The trip of a lifetime

Since leaving Sicily in 1956 for a new life in the United States, Lou has only been back to Sicily 4 times. And the last time, in 2010, we were only in Messina for half a day as a stop on a Mediterranean cruise. Years ago, about the time that I declared I didn't want to revisit any US state until I'd seen all 50 (that's not going too well), Lou made known that he wanted to plan a trip to explore Italy - and Sicily - for his 65th birthday. He wanted to circumnavigate the island of Sicily. He wanted to stay for at least a month, possibly as long as six weeks. He wanted to rent an apartment or two and live like an Italian. For years, it was all talk. All of a sudden, his 65th birthday was less than a year away and it was time to plan.

Questions came up. How were we going to split our time between mainland Italy and Sicily? Where were we going to base ourselves? Will I have time to learn Italian?

Because the focus of our trip was Sicily, we mapped out a driving itinerary around Sicily. Starting in Messina and ending in Palermo. (Years ago, Lou's mother beseeched us not to visit Palermo on our first trip to Sicily together. Could we actually visit Sicily this time, even though his mother has been dead for years, knowing that it went against her wishes?)

I came up with a 12-day itinerary for our trip to Sicily. We would start in Palermo and visit Trapani, Marsala, Agrigento, Ragusa, and Siracusa. I left us 3 days at the end of our trip to explore the parts of Messina where young Luigi spent his early days.

Then I started planning our mainland trip. I knew what we wanted to see... but was there a way to base ourselves one place while seeing all we wanted to see. Lou had his "must visit" spots - Venice and Lake Como. And I wanted to do a stay at an argriturismo (a farm stay), wanted to eat pizza in the birthplace of pizza, Naples, and I wanted to see the Amalfi coast. How were we going to fit this all in? Of course, if we were "in the neighborhood," I wanted to stop in San Pellegrino Terme. Can you think of a better photo op for the Pellegrinios while doing Italy?

I emailed Lou's cousin, a travel agent in Switzerland, for her advice. I sent her our proposed itinerary, and she sent back an itinerary that looked more like something the first-time Italian visitor would see. At least I knew that wasn't what we wanted to do.

We spent nights just pouring over websites, trying to figure out what to include and what not to include in our "trip of a lifetime." When should we leave? We knew we wanted to be home on Lou's actual birthday, November 16th. Okay... what was 6 weeks before that?