Places to Visit Again

We're around six weeks into our trip and here are the places we'd like to visit again and would recommend.

Giardini Naxos - Sicily was great all around and Giardini Naxos was the perfect place to take a little break from traveling. We definitely want to explore more of the coast and the interior of the island.

Islands of Greece - We managed to do Athens in three days so next time it's island hopping time.

Slovenia - We loved Ljubljana and our day trip out to Bled. The area is beautiful and would be a great place to come back to for hiking, camping, etc. The people were very nice and we really felt like that was a highlight of our trip so far.

Budapest - This city is much larger than we expected. We only budgeted two days to see the sights and missed so much. If you go, spend at least a week so you have time to walk around the Castle Hill, take in an opera, hit the museums, and just soak in the city.

We're heading into Germany, Switzerland, and more of Austria for the rest of May then on to Amsterdam and Belgium before heading into the UK. If you have recommendations in those areas, we'd love to hear them.

Relaxing Sicilian Style

The last week in Giardini Naxos has been a great opportunity for us to relax, recharge, and get ready for the next leg of our trip.

We started the week off with a trip up to Taormina where we walked up the stair pathway to the top of Castelmola, wandered through the botanical gardens, perused the shops with the other tourists, and were chased home by a pretty impressive thunderstorm.

A visit to nearby Catania proved to be a little disasppointing. The Duomo di Sant'Agata was impressive, but many of the other sights and museaums were closed either for renovation or for Easter Monday. Even the botanical gardens were closed for the day.

The sun came out so we headed for the beach just down the block from our hostel, Gianni House. The water was still too cold to swim, but there were a handful of brave souls plunging in anyway.

The original plan was to get up early and visit Mt. Etna this morning, but our alarm did not go off so we missed the only bus of the day. Looks like we're in for another beach day.

Tomorrow we head to Naples for a night and then over to Bari where we'll catch a ferry to Patras, Greece. From there its a couple of trains to Athens where we'll spend 3 or 4 nights before heading north.

Storm Shutters Required

We took a bus from our neighborhood of Giardini Naxos on the beach up to Taormina on the hillside today and hiked up to the top of the hill where we beheld amazing panoramic views of ... clouds. It's been kinda rainy all day and now the massive storm that caused us to miss our boat in Tunis seems to have caught up with us here. Lightning, thunder, sideways rain, flickering lights, and strong winds - we have them all. Looks like the plan for the rest of the day is to sip Lemoncello under the blanket until it's time for dinner or the lights go out. We've extended our stay in Giardini Naxos through Friday so hopefully we'll have some nice days on the beach later in the week.

Happy Easter.