In Sicily

We made it! We loaded up our stuff and headed down to Civitavecchia on Monday to catch an overnight ferry to Palermo. We were able to get to Siracusa (the island of Ortigia to be exact) by midday, where our new landlord informed us the place we'd agreed to rent was not yet available. But not to worry, he's putting us up (seemngly at no charge) until November 1 in a tiny place with an excellent sea view and sunny terrace, as you can see in the photos. All the stuff that won't fit here is stored in his garage on the other side of the island and he says he'll help us move it in November. We welcomed ourselves to Sicily with a dinner at APOLLONION, a "no menu" place. We forgot the camera so you'll have to be content with the images on their website but we'll tell you it was excellent and an amazing value - barely $50 each for a seemingly endless series of antipasti - both cooked and raw fish, shrimp, etc. before a pasta dish with more fresh seafood, then grilled whole fish, a "destroyed" cannolo (seems to be the rage here, the shell is broken into pieces instead of being a filled tube as we're used to) and included an excellent bottle of local white wine, water, caffe, grappa, even a couple of glasses of malvasia to go with our desserts! We'll be back at Carlo's place again! The  other photo is of the famous duomo, a converted Greek temple in which you can see the columns inside.