Moving On

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Day 4 Moving On September 25th

Its first thing in the morning and per usual since we’ve been in Florence we head upstairs to the 3rd floor for the european breakfast. It consists of meats cheeses yogurts breads cereals and of course cappachinos. Its always a bit of a heavy start but you get used to it. Our hotel was as lovely as Lissa and remembered, we actually stayed in the same room as we did 6 years ago and I think it’s the same mattress as it was just as hard. Everything said it was just as we remembered. This time we spent more time on the rooftop bell tower enjoying the view and of course Prosecco. Now its time to pack and head to the airport for a 1230 flight to Catania and off to our villa outside of Ragusa.
When we were all gathered the front couldn’t get us a cab as there was marathon and the cabs couldn’t or wouldn’t come to get us so we had to walk about 5 blocks to taxi stand. When we found it there was about 15 cabs but no drivers. It seems they don’t like to work on Sundays so moved on up the block to a busy street. Waiting and watching and still no cabs. We where in front our a 50 year old camera store when the owner,(self proclaimed single man in his 70’s) which he made a point of of telling her numerous times, called for a cab and within 3 minutes we headed to the port. In 15 minutes we had checked in through security and sitting with piece of pizza and water.
When we landed in Catania after a nice flight we waited 45 minutes for luggage as they had 4 flights on the same belt.. Now for the car rental, we walked about 20 minutes and found all the rental agencies in a small building with no air. 1 hour later at the Thrifty desk and we were looking for our car. They said make sure if there is dents you mark them down, there wasn’t enough room on the paper for all of it. Scratches, dents, parts missing and door dents just cover it all. Lets find our villa but now Bonnie doesn’t want to work as she is stuck and won’t restart. Well lets try the map and see if we can get out of Catania. After about 10 wrong turns and 4 different directions we found the right highway and the right direction. We found the castle (Donnafugata) and knew we where close. Lissa had directions from there but we came in from the wrong direction and ended up at private function at a dairy farm. Dan finally got Bonnie restarted and in 15 minutes we got to Parco Cavolongo where we had rented our villa. !0 minutes later Melissa, the front desk girl showed to our beautiful 3 bedroom 3 bath villa...It was worth the wait...
Lissa was immediatly taking pictures of the great sunset and we went down to the pool area for investigation and pics. This property sits on 19 hectres and next to a park. What great place.
We decided to have dinner at the restuarant on site and a great call it was. For 25 euro we got a 4 course meal and appertif’s.. A great meal made the day complete..

Wine for dinner today was a local from Mount Etna. Firriato “Etna Bianco”. Also the bottle of Chianti from Florence was consumed.

Wine count 12

Till tomorrow caio

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