A closer look at Sicily

Lou started looking at itineraries of tour companies, mostly in Sicily, to make sure that our planned itinerary made sense.

He found several interesting itineraries. And then he found this amazing company.  Tour de Forks
Check out the website. If you're anything of a foodie, it sounds amazing! I wrote up an email and sent it off. We figured that even if it was twice what we'd planned to spend during our time in Sicily, it would be worth it. We wouldn't have to rent a car (and more importantly, someone else would be driving) and we'd be spending time with like-minded foodie travelers. Sounded perfect.

I wrote up an email and sent it off.We emailed back and forth a bit and then arranged a time to speak to Melissa about the trip.One of her first questions to me was, "Are you comfortable driving around Sicily?" Hmm. What about being driven around with like-minded foodie travelers? "This is an independent tour." Yes, we were still interesting in seeing the salt pans in Trapani and tasting marsala in Marsala. But we wanted to do it with other people. Not drive place to place alone to meet a different guide at each site we'd stop at. The price really blew me away. We were prepared to spend double than our previously allotted budget, but nearly 4 times? And we'd still need to drive ourselves? Um, nope. That wasn't what we had in mind.

For the following few weeks, Lou kept asking himself (and me) if we really wanted to go to Sicily. "No one is there anymore. Why are we even going? What are we going to see?" So about a month after being really excited about traveling with Tour de Forks, Sicily was removed from our itinerary. I didn't trust it would stay off the itinerary. But as far as Lou was concerned, there was no need to go back to Sicily on this trip - that started because Lou wanted to see "the rest" of Sicily, the parts he hadn't seen growing up or on previous trips.

I guess I didn't understand how Sicily could be deleted. We're going to be in Sorrento. Isn't that like a stone's throw from Sicily? If I lived in a country other than the United States and we were going to be in Washington, DC, wouldn't I want to revisit Brooklyn, New York, the place where I was born? Wasn't this the same?

If people asked us if we were going to Sicily, Lou said no. And I said, "We'll see."

At about this time, I decided that I didn't really want to be gone for 6 weeks. I didn't want the expense of a 6-week vacation, and I didn't want to be away from home for that long. We decided to keep our trip to the original 4 weeks on the mainland, just excluding the final 2 weeks in Sicily.

Until....

I realized that Lou was spending an inordinate amount of time on Google Maps, street view, exploring parts of his past in Sicily. He'd call me over to look at his screen and he'd reminisce and give me tours.... and "Really, you don't want to go to Sicily? We can take the train there from Sorrento, spend a few days and fly home."

And that's what we decided to do. Sicily will now be the last 3 days of our trip. We'll go to Messina, stay in Milazzo and take a trip down Memory Lane. Since Lou was born on a farm, I booked us a room at an agriturismo cum RV park. Lou's okay that we're going to Sicily. He's okay with the train (my choice). But he doesn't seem particularly thrilled with the idea of an RV park. No matter how clean it is. It had better not be another Bonassola. (That was the one night during our honeymoon trip to Italy where Lou took one look at the room - once we were already there - and said, "I'm not staying here!")