Dear all, We have made it back home to California and I must say it feels great to be back home. No matter how fun the trip, it is always nice to be back in familiar surroundings. On our final two days in Italy, we visited Mount Etna, the old village of Taormina, and the city of Catania, which is Read more

Hello Everyone, Here is another post written by Cath, elevating this blog from the usual accounts of what we've eaten and into a bit of history and culture: It will come as no surprise to you that Italy has more UNESCO world heritage sites than any other country in the world. Sicily alone has Read more

We arrived in Siracusa in the evening and were dropped off by our driver, Giuseppe, at the Algila Hotel on the island of Ortigia. We were pretty tired from our trip so decided to skip dinner and just make it an early night. The Algila Hotel is a very nice and comfortable hotel with a really great Read more

Hello Everyone, Leaving Palermo we traveled up into the hills to tour the Monreale Cathedral, a masterpiece of Norman architecture built in 1182 by William II, the third Norman king of Sicily. It is considered one of the most important examples of Norman architecture in all of Sicily. The interior Read more

A CathPost!™ In Naples, we visited another impressive commission of the Bourbon King Charles III, the Teatro di San Carlo. It was opened in 1737 and for a long while was the largest opera house in the world. All the great musicians of the time performed there. It is now the oldest opera house Read more

As usual with these travel blogs, the actual traveling sometimes gets in the way of the important work of reporting to our loyal readers about what we are eating on our trip. So we may have to skip over a few things for now, and catch you up as we go forward with the last leg of our trip in Sicily. Read more

Hi everyone, Jim has consented to allow a guest post. So andiamo… xo, Cath. We began the day at Reggio Caserta, 40 minutes north of Naples, the largest royal palace in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was commissioned in 1752 by Charles III of the Bourbon family (famous for Read more

Hi everyone, On our first full day in Naples we went up into the hills and had a pizza making class.  Most of you know that I am a very avid pizza maker and pizza eater.  I have a pizza oven that can get very hot, up to 900F. But for one reason or another I have never really gotten into Read more

We departed Rome via an express train to Naples and arrived in a little over an hour. We were met by our driver, Andrea, who delivered us to our hotel, the Grand Albergo Vesuvius, which is indeed very grand. Enrico Caruso, the famous opera singer died here. The hotel is situated right on the Bay of Read more

Hard to believe we're on our third day in Rome, which means we'll be saying Arrivederche to the Eternal City tomorrow morning. The time has gone so quickly and I really wish we had another day here. But we have much adventure ahead so don't cry for me (you probably weren't at all close to crying Read more