November 27, 2022 - Venice, Italy

It’s humbling to not feel well or to be sick in a foreign country.  Nothing bad, just bathroom issues which lasted a couple of days, hence no blog posts.  The unfortunate thing was that I really couldn’t leave the apartment in Sicily for very long or go very far.  I tried to go to a Pharmacy to find Imodium or something like it and while I was looking at the products and trying to figure out what I needed, before I could ask I needed to make a very fast retreat ASAP back to the apartment.  So, never got anything.  Luckily, life got back on track after a bit.

I did manage to get something for my Thanksgiving dinner; Pizza.  Honestly, I’ll be happy to not have anymore Pizza or Pasta for awhile after I return.  Although it’s been delicious, I’ve had enough. 

Pizza and Pasta are not the only things that people eat in Italy.  You can get “street food” which is mostly fried foods like Arancini, which are fried balls of rice and cheese and a meat or vegetable mix inside 

and sandwiches (such as Panini).  These cost about 3 or 4 Euros.  You can get lots of different pastas, risotto, soup, or pizzas on the menu which is called Primi or First Dishes.  And these items range from 8-12 Euros.  Then there are the real cuisine items such as fish, chicken, steak, pork called Secondi or the main dish which generally range from 22-34 Euros.  My budget just couldn’t afford those kinds of foods at each meal.  Plus, that’s all you get.  If you want a salad or a vegetable or a potato to go with it, it’s all extra and those generally cost another 4-6 Euros each.  And, unlike in American Restaurants where you’ll get a free glass of unending water, in most of Europe, you pay for that water and it can cost anywhere between 2.50-5 Euros per bottle.  So, food is not very cheap in Italy, if you want to eat well.  I did, however, check off a number of MUST TRY Italian foods during my days in this wonderful country.  Most of them I have already posted about.  Here are a few more.  

Cassata, which is particularly popular in Sicily, is a very sweet dessert made of Ricotta Cheese, Sugar, Dried Fruit, Cognac, and Fondant.

These are Involtini di pesche Spade.  Basically, fish meatballs.  I had them on my second day in Sicily.  Not sure what the white sauce was, but similar to what we might call tartar sauce without a pickle flavor.  I have no idea what the red stringy things are.  I ate them.  They were very strange in flavor, somewhat carrot-like, and had a mild numbing quality on the tongue.  If my bathroom issues had anything to do with food, it might have been these red things.

Caponata - This is a mound of cooked Zucchini and Eggplant in a Red Sauce with Chocolate Nibs on top.  Very odd combination, but tasty.

On my return trip to Venice, I finally had some Cicchetti.  Similar in concept to Spain’s tapas, these are tiny sandwiches, either open faced or closed.  I had a varied selection of six - two were open-faced.  They were served on Focaccia bread, which I am now obsessed with and wish my Focaccia Bread making class had not been cancelled.  I’m definitely going to learn how to make it, though!

Tiramisu - which, of course, everyone knows.  I had it a couple of times.  This was by far, the best.

Last night I went to the grocery store to purchase a couple of items, like bottled water (which costs .30 in the supermarket!) I found this yogurt.  At home I’m normally a plain Greek yogurt guy.  I don’t like anything in my yogurt - fruit flavors, no sugar, nothing.  Just the slight tang of the yogurt.  However, I fell in love with this and hope I can find it at home or order it from somewhere.  I’ll even give up my ban on the sugar.  Best Yogurt Ever!  Pistachio - seriously good!

After all this eating, I’ve decided I need a new wardrobe.  So, I’m coming home with a complete new Italian wardrobe.

When I was in high school or college, I might have actually dressed like this.  But, I’ll leave to the younger, slimmer crowd!

Here are a few shots of my last day/night in Venice and Italy.  See you all soon!

November 23, 2022 - Sicily, Italy

 I forgot to mention a few things about Mt Vesuvius when I visited Pompeii.  So here’s a picture for reference.

If you draw an imaginary line from one side of the slope upwards and from the other slope upwards from the two peaks that now make up Mt Vesuvius, you’ll have a general idea what the mountain looked like in 79 AD when it had the huge eruption that buried Pompeii.  Mt Vesuvius is still an active volcano.  The last time it erupted was in 1940 and it was pretty small.  Volcanologists/Seismologists believe that Mt Vesuvius will erupt more than likely within the next 20-50 years and they hypothesize that it will be larger than the one that happened in 1940, but can’t say just how big.  One of the world’s most active volcanoes is the one on the Stromboli Island (yes, that is indeed the name of the island!) off the coast of Sicily.  in fact it erupted just last month and has been doing so quite regularly since 1932.  But the volcano that is of most concern to Volcanologists isn’t Mt Vesuvius or the one on Stromboli Island, but rather a submarine volcano off the coast of Ischia Island.  It is 100 times larger than Mt Vesuvius and last erupted in 1302.  Volcanologists believe that it is just a matter of time before it erupts again.  Who knew there were so many active volcanoes in this part of the world?

When I left Sorrento on Tuesday, I had a few options to get to Palermo, Sicily.  One was to fly from Sorrento to Sicily.  Normally flying is cheap in Europe, but the cost for this particular flight was nearly 400 Euros.  I don’t know why.  The other option was to take a train from Sorrento back to Naples and then from Naples to Sicily at a cost of 47 Euros.  That’s the one I chose!  However, it was going to take the entire day and part of the evening.  However, I love train travel and I thought it would be a good opportunity to just relax and see the landscape of Southern Italy.  The night before leaving, I learned that there was also an overnight ferry from Naples to Sicily at a cost of about 100 Euros (if you wanted a sleeping cabin).  I decided to stick with the train.  Overnight the wind and rain picked up with lots of thunder and lightning.  During the train trip the next morning, which goes along the coast almost the entire way and watching the turbulent sea and waves that were at least 10-15 feet high, I was glad I had taken the train.  By midday the skies had cleared and the sea looked much calmer.  And it was at this point that I got a huge surprise!  There is a small strait that goes between mainland Italy and Sicily, Villa Giovanni and Messina.  I assumed one of two scenarios; we’d get off the train, take a ferry and get back on a new train in Messina or that there was some kind of train bridge between the two.  But no, neither of those two scenarios were accurate.  Instead, our entire train was loaded onto a Ferry while we were still on it!  The train was split into two sections and one half was loaded onto the right side of the Ferry and the other half was loaded onto the left side of the Ferry.  The entire process took about 10-15 minutes at most!  It was awesome!  Once we were secured, we were allowed to get off the train and go top side on the ferry or we could just stay on the train.

In Sicily, I spent a really nice leisurely morning doing nothing except watching the rain.  My apartment has a terrace in the front and the back and my host provided an entire refrigerator full of snacks, oranges, water, a bottle of wine and all the ingredients necessary to make my own pasta.  I’m leaving the pasta ingredients for my Thanksgiving Dinner.  But enjoyed a few of the pastry snacks and some of the oranges this morning.  When it stopped raining, I ventured out to see what Palermo had to offer.  It’s basically split in half by the old town and the new town.  In many of the European towns I’ve been in that have an “old town”, I expected narrow streets and wandering alleys.  Not in Palermo, the old streets are quite wide and are only for pedestrians.  I visited the beautiful Cathedral, several other churches, and the Theater.

The Cathedral of Palermo is enormous.

The Archbishop’s Palace was closed today, but will reopen tomorrow.  So, I plan to go back and see it.

I just wandered for a while and came across some really interesting old churches built in the 12th Century.

The Meridian Line that goes through the church

Church of Santa Maria.  It was closed by the time I got there.

Next to it on the right hand side with the three domes on top is the Church of San Cataldo.  Most fascinating church I’ve visited so far.  It is quite small and has more of that Middle Ages feel to it.

For my last stop of the day, I got a tour of the largest theater in Italy and the third largest theater/Opera House in Europe after the Palais Garnier in Paris and the Hof-Opernhaus in Vienna.  It was built in 1871 (the same year our house was built)!  It is 7730 square meters.

This is the actual scaled model version built by the architect to present to the committee for the award-winning design.

This theater is known for its perfect acoustics.  But it is in this domed reception room, known as the Echo Chamber, that the sounds really make a huge noise.  When you go to the center of the room and talk, the returned message sounds like it comes back to you from everywhere.

Tonight’s dinner consisted of a Sicilian Specialty - Pasta con le sarde; this is fresh, salted, and grilled sardines with fennel made into a sauce on top of Pasta.

 

I also had Sarde a beccafico, another Sicilian Specialty, which is a stuffing of sardines, pine nuts, raisins and breadcrumbs.  They were delicious.  

I thought I was a Northern Italian cuisine lover.  But the further south I’ve gone the more I like the food.  Well, they seem to use more fish!