Days 1-2: 6/9-10 (travel days)

 We're off! (But only slightly).

Apologies to Honora for being on the road on the day of her birthday, but I spoke to her today (a day early) and it sounds like she and her fam have some fun things planned for her birthday tomorrow and beyond. 

We are going to Sicily. This trip is just with Mike and me. The reasons are a little complicated and will be saved for another post. Mike has been the instigator of these trips because he had been doing trips with his wife Jane them long before we had regularized an annual guy trip starting in 2013. Ironically, the first trip we took was a VBT trip also to Sicily which is where we are going for this trip too, 11 years later.

In 2013, there were four of us and three of us checked bags inside the airport. Vince checked his bag curbside not knowing that you typically tip these guys. The airlines lost the bags of the three of us checking bags inside. Only Vince's bag arrived in Palermo. We learned a valuable lesson and since then we don't check bags. 

Alitalia has pretty strict carry-on restrictions. This meant buying a new carry-on that was about an inch smaller (including wheels) than most, and weighing our bags to meet the 8 kilo (17.6 pounds) limit. After a lot of packing and repacking, I can confidently say that my carry-on will meet the size and weight limitations and my "personal item" will be about 30 pounds!

Here's the look: wearing bike shoes to save weight!

Complete with Giro socks!

Our first stop was JFK where we had to exit security to get on the AirTrain to the international terminal. Once we got through security (again) and to our gate, Mike treated me to an airport lounge. Here's one of the buffets. The food was actually pretty good. 

 


Here's Mike caught with a plate of healthy food.

This picture was not staged!

While we were lounging, a Lufthansa 747 pulled in. Those are big planes!

It was fun to watch them service the plane. This is just small part of the cleaning crew. There were probably 25 of them.

Interestingly, this flight was carrying cargo. Maybe all commercial flights do?

The trailer surface was rollers so this guy was literally pushing those boxes of cargo.

We meandered to our gate and killed some time in a gift shop. Here's what airport gift shops think will appeal to international travelers. Welcome to America!

We flew on Delta to JFK where we took Alitalia to Rome and then to Catania. 

The food was underwhelming. This is what my dinner looked like in economy.

I paid for this later.

We spent a couple of hours in the Rome airport and another lounge (thanks Mike!) before we got on a smaller plane to Catania. The third flight was uneventful except air traffic held us on the runway for a good 40 minutes before we could take off. By that time, I was ready to jump out of my skin and Mike said he was awfulizing.

VBT met us at the Catania airport and put us in a van with 5 other VBTers for about a one-hour drive to Taromina. The drive was uneventful until we got to Taromina where the road narrowed to barely two lanes and guardrails on the cliffside of the road. Driving here required nerves of steel.

Besides narrow and winding roads up the hill (it would be almost impossible to bike here), there were motorbikes zooming around and pedestrians and no room for them. The driver was very courteous (and safe). 

This is a view from the van of one of the roads with the cliff on the right.

Our first hotel was the Eurostar. It's probably a European chain with a lot of steel and glass - quite anomalous from the rest of the village.


The lobby is on the 8th floor and the hotel goes DOWN, so we are four floors down on the 4th floor. Here is the elevator. Not for the faint of heart.

Here's the view from our hotel room.


We headed off to explore the village. We hit a few churches, the Greek Theatre archaeological site, and then dinner in an alley-way restaurant. 

Here's the Greek Theatre. It held up to 10,000 spectators and it is still used on occasion. 


This is a picture of the upper bowl (to the left of the picture above). When we arrived, there was an a capella group singing from the top rows. 

Here's the alleyway where we ate dinner.

Find of the day: a sports equipment shop with bicycle jerseys!

Sign of the day: 

Location: Taromina

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