Packing - light or heavy

I'm a traveling Pharmacy, I have everything I need for immediate help if I needed it without going to a doctor. I hope we don't need to go a doctor. I hope I don't need the anti diarrhea medicines but I've heard almost everyone needs it in Egypt. I've read lots of advice and I'm sticking to it- drink only bottled water, don't eat any salads or fruit that you can't peel yourself..... I've only once got into a little trouble with stomach problems and that was in Trapani. It was because I ate too much of their great yogurt at breakfast. I indulged a little too much but it was so good, it was hard to resist.

I have to buy a new backpack/camera bag. It was a good thing I started to sort out my equipment because I couldn't find the cable for the battery pack charger. Over the years I've accumulated a few cameras and all their cables and paraphernalia are all mixed together. It was a good thing I could separate the Sony stuff from the Nikon stuff. I should be more organised, maybe the Sony that I don't use anymore could go to one of my nieces.

My old suitcase and my trusty old boots, another tote for any shopping I might do, colored pencils, moleskin notebook....

I'm going to look like Indiana Jones, everything is khaki. One thing I'm not bringing, an umbrella, it doesn't rain in Cairo. I went to the bank and got some cash and I'm ready.

Vacations

Vacations are important. My last one was 4 and a half months ago and I'm already feeling very stale. Vacations are expensive but the value surpasses the costs, the non monetary value outweighs the monetary costs. I come back, refreshed, even though I didn't go to a spa, lie on a beach or relax on a cruise ship. My vacations involve walking and hauling my luggage on and off trains. The mere fact that I'm doing an activity and am in a totally different environment assaults my brain in a different ways and is relaxing.
The brain, after a few months of work and home, gets into a certain groove and rut and after more of it, gets stale and tired. Some people recommends learning a different language so when you struggle mentally in a different way, it strengthens your mental capacity. For this reason, I take vacations abroad (even though it costs me an arm and a leg- to save my brain) so my brain is never allowed to get too comfortable. Just when it does, I go to a place that is so exotic, exotic in a sense, it is so different.
In the past I've taken those dreaded (to my staff) 2 and a half weeks vacations. It is a little long by American standards and create a strain on the people at work. This year I'm experimenting taking shorter breaks, a week every 3 months. I'll see if it works better. Already my staff is more relaxed, I'm just going to be gone one week, they can manage one week of my absence better than 2 or 3 weeks. My clients will fare better too knowing that just when they are going to miss me, I'm back. They'll be more forgiving than if I took off for 2-3 weeks.
So in a few days I take the first mini vacation of 3 this year to go to Cairo. I was laughing with my boss, 'it takes me that long to get there.' This is a prelude to a longer trip in the future! The day will come when I will not be dictated to by my work schedule but in the mean time, I have to accommodate my work schedule.
I hope, in 5 whole days, to be able to collect enough stories and take enough pictures to fill this blog for another 3 and a half months which is when the next mini vacation commences. It's a tough life but I've got to live it.
Not just for the change of scenery, it is also an enticement for me to continue working. Without working, I wouldn't be able to take vacations. Without vacations I wouldn't be able to work. So one feeds on the other. I think they call it synergy, whatever!
So wish me Bon Voyage, Buon viaggio, Buon divertimenti.... and all that good stuff.

Palazzo Biscari, Catania, Sicily

While I did make a second and special trip to Sicily, just to see Villa Palagonia, I will make a third trip to Sicily just to see Palazzo Biscari in Catania, Sicily. There are still a lot of sumptuous palaces all over Sicily, all in private ownership, only some are open to the public and therefore available for viewing. I remember asking a tourism personnel in Palermo during my first trip about visiting Palazzo Gangi. She said, it is a private residence and not opened to the public. However it is available for movies and photographing by special request, I guess, how else would I have known about it. I've seen it in books about Sicily. Palazzo Biscari is opened to the public upon request. I think there is an adjacent hotel that one can stay in. On our second trip we did poke around Palazzo Biscari. The surrounding area is so built up that it was hard to get a proper picture. So it's website will have to suffice for the time being till I return, stay there, visit and take lots of pictures. That's something to get me out of bed in the morning and going to work. We managed a few pictures, I had wanted to go inside but it was about 2 in the afternoon, I remember very succinctly, we were hungry..... we went in search of a restaurant to have lunch. I remember what I ate, it was that memorable.... neonato....baby fish. It was good! If nothing else, these 2 things are worth returning to Sicily for, Palazzo Biscari and neonato (baby fish).

It was built in 1693, after the big earthquake that leveled Catania and much of the eastern part of Sicily, built in true Baroque style, Sicilian Baroque. Here is their website http://www.palazzobiscari.com/

Revisiting- Trapani

Water is the stuff life is made of, without water, life will be hard. So many places in this world is ravaged by a lack of water. With the growth of the world's population, water, clean water is getting scarcer. It rains a lot in Sicily from October to March and even so there is not enough water. So traveling to Sicily during these months would mean umbrellas and rain gear and maybe an extra pair of shoes in case the other pair got wet. This was the case here, I wore wet boots for 3 days. Sophie, on the other hand brought with her a second pair of shoes. This umbrella has seen a lot of places in the world with me, I don't travel in summer because most places that I want to go to gets too hot in the summer. So I do travel with umbrellas and rain gear most of the time. I'm always looking at new rain gear, each time, thinking to myself, this would be nice to travel with. Visiting Trapani on the west side of Sicily a few years ago, we were caught in a deluge and got soaking wet even with umbrellas and rain coats but we still had a great time and the rain did not dampen our memories of Trapani. It's a quiet fishing city, lots of boats, both fishing and pleasure. In summer a lot of Europeans vacation here but we were there in October and had the place almost all to ourselves. It is more like a gateway to the islands off Sicily, there are lots of ferry boats to the islands and also to North Africa. We had to be in Trapani to round up our trips to Sicily but we still didn't have enough time to visit the salt pans of Mozia, nor have time to see the Greek ruins at Segeste. It was here we tasted fish stew with couscous, it's found no where else in Sicily. The hotel we stayed in also owns a restaurant downstairs and we ate there one night. It was a lovely restaurant. It wasn't really a hotel, it was more an apartment, a self contained apartment. It was a lovely place and people were really nice and it was the off season and there was hardly any visitors.

The lovely courtyard.

We had the front door propped open the whole time because it was so lovely outside.

This was the entrance, next to the restaurant, there is another hotel in the same building.

There was no one about and we had the whole old town to ourselves.

Baroque churches and buildings abound in old town Trapani.

The marina

The sign leading to the Punic museum.

We asked if we could take their picture, they said, OK.

A ferry boat.




Sure brings back some really pleasant memories. We ate at a Chinese restaurant one evening, imagine there are Chinese people in Trapani. It wasn't bad, it was a Sunday and all the restaurants were closed, the only thing open were the cafes. We chatted with the owners.

Next trip will be so different

Next trip will be to North Africa, Cairo to be exact. I'm looking at old photographs and feeling deep nostalgia already. There will be no European language but Arabic, which I have no clue about. There will be no lush countryside unless I go to an oasis which I'm hoping to. There will be sand, sand and more sand. There will be camels and a ride on a felucca on the Nile. It'll be so different. I don't know if I'm excited. But it's time I get out of my comfort zone, go somewhere so different that it'll shock my senses. No Roma Termini this trip, see you soon, Rome.

The accommodations wouldn't be much different since I travel so cheaply. This was the hostel room in Nice.

We'll set aside time to write our journal and record the happenings of the trip over some mint tea, what do they drink in Cairo?

It'll just be Cairo so there won't be any trains. I just need to collect information on how to get around so my next trip there will be more extensive. I'll go to the rest of Egypt the next time.

The architecture will be different too.

The food will be different, no pasta, fromage blanc and whatever else I like to eat in Europe. It'll be a different culinary experience.

I'm going to miss these cute vignettes of country life.

Of Alpine atmosphere.

Colorful churches. I'm definitely going to the Coptic centre of town.

I'm sure I'll find cute and unusual vignettes to interest me.

I'm ready to go.

When are we going back to Sicily?

I just acquired an old book, 'Old Calabria' by Norman Douglas about his travels (or his travails) in Southern Italian years ago. Half way through it, he wrote about 'lovers of the baroque would be disappointed with San Caltado'. San Cataldo is in Palermo, Sicily unless there is another San Caltaldo in Calabria. This is San Cataldo in Palermo, Sicily. I went to Sicily in search of Sicilian Baroque, I found, not only Baroque, but also Norman and San Cataldo. San Cataldo is stark (compared to the flourishes of Baroque) inside and out. The only distinguishing features it has going are the three red domes on the roof top. Most entrances to the churches in Sicily were free except we had to pay 1 euro to enter San Cataldo to see the stark interior. The mere lack of decoration in the interior contributed to an heighten spiritual feel to the place and also its association with the crusaders and the crusades. Not only that, Constance, the aunt of the Norman kings who first ruled Sicily was married to the first ruler of the Holy Land under the crusaders. San Cataldo is a very special place. Norman Douglas could not have been more wrong. It was in San Caltado that I felt a deep spiritual bond unlike other Baroque churches when I was distracted by the adornment of the interiors.
Why did we even considered Sicily as a place we would visit, twice and now considering a third trip? It was in Leece, a little town in Southern Italy, the year before that I fell in love with the Baroque. Leece is a very baroque city, absolutely delightful and I couldn't get enough of baroque. I read somewhere that Sicily is the place to get your fill of the baroque because a lot of cities were destroyed by a huge earthquake around the time of the appearance of the baroque movement and so a lot of Sicilian towns and cities were rebuilt in the baroque style. So off we went, to Sicily, and we were not disappointed.
So when am I returning to Sicily? 2010. This year's trips have all been planned out. I'm looking into next year's and it will include a trip to Sicily. Where would I go this time, definitely some places would be revisited and new places too. Maybe Modica, to meet with Patrizia of blog, http://sicilyscene.

The stark interior of San Cataldo, what the dome looks like inside.

The crusaders' cross adorns a curtain inside San Cataldo.

Sicilian puppets.

The Vucciria market in Palermo. Here am I reaching into my bag to get some money to pay this fellow for some wild strawberries.

I will return to Santa Zita to see some of the works of Giacomo Serpotta.

The rich marble inlay of a lot of the churches in Palermo is amazing and beautiful.

I think I will return to Noto, another very baroque city, that some say, out baroque the baroque of Leece.

Noto is a small and very delightful place, across the street from here is the restaurant, 'Buca' which serves great food and is quite inexpensive.

Monreale, here I am waiting for it to open, it closed at lunchtime and I already had a great meal of pasta.

The duomo at Ragusa Ibla.

Ragusa Ibla, as seen from Ragusa Superiore. You arrive at the train station in the new town, Ragusa Superiore and a short walk from it, Ragusa Ibla will come into view. This is the most delightful view of Ragusa Ibla. They say Modica is very similar and I have to go and find out in my next trip.

A postcard of Ragusa Ibla.

A crumbling palazzo, I might be in the market to buy one, set up home in Sicily.

The valley of the temples with Agrigento in the foreground, what a magical place.

The duomo in Cefalu.

The town of Taormina just before we headed up to the ruins. Taormina is very pretty and a very popular resort destination.

Here we found some really delectable and the sweetest pears that came from a farm nearby. This was Acireale, we stopped just to see the duomo which I read had a very unusual baroque facade. I told you I was on a baroque quest.

The duomo in Acireale. I was not disappointed.

Snow in Sicily? Yes, they have skiing on Mt Etna, this is around Mt Etna, we took the train, the Circumetna that runs around the base of Mt Etna. This was early March, it was raining and snowing and so magical. The wet weather did not dampen our spirits at all.

The ubiquitous prickly pears, they are everywhere.

An old palazzo in Catania which was converted to a cheap hostel where we paid 45 euros/night and we stayed here on both trips.

The airport in Catania is the major airport in Sicily. This was where we flew in and out of on both trips. One can also take the night train to and from Rome. I'd like to do that one day, maybe the next trip.