Italy Trip with Jimmy & Sue and Joe & Chris – April 14 thru 27^th.

Rome

Stayed at the Hotel Canada which was a nice hotel in the city near the Colosseum and the Forum. We had a wonderful dinner and tour with Joe’s friend, Daniel. He took us to a local restaurant that was awesome! Daniels stated that typically in Rome, the best restaurants are the ones that are family run, and certainly not fancy. The name of the restaurant was in the Jewish Ghetto. After dinner Daniel took us to the Forum for an evening tour. He was awesome.

Florence This was probably our favorite town. Very clean, shops, well lit, safe, and a bit quitter and reserved. This evening we met with our niece Alyssa who is studying in Florence.   We stayed at Hotel Crece de Malta which was nice but no in the best section of town. We walked and shopped, clean, lots of people and great awesome restaurants!  

Profeta Restaurant This restaurant came highly recommended by a friend of Alyssa, who is from Sicily. The owner of the restaurant is Claudio. I can’t tell you how great the food was and especially the owner Claudio. He treated us as royalty, kept giving is sample of food and wine and made us laugh uncontrollably. The best meal was Alyssa’s which they call the John Travolta, because the spaghetti looks like the shape of his hair. Make this a must stop!

Parione Ristoriante – Another restaurant from a friend of Alyssa’s. Another restaurant that was wonderful, try the Florentine Steak, Jimmy and Sue did and it was unbelievable. Cost was $70 Euro for 2-persons.

Cinque Tierra  Lu Spiaggia Hotel in Monterosso  as the name implies, these are 5-coastal towns on the Lingaure sea. They are best navigated by train, unless you like to hike…have to!

Dined at Torre Aurora, a quaint hill top outdoor restaurant with a castle built around year 1,000. Had awesome views of the coast, only problem was the food we ordered just was not that great.

This day our goal was to travel to all 5-towns in Cinque Terre, which are Monterosso, L    Vernazza ,   ___ ___ ___ __  I would say probably the best of the towns are Loggia . The reason we liked this town was it had it all, nice shops, lots of good restaurants and an awesome view of the coast.

Lapos eat outside dining, I had Pizza and Carla had a seafood dish. We would recommend the lasagna bolognaise. After dinner we stoped at our favorite watering hole, and had buckets of sangria. After the sangria, Joey felt the need to jump into the Ligurian Sea in his underwear! We then went back to the hotel to dance to songs and had a crazy time. Never have a seen Carla have soooo much fun, it was an awesome day and evening.

Sicily –arrived in Palermo and rented a 9-pasanger Fiat van from Avis. We drove about 1-hour to the town Strastti a small Old World town where my mother grew up from the age 2 to 16-years old, then moving back to Chicago, America. Joey drove the van and Jimmy navigated (for a while, then patience ended) the small crazy roads. We visited with cousins Giuseppe and Patriza, who are kids of Vitto and Angela. They are the grandchildren of my mother brother. They are sooo sweet and welcoming, we visited Patriza’s ceramic shop, cute place…and she is very talented.

In the afternoon, we took the very large van and drove up the mountain Erice to a mediaeval town. This town is unbelievably old and beautiful. We ate at a restaurant in the village and had beautiful food.

Tuesday - Today was all about family. We visited Patricia and Giuseppi Martinico, and their parents Angelia and Vitto. We had one of the best meals ever at Angelina’s home. She made us homemade gnocchiling – which is homemade pasta our mom made for us as children. After lunch/dinner we took naps and talked for a few hours. We visited several other cousins and family. In the afternoon we took a tour of a local friends, Barraco Winery. A beautiful place adjacent to the sea, we did a very nice wine tasting.

We just don’t stay still, at night we headed to the city center in Marsala with Giuseppe and Patriza,. Marsala is a quaint downtown area with lots of restaurants and shops. We walked and walked, had gelato and cannoli’s. Today we continued our tour of Sicily through the world of food.

Wednesday – last day in Strastti, we visited an ancient ruins from about 500 AC. The name of the ruins was Delli Ijun Pretty amazing ruins, toured the ruins and took photos.

I drove our bus to the next stop, which was a winery tour. The name of the winery is Vinibaracco.it They sell this wine locally and also in America in New York and New Jersey. We toured the vineyards then went upstairs for a wine tasting. Very good wine!

We then headed to the go cart track, which another cousin owns. We toured the track, watched some races, and had some cappuccino. At night we headed to another small quaint town and had dinner and wine with Giuseppe and Patriza. The name of the restaurant was Lo Lcoiattolo, which I guess stands for squirrel. We played a game on Sue and Carla when they went to the bathroom. I told Giuseppe and Patriza to pretend that in this restaurant the best appetizer was the squirrel, more specifically the tail of the squired which is delicious. They came back from the restroom, and Giuseppe and Patriza pulled of the joke wonderfully. It helps when there is a communication gap, and others (me) translate.

The next morning we left and headed back to Rome to sleep and leave in the morning back home.

We talked the next morning at the airport about our last 2-weeks, and which parts we enjoyed the most. Most of us agreed that Florence is a gem. Clean, lots of awesome restaurants and history. We did not have enough time to visit the interior of the Dome, or the Ufizzie Museum. We did spend time with David and that was awesome. We also enjoyed our night with the buckets of Sangria and dancing. A highlight also was visiting with our mother’s family in Strastti. It was awesome to see the remains of her home, which is an empty lot. Kind of interesting, there was a storage shed adjacent to the home that the American stored bombs in, and one day after the war was over, the storage shed spewed smoke. Everyone notified each other to get out, and a bit later the whole building blew up including my mom’s home.