Home and Heart

We decided to celebrate our 20th anniversary as a couple with an impromptu trip to Rome and Sicily. We flew to Rome and after a few days, we took a train that was eventually loaded onto a ferry to Sicily, After two days in Cantania, Sicily, we traveled by bus to another Sicilian port for a 2 hour ride on an enormous ferry back to Malta (no train on THAT boat!)

Our photos of Rome progress from the Trevi Fountain, to the Spanish Steps, Fort St. Angelo, the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the Forum.

We hired our own guide for a three hour tour of the Vatican. The crowds are so dense that you really need guidance. This first photo is of St Peter’s square.

We are now in the Vatican Museum. Our guide explained to us that it is the art collection amassed by many of the Popes over the centuries.

This is one of the galleries on the way to the Sistine Chapel. Photography is not allowed in the Sistine Chapel.

Here is the alter inside St. Peter’s Basilica.

This is the public facing side of St Peter’s where the faithful gather to see and here the Pope.

It is wonderful to wander around Rome. Here a few shots from our favorite stroll.

When you get tired of antiquity there are a couple of excellent museums of modern art.

Arrivederci, Roma! We’re ready to take the overnight train to Sicily. The video below shows the tracks on the ship that carries the train over the Straits of Messina. It takes only 15 minutes for the crossing. Chris stayed in the train during the crossing but Dick went up on deck for the view.

We got off the train in Catania so we could go to nearby Mt Etna, the largest active volcano in Europe.

The flag of Sicily has three legs because Sicily has a triangular shape.

These beautiful Jacaranda trees are in Piazza Bellini in Catania, a short walk from our Air BnB.

We took a 5 hour tour of Mount Etna with a group of 6 people. And there it is…

If you look carefully at this video, you can see the smoke coming out of the volcano.

In the photograph below, notice the snow beside the black stone resulting from lava floes in the twentieth century in 1910, 1911, 1918, 1923, 1928,1942, 1947, 1949, 1950-51, and 1971.

The next two photos are the remains of a two story house that was in the path of a lava floe.

Dick hiked up to one of the rock formations from the lava floes.

Most caves you are familiar with are formed from water erosion but here the caves are formed by “bubbles” of air trapped inside the lava floes.

Welcome back to Catania. We head home the next day.

As our ferry came into Valletta Harbor we passed the largest cruise sailboat in the world.

We’re back in Sliema for only 4 days. Watch out! We will be back in the USA to visit friends and family for the next month – not sure when we will post another blog.