BeerandPasta YAY

Hey everyone, Jon here reporting on our third and final farm. As a few of you already know, we decided to cut short our plan to stay WWOOFing until May. Actually at this point we have just returned to the United States, but before ending our travel blog I wanted to report on our last farm in Southern Sicily. Our third farm was located in the city of Paterno, a few miles west of the major Sicilian city of Catania we mentioned in previous blog entries. Unlike our previous Sicilian farm, Paterno is situated at the base of Mt. Etna, thus nowhere near as cold as the second farm. We also had a gorgeous view of the volcano from the farm, which we'll show in a final blog post with pictures. The farm was owned and ... read more

After leaving Pirapora, under the advise of Lauren and Gianni/Johnny, we decided to head to Acireale to celebrate Carnevale. Apparently this town has the most famous and elaborate celebration of Carnevale in all of Sicily, which we eventually experienced first hand. We initially had plans to stay only Friday night to experience the celebrations on Saturday and head to the next farm that evening, however after taking one step into Hotel Santa Canterina all plans changed as we started brainstorming ways to stay the entire weekend. The town of Acireale is adorable with small shop fronts, quaint piazzas with old churches, and bustling city streets...a combination of beauty and civilization Jon and myself had both come to miss. While the town was beautiful, the real motivator for the extended weekend trip was the Hotel Santa Canterina. ... read more

The last few pictures of the farm...headed onto Sicily for the next!!... read more

Pirapora So we finally arrived at the first farm! It's located in a small town called Zambrone in Calabria, a region in southern Italy.  When Jon and I walked up to the house we could see the most spectacular view of the sun setting over the Mediterranean Sea.  Its amazing!! A little background on the farm: it's family owned by Giovanni "Johnny" and Franco who inherited the land from their parents. Johnny is married to Lauren who is English, they have 2 children, Luca age 5 and Sophia age 3.  Franco is married to Rosey who is Brazilian and they have 2 children as well, Michal and Sarah, both somewhere between the ages of 14-16. Together they operate a B & B and restaurant in the summer, which is 80% sustained from the farm.  They have ... read more

Rome After a fantastic trip to Ireland it was finally time to make our way to Rome.  We spent 2 more days in Dublin before taking a Ryanair flight direct to the Italian capital.  Actually while in Dublin taking a bus back from the rental car office, we ran into an Irish friend of ours, Sarah, who worked at James Hobans but was back in Ireland now!  It is a small world indeed! Before we left Ireland, we had found an excellent website called 'Air B n B' in which people post their apartments that they are willing to rent out to anyone for either a few days to weeks/months.  Mary and I liked staying in hostels since they had communal kitchens and we could prepare our own food (cutting down on food costs), but did ... read more