Sicily

While more and more days are starting to look like spring here in Bologna, we are by no means home free. Often a 50 degree and sunny day is followed up by several 30 and rainy days (I know nothing compared to Minnesota winters...but still ugly). So in an attempt to escape Bologna life eight other SAIS students and myself went down to Sicily last weekend!

Our flight was at 6:30 am Friday morning with Ryanair! The upside of the early morning flight was that we were in Sicily by 8:00 am and had the whole day there. We spent the first part of the day traveling to the town we would be staying in Cefalu. Well situated in the middle of the northern coast of the Island we heard it was a beautiful beach town that was well situated for day trips to other places in Sicily.

The weather did not let us down as on Friday when we arrived it was in the mid 60s and sunny out! In fact we were even crazy enough to go to the beach and get in the water (all of the Italians thought we were crazy!). Since the weather was so nice on Friday we spent basically the whole day hanging out at the beach a relaxing. That evening we found an excellent local restaurant where we enjoyed great food and wine. I should also mention that the B&B we stayed in was amazing! It was right on the sea and had a huge terrace that was about 40 feet above where the sea met the shore.

The crew after getting off the train in Cefalu (la rocka in the background)

Me in the main square of Cefalu (where we had breakfast every morning) with the Duomo in the background

The view from the terrace at our B&B

Everybody on the terraceTossing the Frisbee around on the beach

More Frisbee with the setting sun in the background

Me on the beach in Cefalu

Saturday the weather did not prove to be as great as it was only about 50 and mostly cloudy. Still we wanted to make the best of it so we chartered a van and a driver to take us all to Mt. Etna! The driver was very excited to have a bunch of young students and dubbed his car the "Disco Bus" and played crazy techno, disco, pop, and all other forms of loud blasting music the whole way to Mt. Etna. By the time we got to Etna we were all a bit sick (either caused by the Music or those famous Italian driving skills). Once there we were able to walk around the lava fields and craters and explore part of the mountain. As it is still "winter" in Sicily Mt. Etna had a lot of snow and people were even sledding and skiing on it (what a difference from the previous day)! Due to all the snow all routes to the peak of Mt. Etna were closed, but we still enjoyed exploring the volcano. On our way back we asked the driver if we could have a bit more music and managed to sleep a good portion of the way back to Cefalu. The evening then concluded with a good amount of excellent Italian food and Sicilian Vino!

The Disco Bus Crew

Mt. Etna (click on the picture to get a better view)

View Upwards into the clouds towards the top! (note the ski lifts)

Me in the lava fields

Sunday was our last day in Sicily. The weather unfortunately deteriorated further and it rained most of the day. Still this did not stop us from further exploring Cefalu. We managed to go part way up "la rocka" a huge rock right in the town of Cefalu that had excellent overviews of the surrounding areas. Mid-afternoon we took a train into Palermo there we had a late afternoon meal and wandered the town to see some of its sights before jumping on our bus back to the airport for our flight back to Bologna.

Me on "la rocka" in Cefalu

The view from "la rocka"

Cathedral in Palermo

Opera House in Palermo

All in all it turned out to be a great trip. It would of been awesome to have 3 hot and sunny days but we made sure to enjoy our time away from school and each others company no matter the weather or conditions.

Movie of some of our activities. Starts out with a panorama of our view from the B&B, then me getting into the sea to swim, and finally some shots of the disco bus (notice please the crazy music and the drivers lack of hands on the steering wheel)

I imagine I will not do a lot of traveling the remainder of the month now as mid-terms will be upon us very soon and in order to save money for my spring break trip to Morocco! If you would like to see more pictures from my trip to Sicily check them out on Facebook (no account needed).