Hotel Club Il Gattopardo Sea Palace Messina

Today was a sea day. I shall attempt to tell you how we spend these wonderfully relaxing days, doing nothing...
I usually awaken early, 5:00 or 6:00am at the latest. Today, Jim beat me to it. He had a pilates class at 8:00am and woke me. After he left for the class, I showered and dressed. I love the bath products in our stateroom. The shower gel has a strong peppermint fragrance, sure to get your eyes open quickly. That, and the good shower pressure ...

The people from Florence are described as "changeable and moody".

Mt. Etna is much the same.

Evolution of the volcano is described as:

“destructive periods, collapses, landslides and subsidences alternate with constructive periods (explosive, pyroclastic activity & emission of lava).”

Much like us people. J

Italians ...

... was in 2002 or so, so an extremely young landscape. I had alot of fun though unfortunatly Kiyo got my cold which I was already over and the changes in elvation really took a toll on her stuffed up sinuses. The tour also included lunch with wine from a local winery and the bus ride back was much more lively than the one which left in the morning after that. Aparently my table must have gotten quite short changed on the wine as most of the bus was in song the whole way back!

... when we cruised to Alaska. The staff appeared more easily frustrated and "just did their jobs" whereas the staff on the last cruise always went above and beyond to make sure you were the top banana and having a great experience every step of the way. We had a couple of hiccups that could have been easily solved, but became bigger problems because we had to ask for assistance more than once in order to get ...

... a strange design on my right chest. They now call me Red Peck. No pictures will surface of that. Tonight we passed threw the Straight of Messina. It was very nice to see Sicily again, but too bad we couldn't get off and see the family. We did finish a great dinner and see a fiery sky out in the distance as we witnessed our first real erupting volcano...Stromboli. I wish my camera was better....The Volcano, Lava, Clouds and half moon made a great photo.

... involtini, and so many other amazing dishes. Zio Nino (this one is on my mom's side) and Zia Graziella brought us and the rest of the Fazio family, excluding Antonia (she was home cooking, of course!), to an amazing restaurant, Antica Finlanda...see the pictures below. The restaurant was perched on a cliff overlooking the water and the food was incredible. Not only was every course amazing, the presentation of the food was unlike ...

It was a good day, and I think that's probably an understatement. We got to sleep in, I woke up around 11 or 11:30, got ready for the beach and hung out for a little while. We ate a big lunch together at the place next door. I had the bread with fresh mozarella, tomato, fresh tuna. Delicious. Followed by espresso. One of Fabrizios friends lives in Salina and has a boat. They took us around the island via boat ...

We now are in transit and will wake up about 185 miles south off of Lipari. It is a small group of islands just north of Sicily, right next to the tip of the boot. I've never been there and franly have never heard of it. I'm excited!

... on the Greek cars. In Messina, there were lots of cars, but definite rules were being followed and pedestrians were given rights of way. Messina wins the "honk your horn" event hands down. One evening I tried counting the seconds between honks (you know, like you do with microwave popcorn to make sure it's done). The longest I could get to was about 4 seconds. I gave up. We have had our first real difficulties with language here in southern Italy. Our ...

... had er ook zo even heen kunnen lopen. Het apparaat wordt meegenomen in de auto en Janwillem rijdt even mee. Ze rijden als gekken. Om bij de werkplaats te komen moet stevig omgereden worden. Maar als we er aankomen blijkt het op 500 meter van de haven te liggen. Italianen nemen altijd de auto en moeten daar zelf ook wel om lachen. Ze wijzen trots naar de haven en dan naar de parkeerplek. Ze hebben waarschijnlijk ook nog een stief kwartiertje moeten zoeken naar ...