An Etna Adventure
...last night in Paris
As I said in my last post I wanted to share the story of Marc’s birthday on Mt Etna. We were up there in June for a weekend with a dear friend visiting from Portland. I could just tell you about this photo and it would be enough. Of course I’ll go beyond that. However, this is where we start with our host in an Airbnb in the village of Tortorici. Our host, Antonino is 89 years. His son was our main contact until we arrived. We stayed in this darling cottage just behind him in the garden of his home. When he found out that is was to be Marc’s birthday while we were there he decided he must make us daily breakfast. This included going to a friend’s home at 6a to pick plums for the table. When I came out the first morning he was sitting in his dining room eating and I saw another older man in his own apartment sitting at the table eating. I thought it was interesting that both these apartments looked into the same garden. Well it turned out that the other gentleman was our host’s older brother Gaetano (92 year’s old). They kept separate households with a kitchen in the middle. Nino and Tano were adorable! I asked Tano how long he had lived in the house. He looked at me and said…well I’m 92. By the second day, Marc’s birthday, Nino was concerned what time we might come back from our planned excursion for the day. He had light dinner and a cake planned.
Antonino moved to Florence as a younger man and owned three men’s clothing stores. He put his kids all through college and when he sold his stores to retire he returned to his family home. Gaetano just loved having fun. he didn’t ever marry or have kids. He worked for his brother for several years. He brought out some photos of himself from the 1960s looking quite dapper. Tano is the elder by 4 years. Look how much younger he looks from his less stress life. While Nino is still driving Tano can be seen walking around the village square with a friend daily.
Do you see the porcini mushrooms on the tablecloth? This area is full of them in October and November. the only way we could leave was to promise to return in the fall. We were all so sad about parting that the brothers are now also planning a trip to join us for lunch at our house when we return in September.
Tortorici was fun to wander around, but we did head over to the town of Bronte (famous for the very best quality pistachios in Sicily) to take the tourist train around a few towns. The trains are a reuse of old Sicilian ones to take tourists around to region of villages while keeping Etna in view. We were there a week after she had spewed lava. We witnessed the usual smoke she blows daily.
The food is so wonderful up in these villages! Just 2 hours from where we live and so different. These dishes are full of the pistachios. Even on one of the crostini. Lunch was in the town of Randazzo at San Giorgio e Il Drago (Saint George and the Dragon). So good! I didn’t get a photo of the steak for the table. They are known for the aged meats and local dishes.
And while this was for Marc I went nuts as we drove through the forested area above Tortorici. Here were all the plants I’d been missing from Oregon just a couple hours away! Oak and Pines with stands of Nettle, wild Rose, Mullien and about 5 different little weeds I could have made into oils for scrapes and bites. It brought a peace to me I hadn’t realized I was missing.
I love living in such a diverse area as Sicily. For an island you really find everything you could want from mountains to sea to city life. It is of course quite different from where we have been the last month, but my heart is back there waiting for me.
Tonight is our last night in Paris. We fly to Rome tomorrow night so we can make connections the next day from there. And while my heart is in Sicily, I’m pretty sad about this adventure ending. We have seen great art, eaten some incredible food and just wandered the neighborhoods. Something that wouldn’t have occurred to us to do years ago. The world is so much smaller when you don’t have to fly as far to begin a trip and there are apartments for rent so no hotel stays. I don’t think we’d stay at this apartment again. It did not have a full kitchen and loft sleeping got old after a while (mattress on the floor is for the young). Today we ate bistro food, walked around the Eiffel tower and along the Seine river. We don’t have to rush out in the morning so we will have one last lunch nearby before we grab the metro out of here. I have a few more photos to add to my stories over on Instagram and I’ll gather up the list of favorite places both here and the two nights we stayed in Beaune for my birthday a few days ago. I’m not going to give you more than our favorites, because why offer the so-so choices. But if you plan a trip over always look to Patricia Wells app. She has never let us down. Although we did find a few places were no longer in business so I started double checking places on Google.
Ciao Amici!