1. Our Travel Plans

We're getting ready to leave on our trip to Sicily.  Pat and I will be going with my sister, Chris, and her husband, Neal.  We will be leaving on Thursday, Oct 10th, from Tampa and flying to JFK in New York, changing planes and flying to Rome, Italy, and then changing planes again and flying to Catania, Sicily, arriving on Friday, Oct 11th.  This is a trip we've talked about and planned for for years as we will be visiting the towns where my maternal grandparents were born and then touring Sicily which is supposed to be something special.

On arrival we will spend the rest of the day and night in Catania and then in the morning we will catch the train to Milazzo which is on the north coast.  From there we will be taking the hydrofoil to the island Lipari which is one of the Aeolian islands off the coast.  My maternal Grandfather, Francesco Ziino, was born on Lipari and we know the name of the street where he lived so we will visit that area.  Lipari and the Aeolian Islands are supposed to be spectacular as they are all volcanic in origin and civilization on these islands dates back to the 4,000 BC.  A couple of the islands, Stomboli and Volcano, still have active volcanos.  The plan is to spend the rest of Saturday and all day Sunday touring the island and then on Monday we will try to do some genealogy research.

On Tuesday, we will take the hydrofoil back to Milazzo and then catch a cab or bus to the town of Villafranca Tirrena.  My maternal Grandmother, Grazietta Giacobbe, was born in the small town of Bauso which is now part of Villafranca Tirrena.  The plan is to take the rest of Tuesday and all day Wednesday trying to locate relatives and doing genealogy research.

On Thursday, we take the train to Palermo where we will be joining a Tauk tour.  This tour will visit a lot of the scenic areas around Palermo and then head along the south coast of Sicily with stops at a lot of historic and scenic locations.  The map, below, shows the major locations we will be visiting.

This should be very interesting as Sicily has been conquered and occupied by many peoples over the thousands of years it has been settled.  Conquerors included the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, French, Spanish, etc. and, supposedly, the best Greek ruins in the world are actually in Sicily.  We finish the tour in Taormina on Friday, Oct 25th and leave from Catania the next morning to come home this time via Rome and Chicago arriving late on Saturday the 26th.

I will try to post items to this blog as we go along but it will depend on network connectivity and how much time I have available.