Sicily!

Beautiful, beautiful view of the ocean, coastline, mountain
and winding roads. Totally in love! 

On Sunday, we decided to take a bus tour into the Sicilian countryside, and I am so glad we did. The tour included the four of us, an older Brazilian couple, a driver, and 21-year-old English speaking guide named Antonio (who was adorable). We first drove to an ancient ruins site that reminded me a lot of the structures in Rome. We took a shuttle bus way way up a hill to another site, which included some more smaller ruins and a huge theater that overlooks the countryside, as far as you can see. It was such a beautiful day, although the wind was a bit strong when we were so high up.

ancient ruins

amphitheater on the top of the hill

After this, we hopped back in our van and headed to our next location. We had no idea that when it said “salt lakes” on the tour pamphlet, it literally meant “salt lakes”, where the make salt by evaporating sea water from little pools on the coast, until they’re left with sea salt. It was actually kind of cool to see hundreds of these long pools along the ocean. There was also a “salt museum”, which we all opted out of. Who knows if we will someday regret that, but I’m fairly confident it was a good decision. Our guide, Antonio, was so funny and spoke English very well. He is actually traveling to the United States in 2 weeks for over a month. We got a picture together and the brazilian couple said it was our engagement picture. From there on out, we spent the rest of the day planning our wedding and life together. I told him he could meet my family when he is in the U.S. over christmas. I can about imagine the looks on everyones faces! ha ha. It was all pretty funny. I suppose it wouldn't be so bad marrying someone from Sicily. I will have summers free, you know.  :)

Our tour guide, Antonio 

a couple of the salt lakes

Our third and final stop was a medieval village at the top of a mountain. It was a little eerie when we first arrived as it had just began raining and it was a bit of a ghost town. We walked around the little village, admired the views, and beautiful brick streets. There was also a huge castle up on the hill that we came across. It reminded me of scenery you would maybe find in Scotland or Ireland. With so much green grass and beautiful castles and views. After too short of a time in this medieval town, we headed back down the mountain and through the countryside to Palermo. Sicily was such a beautiful place and I would love to rent a car and spend a couple of weeks here at some point in my life. The people were also really distinct and were everything I had pictured when hearing about Sicilians in the past. When we returned, we decided we were a little sick of pasta and pizza every night and went to a cute Chinese restaurant for dinner. We had such a fun meal and ate WAY too much. It sure was a nice change though!

Castle in the medieval town of Erchie

The next morning, we took a very interesting taxi ride back to the Palermo airport, a plane back to Pisa, and a city bus to the leaning tower. We decided we may as well check out this world famous monument while we were so close. It was pretty funny to see all the different families and groups of people lining themselves up to take  the famous picture, holding up leaning tower. We follow suit and snapped a couple of our own. You can’t go to Pisa and not take the picture! I was also very surprised at how beautiful the tower was. The pictures really don’t do it much justice and it is much taller than I had expected. We decided not to climb the tower (you never know when its actually going to fall!) and just take the pictures for today. I was happy to have finally done this, as Pisa is only about an hour from Florence.

What would they do without me, right? 

We had such a great and relaxing weekend in Sicily. I am so glad Kara and her friends had the opportunity to come visit me. Their visit made my time in Italy move a little quicker, and gave me something to look forward to. It was sad to see them leave, but I am so thankful for our time together.