And speaking of staying with us, good friends / seattle-ites Maria and John were traveling around the continent and spent a text-book fall weekend with us.  Here they are, having found some desirable park bench real-estate in the gardens...

But honestly, who said anything about the outdoor cafe life disappearing overnight?  Here we find John, Maria, Shannon, and some unnamed and unseated fourth person...in the sunlight at the Place de la Contrescarpe...

So any regular reader of le blog will recall from the septembre edition why there was a giant rugby ball hanging from the rafters of the Tour Eiffel, which was not just intended to ruin people's Christmas pictures...but rather a symbolic celebration of the Rugby World Cup.  For Maria & John, I volunteered to Photoshop-it out of their photo below for a small extra fee...   

But in fact they had no choice but do embrace the rugby spirit...as on the second night of their trip the France national team won an against-all-odds rugby match vs. New Zealand (think UW beating Duke at basketball, for instance) - and the streets of Paris turned into an all-night "rager"...

And while, being a Duke grad, I considered the celebratory form of "burning stuff" pretty standard...I think Maria and John (and maybe even Shannon) were a litle off guard when we started seeing sights like the following:  

But after a little more research, we then realized that in addition to the rugby celebration, the city of Paris had organized their annual Nuit Blanche – which is basically an all-night art and cultural festival that takes place at different locations around the city.  I mean, who knew there were more legitimate reasons to set things on fire than sporting victories?  It all goes to show that you never know what you are going to see on a visit to Paris!  

And speaking of dirty laundry...One short week later, Shannon and I found ourselves reunited in the capital of the hang-dry clotheslines - during our trip to Sicily!  Exotic island off the boot, here we come...

Since we arrived late on a Friday night (late doesn't really begin to describe the Air France labor strike adventure, but I'll spare you the details) we stayed in the main city of Catania before heading out the following morning.  Here you find Shannon taking her first breaths of Sicilian morning air...

And I gotta say - this first sicilian city experience was about par for the course for what I had always imagined.  Crazy motorcyclists, honking cars, people everywhere, a little "prego" here and some "grazie" there...pretty much overwhelming amounts of chaos in a contained space:

And that, my friends, was precisely what we were not looking for in a vacation...so we headed north up the coast, and fast!  No, contrary to "caught red-handed" look in this picture - I did not steal this car in order to enable our great escape.  It just so happens that Ford rental cars are about as common as city graffiti in Sicily...

I believe it's the young singer / songwriter Jamie Cullum that sings the song "What a difference a day makes"...well, after this trip I promise to write a song called "What a difference an hour makes, driving north in Sicily"...it will be the new anthem of Taormina!  This unbelievably precious, cliff-perched cobblestone village by the sea is.....Sicily baby!!! (now we're talking!!)

I'm going to do something rather unprecedented for my blog commentary, which is to actually shut my blabbing and let the next 8 pictures do most of the talking on their own.  It's honestly tough to add to these scenic snaps (I think if the tourist office of the Cinque Terre finds about this town, they might start looking for new jobs...), so here we go...

Hotel Villa Ducale nestled in the cliffs of Taormina, featuring Monsieur Content...

Room Terrace featuring Madame Content...

Could it be...75° in late October?! Oui, Oui...

Town Square people-watching, or time on the beach?  Your choice...

Or exploring winding stairs through quaint cobblestone streets?  Follow that Frenchie!

(no comment required)

And no surprise, it has history too!  Here is a glimpse of the Greek/Roman theater built in 3rd century BC, built to overlook the sea and to provide, in general, unforgettable performances(think Three Tenors singing Santa Lucia...)

vintage sicilian Shannon, investigating the ruins...

No need to hoof it to the beach - just grab the white gondola / cable car, and you'll be there in minutes...

and discover islands reachable by foot during low tide..

and, of course - where every restaurant has a view! (are you getting a feeling of happy customers yet?)

And while we could have gone on and on living the Taormina dream, there was plenty more Sicily where that came from...so we continue with our near-summit of the island's tallest peak (no, you hard-core Rainier climbers, we did not have to leave our car)...

Official Background information on Mt. Etna:  an active volcano on the east coast of Sicily.  It is the largest active volcano in Europe, currently standing about 10,910 feet high.  It is most well-known for being one of the most active volcanoes in the world (almost constant state of eruption!). Thousands of people live on its slopes and in the surrounding areas, and these people in general are pretty..."bold" for doing so.  

A quick shout-out for the drive up Mt. Etna, and really for the entire Sicily driving experience - was the reliance on my friend Catherine, the digital woman giving me directions in French via the console pictured below (I assume many of you have your own names for this type of "helper" if one came with your fancy car).  While I will never use a rental car without her again, I will learn to avoid the following phrases with Shannon in the future:  "That's not what Catherine is telling me..." or "I trust Catherine, and I need her more than anything"...      

Near the top (not the peak of the mountain, but the peak of the driving section), everything was looking a little...charred...but scenic nonetheless.  And while we didn't see lava in person, I'm not so sure that is necessarily a bad thing!   

Our next and final stop on the Sicily tour – the city of Syracuse, which, in ancient times was called "the greatest Greek city and the most beautiful of them all" - and according to our guidebook "few places on the planet rival the historical importance of this city"...so there was some decent hype going int it. 

I'm not sure I would go quite as far as those comments based on our brief visit - but it did have much of the adorable Sicilian charm, which is hard to do with a city of 125,000 people!  We stayed on Ortygia island, the part of the city that is surrounded by water (as one expects with an island), full of cute streets and restaurants, and completely short of any parking.  Here you see a rooftop view from our hotel...

And the classic / elegant town square made in the style of Sicilian Baroque, featuring the cathedral of Syracusa and a cafe that charges way to much for bruscetta...

And given all of the guidebook talk, we did get back into "historic" mode to visit both an ancient Greek theater from 5th century BC, carved out of a solid rock (see Shannon marveling below), as well as an old Roman amphitheatre that brought me back some vivid memories from the movie Gladiator (not pictured for your benefit)...

But overall, we spent much of our time in Syracuse weaving through little Sicilian streets, looking at hidden restaurants such as this one to determine our choice for the last italian supper...the one we chose had quite possibly the most memorable Nutella-based dessert I have ever experienced (or will ever!).  As a consequence, Shannon and Alitalia airlines had to roll me all the way back home to Paris...