4/7/2022

Day One of viaggio italiano – Let’s just say 21 hours between waiting in airports, sitting in airplanes – I was more than ready to get outdoors and smell some fresh air and stretch.

We had a driver from the airport in Catania to the apartment and as we drove through the areas I was reminded of how old Europe really is with it’s buildings and architecture that you pretty much will never see in the U.S. It is very different from what we are used to but beautiful in its own way. I just cannot imagine the time and labor it took to put these buildings together! So many buildings are undergoing remodeling and it is really beautiful what they are doing to these places. I would love to know the history of the building we are in, the outside isn’t much but inside has been turned into different apartments and the character of the apartments tells me it had to have been a palace at one time.

Here is a photo of our apartment building. Our apartment is at the balcony with two green chairs in the third row up, left most balcony. The balconies are very narrow but you can sit out there. Restaurants constitute most of the ground floor spaces on both sides of the street so we get to people watch.

Jim and I unpacked and couldn’t wait to get outside and roam around. By the time we did, it was around 6pm so that meant we’d be walking around in the dark knowing we’d get lost. That is the fun of walking in new cities, never know where you will end up and we found some places that may have been questionable but that’s ok. We found many restaurants and it was tough not to stop but we were tired and not hungry so we just enjoyed the smells and all the conversations.

Thursday 4/7. After a good night’s sleep and some breakfast we decided to look for the market I found on line while doing my research before the trip. We found it but it was mostly clothing and everything else you could think of. Jim kept telling me there was no food here and I said lets keep walking – it has to be here, I saw it on line! Like that should be the answer to everything right? Well I saw a guy walking with a box of oranges and I thought “oh, there’s a market here alright” and suddenly there it was and boy was it ever a sight to behold. I just smiled that “I told-you-so smile” and Jim said oh boy, is this ever a market. I bought cheese, prosciutto, olives, oranges, strawberries for lunch/dinner depending on when we’d hit a restaurant. We found a wonderful bakery and got a loaf of Italian bread to top off our meal. We headed back to the apartment to unload the food and relax for a bit before heading out again.

We started our afternoon walk headed towards Catania Bay. It was a good walk and we saw some of the sea but there was a seawall that kept us from seeing the larger body of water. What we saw was beautiful and the most beautiful color green I’ve ever seen. We walked for a couple of hours on both trips and after flying in yesterday, we needed to relax a bit. Below are some of the sights we saw along the way today.

I do have to say thank goodness for smart phones that help navigate when you aren’t quite sure which direction you should be going.

It was time to find a restaurant that we saw on line which was supposedly open from 1-2:30 for lunch. It was quite a walk and when we got there, the maitre’d was really nice and apologetic but they were no longer serving lunch. They closed at 1pm! Darn website! Anyway, we decided to walk back to the apartment which was quite a haul. I told Jim let’s walk fast or I’m going to fizzle but if we see a taxi, let’s grab it. No such luck so it was walk a little faster and get back to the apartment to relax and eat. By then it was 4pm so we had our bread and snacks – as seen below. Around 6:30, we decided to find a restaurant close to home and get some seafood.

We found the one I saw on line, Canni & Pisci (meats & fishes); that’s how they spelled fishes (fish plural in normal Italian would be pesci – pisci might be a dialect spelling? Pisci means something else entirely!) It was fabulous and they were open – well the website said it was open so I was hoping this one was right. The Maitre’d asked if we had reservations. We did not. And, the restaurant does not open until 8:00 but the maitre’d went ahead and seated us — it was 7:30! (He also seated two, maybe three, other groups before 8:00!) There were two sides to the restaurant. He seated us on what seemed a slightly less formal side of the restaurant which was perfectly fine.

Two guys walked in and were seated next to us. It was nice to listen to them talk and you knew they were friends and really enjoying some great food. They knew how to order that’s for sure, starting with an appetizer of several different kinds of fish. I was full just watching them and we hadn’t even eaten. I ordered a house salad and Jim ordered Gnocchetti (small Gnocchi that was done in an eggplant sauce with ricotta.) OMG it was delicious. For our secondi (second courses,) Jim had Branzino and I ordered Sicilian Red Prawns (a large shrimp common to Sicily) over mashed potatoes. Both dishes were amazing. Add a little local white wine and that was more than enough for us. We were stuffed!

The guys next to us had pasta and a fish course and they were also pretty full. We started talking with each other so they got our story and we got theirs. They loved the fact that I had the Italian background and was half Sicilian – cracked me up. We talked for quite a while and their English was no better than my Italian but somehow we each knew what we were trying to say. They then ordered Tiramisu for dessert and it was delivered to their table, the guy sitting closest to me gave me his and would not take no for an answer so I ate half and begged Jim to help me with the other half. OMG you could have rolled us both home we were so stuffed but boy was it yummy. Gotta keep walking!

A domani,