Our Spiritual Home - Sicily - Italy

And we are home - okay not our real home but my heart’s home. Italy is in my soul and even with all the amazing places we have visited I am still filled with so much joy to be back in Italy. This time we are hoping to explore Sicily more than we got to last time and first stop is Ortigia in Syracuse.

After our very early and very quick flight from Valletta, we arrived quite early and with no option to drop our bags off early we found the Piazza Duoma, parked our luggage and sat and enjoyed our second breakfast for the day. We did have a coffee and apple tart at the airport at 4.00am this morning.

Already we are so impressed with this town. It looks like it has lots of beautiful alleys and laneways to explore, lovely wide piazzas to sit and enjoy the view and lots of restaurants and cafes to choose from. We can’t wait to get started.

For our second breakfast we tried a typical Sicilian pastry the waiter suggested, fresh orange juice and a coffee, while we admired the stunning cathedral across the way. As we did have some time to kill we followed our second breakfast with a pre-lunch drink. Sicilian wine for me and an Italian beer for Brad. They certainly aren’t stingy with their pours and the prices here are fabulous. And finally we are back in Italy so we get complementary snacks with our drinks. It just adds to the whole experience.

Thankfully our host messaged to say we could drop our luggage off so we left our sunny spot and met our wonderful host. Bags dropped off and time to kill before our official check in we hit the streets, eager to see all that Ortigia has to offer. And it is a lot.

This beautiful island is surrounded with the most stunning turquoise waters, so clear you can see the bottom. And so inviting we would love to jump in. We walked around the outer road admiring the views, wandered through some of the pretty laneways and ohhhhed and ahhhhed over so much. There is a real hive of artists here, from jewellery makers, ceramic artists, sculptors, painters and more. And their shops and their stands are all so beautifully displayed, enticing me to want it all. They really add to the prettiness of this town. So much to look at and so much to photograph.Read more