below, Bellagio is the town in the distance on the left.

The view from the balcony at our hotel.

: )

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