Blogs from Catania, Sicily, Italy, Europe

One of the highlights of our week in Sicily was visiting Mt Etna – Europe’s largest volcano and one of the world’s most active! It’s so big that it is visible from the moon!! We got picked up from our hotel in a 4WD jeep required to get to the summit and embarked on the hour-long bumpy ride to get there. I think both Nick and I are still suffering from the whiplash! It was worth it though; it was fascinating to see all the craters and dried up black lava on the way up. We saw a house that was completely covered up to its roof in lava from the eruption in the 1669 eruption that lasted 122 days! When we got to the top we got to walk around one of the cones. On ... read more

Had a great day skiing in Cortina to end our ski time. I threw a party for everyone on my trip to celebrate. A bunch of folks from Buck Ridhe Ski Ckub joined us which was lots of fun. I gave our green beads and stickers for all. A large group of us headed out to party after dinner. And what a party it was. I guess when only one person is down at 3:30 am for the bus to Venice that tells you it was a blast. What happens in Cortina stays in Cortina. But that would mean you remember the evening. It was a very quiet ride to Venice airport and thankfully no problems with our flights. Some went home and a larger group went to Sicily.... read more

After our three hectic days in the sometimes chaotic, but always interesting, Palermo, a short one hour train trip along the north coast found us in Cefalu where we spent the night. This pretty and historic seaside resort is a favourite holiday venue for the locals. The narrow beach was 'pay only' entry (10 euro) for your umbrella and sunbed for the day. Everyone and everything was being prepared for the summer to come. The following day a two hour train trip took us to Millazzo from where we caught a hydrofoil to Lipari town, capital of the Aeolian Islands. It was here we spent the next five days. Lipari is the largest and main island of this group of seven volcanic islands. We had really been looking forward to a relaxing time here and weren't ... read more

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

Didn't have long in Catania - the first day I got here I went straight to Taormini and spent the day there, and I only had that evening and the following morning to see this volcanic city. Went to see Piazza Duomo in the night which has the Fontana dell'Elefante made of lava in its centre, and surrounded by the Duomo and other nice buildings. I then went in the morning to try and get a view of Mount Etna as I didn't get to see it yesterday.... read more

Took a hop on hop of bus , the northern route what took 3 hours without hopping of.Went to Valletta in the afternoon. Went yesterday in the morning to the old capital Mdina and in the afternoon again Valletta Impression of Malta - Their unknown wine is very good and unbelievable cheap - They threat beer as in England - They drive on the leftside of the road but since everybody is doing it its no problem - One of their export products are potatoes - 500 public busses owned by 500 independent drivers somebody told me. Still a working schedule - Valletta another Unesco world heritage site. Real historic looking and people still living in the citadel - In the churches hundreds of tombstones of the Maltezer knights who were living here for centuries - ... read more

Was hoping that my eye would have recovered overnight. Unfortunately it had not, so I had to cancel the excursion up Mount Etna and play hunt the hospital instead. There are lots and you have to have the right one, oh and follow the Italian instructions to get there. Anyway, after a morning of standing in queues I realised that I was more bored than in pain, so we continued with our journey. To make the most of the day, we caught the bus (the helpful lady at the hostel got all the details) to Catania War Cemetry. The driver said that the bus didn't go near and that it was a fast and dangerous road, not suitable for walking on. I didn't think he was going to help us further. He asked if it was ... read more

By this day we had pretty much exhausted Taormina and had heard good things about Catania, so we decided to take the hour bus ride there. Everyone who said good things about Catanialied. Catania is probably the one place I left in Italy and says that I have absolutely no desire to go back to. Now, i am sure it is probably nice if you live there. but for tourists it is not a good city. especially if the weather isn't nice. It took an hour for us to even find the main duomo, which was pretty, but not necessarily pretty enough that it was worth the trip. There was a food market right around the corner that probably would have been cool except it was a fish market and the smell of fish makes me ... read more