Travel Day(s) to Sicily

We left Moncton in lots of snow at around noon on Friday, first stop Toronto.  Had lunch in Toronto, which helped kill part of the 3 hour layover, then off to Amsterdam.   

Bye Bye snow, our deck at home yesterday

Leaving Moncton

Somewhere between Moncton and TO, must be in the states

Near TO Airport

Waiting for our plane

Flying KLM to Amsterdam

In Amsterdam we had a 5 hour layover, and were very happy to find some lounge chairs for a nap, we didn’t sleep that great on the plane.  

Honey, do we need magnets

I think  these shoes makes me look skinny. I will take 2 pairs please

Found these in Amsterdam and had naps. Only 10 seats like this in our section of the airport

Lazy cat in the airport

Airport Library, great idea

One more flight to go

Instead of plastic serving trays

Our first view of Mt Etna

Finally arrived in Catania Sicily at around 3:30 PM, thought our luggage did not arrive with us, but were very happy to see a last load come out on the carousel and thankfully ours was in that load.

Waiting at the bus stop

We did catch our first glimpse of Mount Etna from the ground while in Catania waiting for the bus, it was a little hazy, but we are hoping to get there one day for more of a visit.

Carnival Andre hope to go see on Tuesday

These costumes were on display by the carnival sign

Caught a bus from Catania to Syracuse at 4:40, it was a little late arriving, so we were a little late getting into Syracuse.  It is a little more than 1 hour bus ride, but it makes stops as people want off so it was longer than we thought.  Syracuse did not impress us very much, pretty much looked like any city with lots of big buildings. 

The person we are renting from was not available today to give us keys to our apartment we rented from AIRBNB, so we had her friends phone number.  On the bus we tried calling her to let her know we were on our way, but my phone wouldn’t connect to her number.  After lots of frustration I asked the people in front of us if they spoke English and would they help us with their phone.  They were a really nice young couple, he was originally from France, she is half American, half Italian and she lives in Sicily, but wouldn’t go into any more details about her story.  Anyway she did connect with the person that was meeting us, we were very relived. 

Met up with Ursala who is Polish and speaks very little English, and says she is not Italian though she has lived here for 20 years.  Got the grand tour of the apartment, which will work out just fine for us.  After our tour we went out to explore a little, we are very near the water.  It was dark by this point and I was wondering where all the people were.  The 2 other times we have been to Italy Saturday night is walkabout night, normally the streets are filled with locals out walking.  Ursula had told us where we could find a grocery store, but we figured we must have gone the wrong way.  Back to the apartment and head in the other direction, and surprise, we find the streets filled with pedestrians, shops and restaurants.   Our first impression is we are going to love it here.  We did find a beautiful fountain, that I am sure we will see 100 times over the next few weeks.  We also came across a shop that sold ice cream and cannoli made fresh to order, so that was a great start to our supper tonight.

Explored the streets a bit more, then found what we think is the grocery store we were looking for.  Picked up a few things for breakfast to go with what the owners left us so we should be good for a couple of breakfasts now.

Back to the house unloaded our small grocery run, then back out and picked up a pizza to go with the wine we bought.  It is now 9PM Italy time, nearly ready for bed…