We decided to do something simple for Labor day weekend so we headed a few hours west to the town of Castellemare del Golfo. It's a city on the eastern edge of Zingaro Nature Reserve (one of favorite places on the island) and near a quaint little fishing village called Scopello. We loaded (or overloaded as the case may be) the car on Friday morning and headed west to enjoy a much needed family getaway!
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| Lovely views from our patio. (and a pool and playground, too!) |
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| Another view from the apartment. |
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| We were located about 5 minutes from the actual town. I could have spent the day sitting here and enjoying the fresh ocean breeze (and just might have if it wasn't quite so trecherous having all the kids near the water!) |
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| Making their daddy proud! |
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| We spent quite a bit of time checking out this sweet Ferrari while it's bride and groom had their photos taken by the seaside. |
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| Nightfall. |
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Saturday morning we made our way to Scopello. This bar was recommended in our tour book and it was well worth the trip. We ate 2nd breakfast here...which became lunch because Josh ended up ordering a second round of everything we ordered the first time.
Final count: 3 cappuccinos, 4 granites, and 6 pastries - yum! |
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| Breakfast of champions! |
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| Must comment on the new tasty Sicilian treat we "discovered" - cassateddi - a fried dough pastry filled with ricotta and honey. Buono! |
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| Josh was pretty excited. |
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| The small village of Scopello was built in and around the old walls of a 17th century baglio (manner home). |
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| We tried to go to Zingaro Nature Reserve, but the weather was looking foreboding and they were closed for the day. The boys fell asleep in the car, so we stopped at a nearby beach so Elise could eat her lunch...until it started to downpour! |
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| We found a horse cart! |
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| Blue Moon...and the view from our dinner table in Scopello. Unfortunately, the concept of a "blue moon" was completely lost on our kids...and Josh... (sorry Mom!) - they kept wondering where the other moon was in the sky and why it wasn't blue? |
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One of the best meals we've ever had! Swordfish pasta for Josh and seafood
couscous for me. Couscous is another food item that was adopted from
the ancient north African trade routes that used to run through the
northwestern part of the island. |
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| Tried to go to Zingaro again, this time they were closed because of high fire risk...I was so bummed! We went to our second choice (which ended up being a fail as well) which was an old tuna processing plant that is now and classy resort. It was cool in theory, but not at all family friendly...we made the best of it, but didn't stay long. |
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| Awful picture, funny story. We ended up trying Zingaro for a 3rd time, hoping that they had changed their mind (which is quite possible in Sicily!) I asked if we might possibly walk a few feet into the reserve so that Caleb could look at a tunnel that was cut into a rocky cliff (part of the pathway that you follow to the beach). The park ranger politely said "no" and then offered for Caleb to take a picture with him and his weathervane instead...huh? |
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