Last Day in Sicily

Bona Sera! This is our last day inSicily. Woke up to rain but who cares! The forecast in Paris is 6-8 degrees but brilliant sunshine all next week. We'll see. We spent the day cleaning up, doing laundry getting rid of garbage (and we didn't throw it on the beach or street). We tried to go for dinner at the Trattoria that we enjoyed so much yesterday but it was closed. Pam was told that it was open all day. A miscommunication I guess. Anyway we had enough leftovers here to put together a dinner. We've had a good day chatting with Pam and planning a possible day trip to Edinburgh with Leslie and Pam. So,we are off for an early night tonight because we have an early start tomorrow. Up at 6:00 (haven't done that for awhile) on the road by 7:30. It's about a two hour drive to Tavira. We should be in Paris at about 2:00pm. Walking on the Champs Elysee shortly thereafter. Arreviderci everyone! Talk to you soon. Linda

Palermo

Well we finally made it to Palermo and were pleasantly surprised. After so many disappointments we expected to be disappointed with Palermo but it was much better than we expected. We got up to brilliant sunshine this morning and warm temperatures. Pam and I took a walk on the beach this morning--Pam's first because of weather--and then we headed for the train station.  We missed the train by 3 minutes so Ian decided to drive. I wasn't looking forward to that but it wasn't really so bad. We found a parking spot down by the water and were within walking distance of the train station. Pam needed to check out her route to the airport on Tuesday as Ian and I will have to leave here by about 7:00 am and Pam's flight doesn't leave until 8:00 pm. Pietro will drive her to the train station for the 10:19 train to Palermo (for a fee of course)--It's only about 5 minutes away. She will then spend the day in Palermo and then take the bus to the airport. Rhona will meet her in Gatwick and take her home. Ian and I will arrive in Paris early afternoon and should have time to get our bearings. After leaving Palermo we headed back to Campofelice looking for a place to have lunch (it's Sunday so everything is closed.) We passed a place a couple of kms. from here that we took no notice of  before.  It is a stone building that has holes in it and looks really decrepit.There were loads of cars in the parking lot so we thought we'd take a look. Well--you wouldn't believe what was inside!  It was a huge restaurant, beautifully decorated with tons of people. On Sundays they have a set menu and a set price (20 euros each). We decided to go for it! I can't remember when I was so full. I think it was five courses, with wine, beer and of course dessert.What a wonderful treat! This was the best day in Sicily to date.Tomorrow will be a washing, packing day, getting ready for the next leg of the journey. P.S. Our waiter, although Sicilian, had been married to a Scottish woman and lived in Scotland from 1982-2004. He and Pam had a really good chat and discovered that they had actually worked about 100 metres fom each other. Will try and post tomorrow. Ciao!!

Taormina and Catania

Bon Sera! I'm just getting the hang of Italian and now I need to try to reach way, way back to some highschool French. We had our day in Taormina and Catania. Taormina looks like something you would see in a children's fairy tale book. Built on a mountainside with some breathtaking wiews. Narrow streets, crazy drivers and no parking. We stopped in a pullout on the way down and goy some great pictures. Mom, we'll have a great picture and movie night with you when we get home. Then we carried on to Catania which was highly recommended. We didn't think we would ever get out of there! Unbelievable traffic! Very poorly signed and seemingly no traffic rules. We realized that was because there are no traffic lights so if you are trying to get out onto a main street you just have to push your way in. And they are brutal.No courtesies at all.  Survival of the fittest. Also it's strange to see children sitting in the front seats of cars without carseats or babies on parents laps. The worst was seeing a young girl with her baby sitting in front of her on her motorbike zipping in and out of traffic like a maniac.  We finally found the motorway to come back home and  lo and behold came across a modern, American style shopping mall. Haven't seen one of those for a while. Well, Ian was thrilled to drop us off and be alone for awhile. So Pam and I strolled around for awhile and poked into a few shops and then met up with Ian for a delicious coffee. Unfortunately, that is all we could afford in that mall. It was a very upscale place. I saw casual pants for 300.00euros. Versace, Gucci, etc. Pam and I decided that this was a place for the MAFIA and they're families to shop. And believe me they are alive and well in Sicily. The poor average person doesn't have a hope. When I get home I will sing Oh Canada at least once a day. (not really) But truthfully, we are so fortunate to be Canadians. If I could speak to my ancestors I would thank them for emmigrating to Canada. Anyway, tomorrow we are up early and off on the train to Palermo. Hopefully we will get some shopping done, get to the public market and maybe get some Sicilian icecream. So arrivederci for now. Love to all! I miss you all--especially you Mom and my grandchildren. Now I'm getting soppy.

Top of the world

Ciao. Well we're back home again. Spent the morning waiting for Pietro to come and fix the heating and it was worth waiting for. Did some laundry and then headed for a village called Pizzi Generosi. Our pharmacist friend comes from this village and highly recommended it. Very beautiful and you will be so well fed he said. Well I thought Ian was going to have a heart attack. Mountain goats would have had a difficult time geting up there. Most of you know how much he likes heights.(NOT) So, it took about 10 minutes to figure a way out of there and home we came. Rum and coke for Ian and birro for Pam and I and all is right with the world. Tomorrow we are going to Catania and Taormina come hell or high water. And Palermo on Sunday.It will probably be closed but we only have 2 days left. Trying to figure out when places are open or closed is a real chore. I will never again see a sign that says sorry, we're closed without thinking of Sicily. Poor Pam hasn't even gotten her Sicilian ice cream yet. We stopped on the way home but---sorry we're closed. Right now we are waiting for the local grocery store to finish cooking the barbequed chickens so that we can eat something other than pasta or pizza.I hate to sound depressing but we have all agreed that this is our one and only trip to Sicily. The island itself is beautiful but the garbage is disgusting and they have a long way to go in the hospitality industry. Judy, we are 9 hours ahead you. We will try to get you tomorrow evening. Probably around noon your time. Look forward to seeing you. Love from Ian, Pam and Linda

No snow today!

Bon Giorno! The sun is shining this morning! Still chilly but who cares. Yesterday we took a drive to Corleone to see the Mafia but they must have been hiding. It's more towards the middle of the country so very different terrain.Quite mountainous and green. It was nice to see something different from coastline. Also saw Monreale. It's built  on the side of a mountain. Very busy and crowded. They say not to take your car there because you can't get parked but we thought they meant in the tourist season. Nope. Anyway yesterday was a much better day. Went for dinner at the Faro Blu and took some Spanish lessons from the owner's daughter. She thinks we are pretty funny. This place is the only place in Sicily that will feed us before 8:00. I told them that my bed time is 9:00. They thought that was funny too. Today I think we will attempt a train trip to Palermo. It will be nice (especially for Ian) to get out of the car. We have been strongly advised to keep all money, passports etc. in our front pockets as the pickpockets are pretty good at their craft. Also have been warned to get our train tickets stamped immediately on the train or the staff could fine us 50.00 euro each. (I think this is just a little income supplement) Hopefully tomorrow will be a good day and we will travel down to Catania and Taormina.Once that is done we will have seen everything that we really wanted to see here. Our little Pharmacist friend has told us that the weather is supposed to improve after today. Oh yes. Yesterday our little heater stopped working and we can't get hold of Pietro so it's a little chilly inside too. By the way Judy, Pam's computer can only get a signal outside so we bundle up and sit out on the patio to blog. We are now 9 hours ahead of you so we will try to see you on the cam around then. Pam just told me that Pietro is on his way to fix the heat. YEAH!! So we will keep in touch as best we can. Ruth, do you remember if there were internet places and cheap phone shops in Paris? They have internet here but it always seems to be closed. Like everything else. Nobody seems to work very much here. And there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to when they close. We are really looking forward to Paris and then being with Leslie. Tell Mom I will call from Leslie's. It will be good to here her voice again. as well as the rest of you. Arrivederci for now!!

Hallelujah! Communication Again.

Hi  everyone. We have not had communication for over a week. No internet cafes or phone shops. They recommend going to the phone company direct to make international calls. Good luck with that. We are so happy to have Pam with us. She even speaks English!! Sicily is very different from Portugal (and every else for that matter). Very expensive (they are charging us 90 euros for our bedding--as if we could bring our own). Our villa is quite a distance from anywhere , so we have to drive to get anywhere. Its a beautiful place but the weather is atrocious. We ve had little sun and lots of rain and wind. We thought that Pam would bring us some good weather but today has been the worst. Pouring rain all day except a little rain and snow mixed. (yes, I said snow!) Apart from that the scenery is beautiful. Really rugged coastline and turquoise water.Tomorrow we are planning a trip down to Catania and maybe a train trip to Palermo on Friday. (if its open)By the way we are 14kms. outside of Cefalu. If I ever complain about Kelowna traffic again-- slap me. The drivers here try to kill you, but Ian is getting pretty at pretending to be Sicilian. Judy, we will try you on  the web cam but the connection here is poor and the voices keep breaking up. Hope everyone is well and look forward to seeing you all. Ian is still having a bad time with his sinuses but we finally found a pharmacy that was open and the pharmacist gave him something for it. Ciao for now.

Our Last Day in Portugal

Hello again. Well  this is it! Time has just flown by. Good thing I went for a walk all over town on Saturday because on Sunday the monsoons arrived. It blew and rained just like it did when we arrived except that it was much warmer. We used the day doing laundry and saying boodbye to people we wouldn't be seeing again. We went out to a place called Os Compadres for another tradional dinner. This time we had a dish called cataplana that had been recommended to us by several people. It was delicious!  Basically it's a fish or fish and meat stew. When I get home I'm going to have google it. Our neighbours, Peter and Brenda may have to call their holiday short because Brenda has hurt her back and can hardly move. Later today we are going to take her to the emergency to see if they can help her. They still have six weeks of holiday paid for so it would be a shame. Today we have had more rain but the sun is trying to come out and the temp. is quite warm. Ian thinks he is coming down with a cold so we are off to the pharmacy to see if we can get something to give him some relief. We are off to bed really early tonight as we have to be up around 5:30 in order to get the car back to the airport and catch a taxi to the bus depot. Anyway, that's it for now. Talk to you when we get settled in Sicily and find an internet shop. When Pam arrives she will have her laptop which will make a huge difference. We have decided to purchase one when we get home. Maybe even a cell phone. We feel like dinosaurs here. Even the old folks (older than us) have all the gizmos. Adios!!

Hi again. Well last night we finally got our tradional Portuguese dinner and it was worth waiting for. All the flavours here are really nice but nothing overpowering.Half litre of wine and a pint of beer included in the price. You've got to like that. When we came out of the restaraunt a storm had hit us. It was thundering and lightning and pouring with rain so what could we do but duck in some place to get out of the weather. Just so happens that it was karoske night at Fat Cat's. Lots of fun, good music and more wine and beer. We didn't get home until 1:00  Tonight we are supposed to meet some of our new friends at Angelu's for Christmas Eve. They do theme nights every so often. I don't know if we'll make it. I'm up for it but Ian's moving a little slow today Oh well, tomorrow is another day.Only 2 days left so will post on the blog on Monday but will be travelling to Spain by bus on Tuesday and flying to Sicily on Wednesday. So it will be a few days probably before I find myself another shop. Talk to you all soon. Linda

Adventures continue

Hi everyone. We are happy to report that our car has been located and there is no apparent damage to it.All we need now is the T.V. Anyway, today we visited a little village on the water not too far from Albufeira. It's called Olhos d'Agua and was recommended by our new Canadian friends Louise and Guy. They are from Ottawa and have been coming here every year for 8 yrs. for 3 months at a time. They have been a great source of information for us as they are curious people and spend a lot of time exploring and talking to the locals. Louise is even taking conversational Portugese lessons. May as well be able to communicate if you are going to spend that much time here. They have travelled all over the world and have lots of good stories to tell. After Olhos d'Agua we headed for Tavira where Brenda and Basil stayed some years ago. We were already there once but it was so cold and windy that we didn't really get a feel for it. Today was lovely. The square was full of people sitting out in front of all the cafes sipping coffee or beer and soaking up the sun. Speaking of beer I think that's where we will head next. Angelu's is a Portugese bar (Marguerite) that caters to the English tourists. Thats where we head for on most afternoons and meet up with the usual suspects. It's hard to believe that our time here is coming to an end. We hope that Sicily will be as nice. Hope that you are all well and happy. Please say hello to everyone at Michaelbrook. We miss you all! Adios for now!!

Hello again. Yesterday we took a trip to Gibraltar. Typical us, we didn't have a map and didn't bother to ask just how far it was. It was far. Anyway round trip was over 800 kms. But the sun was shining and we saw the southern corner of Spain. Very pretty with rolling hills and prosperous looking farms. When we got to Gibraltar there were so many buses, cars, motorbikes and people that we could hardly move. Poor Ian never got the beer he was so looking forward to. However we did drive through the rock itself and the entire circumference. Also took a couple of pictures. Lesson learned I think. No more driving into large cities. The trip back to Albufeira took quite a bit longer than the trip down due to two freeway accidents and another roadblock of some sort. Traffic was stopped for miles and when we got to the front of it all there  were police and armed guards all over the place, some even with machine guns. (made us glad that we didn't have that beer after all!) Also, between the eastern part of Portugal through to Seville and quite a few miles south the smog was  so thick that it was hard to see anything much at all. Thankfully it had lifted by the time we got to Gibraltar and we got a good look at it. All in all it was an 11 hour day. Needless to say we are parking the car today and just wandering about. This morning we had some showers but the sun is poking out right now and the temperature is quite mild. We are going out for a traditional  Portugese dinner tonight. I'm really impressed with the food here. Hope it's as good in Sicily. Take care to all. Talk to you soon.
Linda

Woops! I'm not very good at this

Hi everyone,
Guess what? All the posts that I have sent have gone into cyberspace. Apparently I have not been logging on correctly. Karen Schick, I can hear you laughing all the way from Japan. And Judy, I know what you are thinking. So, I guess I'm starting all over again. I'm assuming you've all heard that we did not have a very good start to our holiday. First Ian's iritis flared up when we were in Vancouver. We spent one day in emergency at Royal Columbian and the following day out in Chilliwack where the doctor at Royal Columbian was able to get an appt. with a specialist for Ian. We arrived in London at about 7:30 next morning and had a difficult time finding the bus to our hotel. Everyone was so helpful.(NOT!!) We were in the bar by 10:30 and things were a lot better. Next morning our flight was delayed by 45 minutes due to engine problems.( I love that) We arrived in Faro, Portugal about 10:30 in the morning to clouds and wind like you could not believe. The directions to our apartment were a bit confusing. It took us until about 3:30 in the afternoon to find the place. Guess what? NO heat. (actually we had two little plug in heaters) So the first week we wondered what we were doing here, but we used our time to explore the Algarve and saw a lot of it. Then the sun came out and the world changed! Last week we took two days to see Lisbon and loved it. I've never seen so many leather boots, purses and beautiful scarves in my life. We took an afternoon and sat at an outside cafe/bar and people watched. There were so many fashionable people mixed with so many gypsies, beggars and street vendors. Not 10 minutes would go by without someone trying to sell us sunglasses, cell phones, watches or jewellry. Albufeira is like a different country from Lisbon. Very laid back. Lots of British tourists. We've made some new friends and found a Portugese version of Michaelbrook. Marguerite is the Portugese version of Heather. She gives lots of advice and occasionally tells us where to go.(no pun intended) I must also mention that the food here is incredible! Wonderful coffee, bread and fruit. I've even discovered some good Portugese wine. Which is good because that is about all they sell.Tomorrow we head for Gibraltar.Apparently the weather will be good and on Wednesday we expect some more rain. We have decided to skip Seville (just another big city) and spend the next week here in Albufeira. Pam has just booked us into a villa in Corfu, Sicily, which looks really good , so all is going well. So, goodbye for now. Sorry to have bungled this so badly.I could'nt figure out what everyone was complaining about!  P.S. Kathy Tycho--I did send you a message, but it could be anywhere. Hope you are dong o.k. Look forward to seeing you in April and swapping stories.
Linda and Ian