Fresh Wine!

Thanks to a good friend, we went to a local wine store.  It is the most charming place.  Brick and wood beams everywhere.  There are wines lining the walls.  Everything you can imagine.  Their prices are all really reasonable.  After looking at all the shelves, we head to the back room.  There lining the wall are four huge metal vats.  Each has a label on it.  We ask the woman if we can have a taste.  They speak no English but we manage to get our point across.  I tasted three different wines.  One is a Cabernet, which is just wonderful.  It isn't too harsh, it is smooth and tasty.  I try two others which I am not sure what they are but they taste great!  We tell them we want two bottle of each type.  The owners  take six clean bottles and fill them and cap them for us.  They also add the "fancy" label.  This wine is organic so once it is  open you have to drink it, it does not keep.  This is not really asking too much since the stuff is so good.  Now you know the secrete to my "house wine".  We will be serving this wine at our house since it is inexpensive but tastes fantastic.  Just another little joy of living in Italy.

Eat Love and Pray Pizzeria!

What a fun day!  Thanks so Kody.  She took Jannelle and I on our first bus trip to downtown Naples.  We parked the cars at the Capo base near the Naples airport.  Then we walked to the airport to get the bus.  It was 3 euros to ride.  The bus was pretty hot but we got seats so it wasn't too bad.  We rode it for one stop and got off and walked.  Naples is like any big city, crowded and busy.  One section reminded Janelle of Market street in San Francisco and I agreed.  We got off the bus dodged a few cars along the way and walked the couple of blocks to the pizzeria.  Kody wasn't exactly sure of the side street to take, but as we were looking at one street a street vendor looked at us and said ,"Pizzeria, si!" and pointed right.  I guess this place is getting very popular with tourist.  I know locals have always known about it.  We got there early, at eleven, because we have been told you can not get in the door at lunch time.  The smell of fresh homemade goodness greeted us at the door.  It was so nice that it was empty because we got to look around. I tried to take pictures of everything.  We were asked if we wanted cheese or double cheese.  We went all in and got the double.  I took a few photos and before I could put the camera away the pizza was ready.  The oven is so hot it cooked so fast.  It was so pretty I didn't want to eat it.  But of course, I did!!  It was so yummy.  The sauce was not heavy or overly tomato.  It was perfect.  The cheese had the perfect blend of salt so it worked well with the sauce.  The crust was very think but you could still pick it up!  It was just wonderful!!  We had Jacob with us, who is 8 months, and the staff just loved him.  Italians love babies.  It was such a fun lunch!  I can not wait for visitors so that I can go back =)

 

Heading to Sigonella Sicily Oct 9-12

We drove down to Sicily for the girls first swim meet as Tiger Sharks.  It was such a pretty drive.  We were going up and through the mountains.  It was about an eight hour drive total.  The ferry ride from the boot to Sicily was a nice break.  Although, the girls thought it was far too short.  The region of the boot is Calabria and after driving over all those hills, we now know why it too Strega Nonna so long to get to Strega Amelia’s house.  It would have a been a long hard walk over those hills =)  I tried to get some pictures of the mountains, but they really did not do them any justice.  The roads were going straight through the mountains and over huge valleys.  We were always up so high it felt like you could touch the clouds!  On the way home we counted the tunnels because it seemed like a lot.  There were twenty four tunnels on the island of Sicily between the port and Sigonella.  From the tip of the boot to home, there was 81 tunnels.  I think we went through more in one weekend then any of us had ever been through in our whole lives.  Unfortunately, we did not have sunny Sigonella for the meet.  It was actually rainy and cold.  So the girls did not swim there best but they did have fun.  Plus it was nice to meet the other swim families.  Luckily the meet was on a base because after the meet we had to get rain gear since we came completely unprepared.  It was supposed to be sunny and in the 80’s.  OOOPS!  We bought some warm stuff so that we could go explore on Sunday.  We found a get festival on the side of Mt. Etna.  It was called Ottobratta.  It happens every Sunday in October.  It was there version of October fest.  There was plenty of vendors selling everything from limoncello to salami.  We had fun browsing the booths and sampling the local selections.  We brought some honey to enjoy at home.  It was right off the honeycomb!  YUMMY!  It was a fun way to spend the day.  We tried to drive up Mt. Etna but the visibility was really bad.  We were able to see a cooled lava flow.  It last erupted in 2002.  You could see the flow and how the lava had cooled and made huge rocks.  Of course, we had to stop and take a piece of basalt home.    It was a fun weekend.  We hope that when we return for the next swim meet, it will be sunny so we can make it to the top of the Volcano!