Our last full day - 10/21/15

It's hard to believe that today was (almost) our last full day in Italy. Yes, we'll be here all day tomorrow too. But tomorrow we'll need to deal with returning our rental car, catching a flight to Milan, and staying at an airport hotel. Today was the last full day of vacation.

Our plans for today were pretty unambitious. We got nearly everything done that we wanted to, we enjoyed and we relaxed. We'd planned to visit two tourist spots, one family spot and to do some shopping.

The weather forecast called for higher chances of rain between 11 and 2. Yesterday the forecast was dead wrong so we weren't sure what to expect. We headed to our first tourist spot, the Castello, first. Again, my lack of knowledge of European history hindered me a bit when it came to understanding all that we were seeing. It was originally built in the 11th century and its last purpose before becoming a national monument and tourist site was as a prison in the 17th or 18th century. Even without knowing the who, what, when or why, we were awed by the construction, the layout and the vistas. When classical music was played over loudspeakers, I felt as though I was stepping back in time.

One of the coolest parts of our visit to the Castello was not directly related to the site at all. We walked into what was once a convent, took a right turn and ended up at an exhibit set up by a dedicated historian named Nino whose mission in life is to bring Sicilian history to life. Well, to those who understand Italian. Even without understanding, I learned a few things and was entertained.

It started raining as we were climbing back down to where we'd parked the car. Didn't get too wet at all. Next stop was Capo Milazzo. The drive up had us passing magnificent villas that I'm sure sported great views. It was until we had reached the top that I remembered being there with Lou on our first trip to Sicily. We climbed down to the ancient church of San Antonio of Padova. It's built right into the side of the mountain. Walked back up top, had a quick coffee and took the panoramic road back down to Milazzo, the road we were warned not to drive at night because it has no lights. There were some lovely villas on this road as well.

Our next destination was Pace del Mela and Giammoro where Lou's mother's family lived, where he spent the summer when he was 16 and where his grandparents are buried. We had an interesting drive around, stopped at the cemetery, and managed to go the wrong way on a senso unico for the first time this trip. Driving down, I saw a gorgeous rainbow below where we were up on the mountain. Had we not just made that horribly wrong turn, I might have asked Lou to stop for a photograph.

We thought we'd have lunch over there but nothing is open between 1 and 4 or 4:30. (Our first trip to Italy we only at lunch once, in Milazzo.) We decided that we'd head to Milazzo and find something open here. We passed something on the way called Parco Corolla that I thought looked like a shopping mall so we stopped there. We shared a sandwich at a snack bar before realizing we could have had something better inside the supermarket. It was more like a shopping center with an IperCoop (more of a supermarket than a Super Walmart might be), a McDonald's, the Italian equivalents of Home Depot, Best Buy, Macy's and Sports Authority. As always, we had fun in the supermarket.

Zucca and olives for sale!

We enjoyed some last day prickly pears.

Sicilian eggplant are just called eggplant here.

Lowes has a much better selection of seeds.

We were looking for t-shirts, hats and candy. Apparently, Sicily has no local sports teams. The only t-shirts with writing said Brooklyn, New York and Nets. As if we needed further confirmation that Brooklyn is hot!

Lou really wanted a Sicilia hat. I suggested we drive near the port in Milazzo to look for a souvenir store. We didn't find of of those, but we drove past a cart selling hats and there was exactly the hat Lou had been looking for.

After the nightmare of returning to our hotel late afternoon and needing to find a parking spot, we came up to our hotel room to pack. We may have traveled light in getting here but we acquired enough in a month that we're going home with an extra suitcase.

Evening stroll, dinner out (my third version of pasta ala Norma in 3 days. And since it was our final evening of real vacation, we stopped at a bar on the way back to the hotel for cannolis and drinks.

Lou is going to miss his Chino.

I cannot believe our trip is near its end.

Buona notte.