Castle Donnafugata and Ragusa

Castle Donnafugata

back yard of Donnafugata

maze at Donnafugata

Ragusa

Ragusa

Olives

Today we went olive picking. We learned how the farmers get the olives off the trees by using an air pressurized rake to basically knock the olives off the tree onto a net. We then took a hike through the gorge on our way to the olive oil factory which was amazing. We got to try the olive oil right when it was made...mmm it was delicious. After that we went to an agriturismo (restaurant on the farm) for a 4 course lunch. Italians sure know how to make food and treat their guests.

Olive Farm/Bed and Breakfast

view from olive farm

olives we picked

Farmers raking the olives

quick pose :)

Gene hard at work raking the olives

trying to pick the olives by hand

our olives

picking oranges...they were good too!

gorge on the way to the olive oil factory

freshly bottled olive oil, complimentary to us

processing olive oil

restaurant for lunch

Sicily!

Mt. Etna

Stripes

Well after going to town and to the beach for the last couple of days we decided to sit in our hotel and relax :) Stripes was very excited to have us home all day and slept next to us on the bed with his little toy. We went to the Navy Commisary and bought taco stuff since we are already craving Mexican food like no other. Italian food is delicious but I must say there is no food like a carne asada burrito in San Diego!

my new Italian leather jacket :)

Stripes in his favorite "Vans" bag from months ago

Stripes on one of our favorite blankets from Jessica

Our tacos <3

Beach

We finally made it to the Mediterranean. It was beautiful! Mt. Etna is a large volcano in the middle of Sicily which can be seen from virtually anywhere. Right now the mountain is covered in clouds a lot because of winter, but we finally got a picture today!

Mt. Etna is in the top left poking through clouds!

Sheep-Goats

Mt. Etna

Catania

We made it to the city! We took a taxi to Catania, Maximus was our driver. This was the nicest taxi ride I have ever been in. Brand new Mercedes van with leather and wood grain...Maximus is in style! So we arrived to Catania and were amazed by the architecture!! This was our first time in Europe and couldn't believe how old these builidings really are. We walked for miles and the shopping never ended! The stores were beautiful :) So I bought my frist Italian outfit, Italians really do have good style. We then had dinner at Cafe Duomo which was a very nice restaurant recommended by Maximus. We asked for the wine list and the waiter brought a wood binder with at least 25 hand written pages of wines! haha.. We told him we needed some help picking a good Sicilian wine from those 25 pages. Dinner and wine were delicious. The city sure beats the Navy Lodge!

Our new International phones

I took this picture for Clint :)