By Shel Horowitz, editor, Global Travel Review

January is a wonderful time to visit Italy! Tourist attractions are uncrowded, there’s no problem getting on a train or bus even with very little advance planning, hot weather is not an issue, everyone is friendly and mellow.

Don’t expect it to be warm. It was slightly warmer than it would be at home in Massachusetts, and we were glad for our winter coats, sweaters, warm hats, and gloves, which we wore every day at least in the mornings and evenings. In the tourist areas, many businesses take an extended holiday; we passed one hotel with a sign on the lobby door thanking their patrons for a great year and “see you on March 22.” In Taormina, especially, about half the restaurants were on vacation. But that still left plenty of choices—more than, say, Provincetown in the winter.

Don’t expect restaurant and public bathrooms to have such amenities as toilet seats or hot water, and take it as a nice surprise when they do. When you need a bathroom, find a cafe and order some small thing, rather than paying a euro just to pee. It will give you relaxation and a true Italian experience, some time off your feet, and delicious coffee (I think Italian coffee at its best is consistently the best coffee of any country I’ve visited).

In restaurants, expect to pay if you eat the bread, and expect a small “coperto”—a charge for table service; if a restaurant had this charge, we didn’t tip, but if they didn’t, we tipped 10%. Tap water is simply not served, so if you drink water, you’ll pay for the bottle—and you should, because hydration is important even walking around in cold weather, and neither coffee nor alcohol is hydrating.

Prices in the off-season are astonishingly low. Even in touristy Taormina, we paid only €55 per night. In establishments catering to tourists, usually someone will speak English. Not so in businesses that cater to locals. In the north in our (uncomfortably hot) 2003 summer trip, we were often able to get by speaking Spanish, get answered in Italian, and more-or-less understand each other. In the south, Spanish mostly gets blank stares. We used our extremely limited Italian, Spanish where it worked, and a lot of hand gestures, with occasional help from our phone’s translation app. Everywhere we went, there was a strong consciousness about recycling, with different bins for different materials. However, there was also a lot of trash tossed inappropriately, or heaped up well beyond the capacity of the dumpster. If the sight of litter makes you ill, think about a different destination.

Blessedly, it seems to be illegal to smoke in restaurants and bars these days. But smoking is extremely common even among young people. Fur coats for women are also popular, which is surprising considering how short and mild the cold season is. But I hadn’t seen so many since they went out of fashion in New York in the early 1970s.

We saw some solar electricity and hot water, but not nearly as much s we should have in a sunny, developed country. Only 8 percent of Italy’s energy is solar, though geothermal, wind, and especially hydro bring the total green energy up to 34.9 percent. No nuclear, at least.

The vehicle fleet is mostly very tiny; a first-series Prius hatchback looks enormous. Good percentage of hybrids and all-electrics, though I didn’t see any charging stations. Surprisingly, Italian Fiats and Lancias seem to be only about a third of the fleet. The rest are mostly German, French, Japanese, and some Korean, as well as European Fords that could have come from anywhere in the EU. The only other American car I saw was Jeep. I saw a few of them, mostly police cars.

Disability consciousness is mixed. If you have walking disabilities that make climbing stairs difficult, a lot of the historic sites and some of the streets will be off-limits. The Colosseum is accessible, though. Some cities including Rome have very good curb cuts at almost every intersection—but you’ve got a 20 percent chance that any individual curb cut will be blocked by a parked car! Others, like Taormina, have frequent barriers. Naples has some curb cuts but finding them is not reliable, and some places require stair climbing. Also, some gates for pedestrian areas would be impossible for a motorized scooter, and difficult even for a push wheelchair.

Ethnic diversity is limited. There are communities of South Asians, West Africans, and Turks, and then very small populations of East Asians. It’s easy to find sushi restaurants, as well as restaurants that bridge the Turkish and Indian/Bangladeshi/Pakistani menus.

Rome

All my life, I’ve heard that Rome is dirty, crowded, noisy, unsafe, polluted, and generally unpleasant. I expected to put up with the city in order to see the antiquities—but Rome charmed me. I actually liked the place an wished for more time.

Yes, it’s noisy; ambulance sirens are a constant, but other than that, the noise levels are lower than many other cities. Yes, it’s dirty. There’s a lot of litter, but I was a teenager in New York in the 1970s, and that was worse. And in cool January, I found the pollution and crowding issues weren’t bad, and I not only felt safe, but our several days there were almost hassle-free. These issues were all far worse in our August 2003 trip that encompassed Venice and Florence.

Day1

After many visits, we’ve learned that the best way to enjoy Europe is to take a slow first day to acclimate to the time change. We left the airport around 10 a.m., took the FL1 commuter train (€8 plus one euro commission for buying from a kiosk inside the airport rather than from the machine on the platform) to Travestere, 15 minutes walk from the apartment we rented. This fun neighborhood is full of gelatarias, chic little caffes (Italian spelling), and bistros—yet it’s surprisingly unpretentious. And, a pleasant shock given everything we’ve ever heard about Rome, in January at least the streets are quiet, populated but not crowded, the drivers are sane and stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, and there were very few tourists about.

We also crossed to the east (more central) bank of the Tiber and explored Testaccio, an equally tranquil neighborhood but one containing several ruins, an ancient cemetery, a pyramid, and a castle that’s now a museum. Still dragging our suitcases around until it was time to pick up the keys, we didn’t go into any attractions, but did browse several shops in both neighborhoods.

People all seemed to be in good moods, and we saw many people encounter friends whether in an eatery or just passing on the street.

After a late lunch of falafel in one of the many Turkish kebab houses and some time to relax, we walked back into the center of Travestere for dinner. Dina said she wanted a wine bar with vegetarian soup, and amazingly enough, we found one: I Figli del Vinaio, Viale di Travestere 146, ifiglidelvinlio.it. And we had some of the best homemade soups I’ve ever tried. I got the cereal, a rich barley soup with vegetables, and Dina got the Toscano, mixed vegetables and beans in a light tomato base. Both were exquisite and the atmosphere was wonderful as well. We lingered there for about an hour and a half, not wanting to leave this warm, cozy, friendly spot. Very reasonably priced, too; including a glass of house wine and a single-serve bottle of water, the bill was only €16 before tip.

Day 2

With the help of https://www.rometoolkit.com/transport/rome_travel_pass.htm , we were able to easily locate the bus we needed to get from Travestere to Piazza Venezia in the Centro Historic (historic center). What was not so easy was figuring out where to buy bus tickets, which you need before you board. Turns out any store with a great big letter T out front will sell you your choice of single-ride or time-limited unlimited-ride tickets. Another option is the Roma Pass, which combines unlimited transit with one free and several discounted museum admissions. But for us, pay-as-you-go was a better deal, especially since the transit passes don’t cover the regional train.

The Wow factor was pretty high as we disembarked in front of a massive, gleaming white, tall structure with grand columns, terraces high above us, and of course plenty of sculpture: Il Vittoriano, also called Altare della Patria. Taking 50 years to complete, its construction began in 1885 to honor Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of a unified Italy, who had died a few years earlier. From the terraced overlook, you get views of many of Rome’s famous antiquities, some of which are right across the street. It’s a pretty good climb, but there’s an elevator—which I only discovered when I reached the top!

Even if you don’t need a toilet, be sure to follow signs from the second floor to the bathroom, going through the gift shop and turning right. You go down several hallways full of antique movie and concert posters, then head down a beautiful red brick, gently sloping spiral staircase. If you do need the loo, expect to cough up a euro for the privilege (not uncommon in Europe). The monument shares walls and hallways with a military museum, which we chose not to visit.

Ancient Rome is right outside the door, with a series of excavations and partially restored buildings both immediately adjacent to the right and directly across the piazza., continuing to the left. Several of these are quite large and look surprisingly modern.

We passed through that area rather quickly, with a lot to see during the day. Our next stop was the Church of Gesu (Jesus), whose art treasures could easily fill a glossy 500-page coffee table book. Be sure to look up at the ceiling and down at the beautiful marble floors, as well as the magnificent paintings, sculptures, and carvings all the way up the walls.

By then, it was 12:30 and we were ready for lunch. We found the charming Enoteca Corsi, Via Del Gesu 87-88, with amazing homemade pasta. We would have enjoyed our eggplant casserole more if the cheese hadn’t been smoked (not our thing) but for me, the quality of the pasta itself made up for it. We also had a chickpea soup, but that was nothing special.

After the Gesu church, despite its huge dome (the biggest in Rome), the much plainer Pantheon was a bit of a letdown. Still it’s one of those sights you just have to visit when you go to Rome.

Then a roundabout meander to the Piazza Navona, which was bustling with tourists, hawkers, carnival games, and people relaxing near its three fountains. This piazza contains the Palazzo Pamphil (not to be confused with the large Doria Pamphili Gallery in another part of town, described later), where we found a small, free museum operated by the Brazilian Embassy, with a double gallery featuring rotating shows of Brazilian artists, and we very much enjoyed the show that was running during our visit.

Around the corner, we visited the San Luigi dei Francesi church, with its three Caravaggio murals and plenty of other art. Even after so many centuries, the Caravaggios were incredibly vivid. They’re illuminated for about minute at a time, with a minute off in between cycles.

We’d been walking most of the day, but we walked across the Tiber River, through Piazza Cavour and past the ornate 20th century Palace of Justice, and into the comfort and elegance of Camillo B., a caffe with truly excellent flourless chocolate torte. One piece was plenty to share.

Refreshed, we explored the extensive pedestrianized shopping area near the Piazza Spagna—Rome’s 5th Avenue or Rodeo Drive, featuring shops like Armani and Tiffany, heading north to Piazza del Poplo before turning back and having quick salad and grilled veggies at Pizza Re, both of which were tasty and satisfying. The pizzas looked awesome and we wanted to go back and try them, but we never made it back.

Back to Spagna to climb the Spanish Steps and meet our guide for a tour advertised as Vatican by Night. The tour was good, but it was falsely marketed. We expected to be walking through the Vatican buildings for most of the 90-minute tour, but most of the tour was en route, including the Emperor Augustus’s tomb as well as the fascinating and beautiful Castel Sant’Angelo, whose many uses included Galileo’s prison. Only about the last 15 minutes were in St. Peter’s Square, and none of that was inside.

Day 3

We spent the first half of the day in Ostia Antica, a 25-minute train trip from Rome. It’s only a few hundred meters from the train station to the massive archeological site, which you can spend several hours exploring, especially if you buy the audio tour. We did our own tour, without audio, and we took about two hours to go through most of the site, including climbing many of the overlooks. Dina had fun declaiming from the amphitheater stage, which we’ve done in Greece and Turkey as well.

We learned that many of the mosaics were used by shopkeepers to indicate their trade, which I found fascinating. Superficially, it looks like many ruins we’ve been to in other parts of the world, especially the necropolis near the entrance. But unlike, say, Mayan or Incan ruins, the remaining written inscriptions use letters I can read. In the off season, it was uncrowded and peaceful, but I can imagine it teeming with tourists in the summer heat.

We were thrilled to find L’ALimentari about a block outside the ruins at Piazza Umberto 1, just past the castle. This farm-to-table restaurant was excellent. Portions were a bit on the small side, but they started us off with a generous basket of excellent whole wheat bread and a plate of green olives, both included (many restaurants in Italy charge for bread and olives). We shared lemon-flavored ravioli in tomato sauce and trofie pasta (a tight and pointy shape we hadn’t had before) with zucchini, tomatoes and pistachios. Both were quite good, as was the huge carafe of house sparkling water, so we gambled on a tira mi su. And THAT was a temporal experience of divinity! The custard part was like eating a cloud, except it tasted much better. Underneath, the lady fingers were soaked in a strong, slightly sour espresso and some kind of alcoholic beverage. The two together were a shortcut to heaven.

There was plenty more to do in Ostio including that big castle, but we also wanted to do more in Rome. We got back on the train, got on the right bus with the help of a local (which we needed, with a dozen or so routes on different platforms), exited at the gorgeous Teatro Marcello (its exterior resembles the Colosseum), made our way through the Piazza Venezia with the fading light giving a very different view from the previous day’s. I got an amazing shot of two churches bathed in golden light).

But this plaza was only a photo op on the way to our destination since we’d explored it already in some depth. Our goal was the sumptuous Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, considered one of Rome’s best art museums by the relatively small number of people who know about it. It deserves its reputation, both for the magnificent painting and sculpture collection, with multiple works each by Caravaggio, Bruegel, Raphael, and many others—and for the building itself: every room a different theme, enormously high painted ceilings, amazing chandeliers, touches of luxury everywhere. With only an hour and a half from our arrival to closing time, we skipped the extras such as a visit to the apartments and bought the basic ticket—and we more than got our money’s worth. We did get to peek in the entrance and exit to the apartment and if we’d had more time, probably would have gone back for the expanded ticket.

Then we gave ourselves a self-guided tour of upper Travestere. While southern Travestere, where we’re staying and have been exploring, is a laid-back residential neighborhood, the northern part is Rome’s West Village. Definitely a happening place, with lots of caffes, bars, quaint shops, and so forth. Many of the restaurants offer an early-dinner “apertivo”: fixed-price buffet with a glass of wine, and we enjoyed one of those. But we enjoyed our dessert at Fior di Luna, a few doors up the street at Via della Longaretta 96, a good deal more. This artisanal gelataria and chocolate was happy to let us sample a few flavors, allowing us to settle on gianduja (a velvety and rich dark chocolate with hazelnuts) and duetto (pistachio with hazelnut). Mmmmm!

Day 4

How do you see the Colosseum without making yourself crazy or standing in line for over an hour? Here’s how we did it: visit the first Sunday in January, get in line for your ticket at the Roman Forum/Palentine Hill entrance 15 minutes before the 8:30 opening but don’t go through the turnstile—instead walk up one block and cross the street to use your ticket at the Colosseum. It’s good for four different attractions, and at that hour on a cold January morning, it wasn’t crowded despite the long line to get a ticket—a line that you’ve bypassed. Only eight people were ahead of us to buy tickets, the gate opened at exactly 8:30 (though it was another few minutes before the security was set up and they started admitting people), and by 8:49 we had cleared security in both places and were in the Colosseum—breezing by a couple of thousand people waiting to get their tickets. Many museums and attractions in Rome are free on the first Sunday of the month, so if you can time your visit accordingly, you’ll see some great stuff for free. Of course, it will be even more crowded than usual on free days. I overheard a ticket agent say, “If I were a tourist, I would go to the sea today.”

We were surprised that it only took a bit over an hour to see the Colosseum pretty thoroughly (at least the parts open to the general public; there are some night tours that go into the below-ground parts). And even after all those people in line got in, it never felt crowded. It’s an amazing building with an amazing history. It’s even consecrated as a church. Don’t be talked out of going because you don’t like crowds; find a way to make it work.

I was impressed that many parts of the Colosseum were accessible to people with walking disabilities, too. Not only is there an elevator, but a ramped route to guide people who don’t do stairs well within the two explorable floors.

Another nice part of this system is that you can choose when to see each part, within the two-day range on your ticket. We took a nice long break after the Colosseum and got a late breakfast, visited the St. Peter in Chains Church with its statue of Moses by Michelangelo and—down a short stairway about ten feet in front of that statue—both the tomb of a martyred Maccabee family that resisted Roman attempts at undermining Judaism and the chains used to bind the saint after his arrest, then backtracked to walk through the forum, which contains some of the best ruins I’ve ever visited. We actually spent more time there than at the Colosseum. Very glad we went to Ostia the day before, because seeing it after the Forum would have been quite a letdown.

Then we spent an hour and a half at the Jewish Museum, quite close by, including a guided tour of Rome’s main synagogue, a beautiful building with ancient Roman design elements and an amazingly high ceiling, constructed in 1904. I was especially interested in an exhibit on the former Jewish community in Libya. Next door is the Museum of Liberation, covering the huge Jewish migration from Europe to Palestine/Israel through Italy after World War II, most of it illegal.

Privately owned and operated, the Jewish Museum doesn’t participate in the first-Sunday-free program. But the €12 fee was very reasonable for those with an interest in comparative Jewish cultures around the world (or seeking more knowledge about Jewish rituals and celebrations). The Liberation Museum is free with a voluntary donation. And next to that, you can walk through the lower portion of the ancient Marcello Theater.

This is the beginning of Rome’s Jewish Quarter, and we strolled through the strip of kosher restaurants, Judaica stores, and such, settling on one that served me a very lovely vegetarian couscous (that’s the Libyan influence) while Dina tried the traditional Roman delicacy of baked artichoke in olive oil and rosemary.

Our last sightseeing stop was the Palazzo Venezia, another centuries-old mansion full of art and also free on this day. Though neither the collection nor the building are as impressive as the Doria Pamphilj, it was certainly worth touring with no admission fee. We had to walk through a bunch of exhibits about war, military dress, and Christian imagery right at the beginning, and those aren’t my favorite things to look at. But then we found a room full of cool costumes, followed by an exquisite Oriental porcelain collection, some pieces of Islamic metal sculpture, a unique and powerful Zodiac chandelier, and other things definitely worth a look. I wouldn’t have wanted to pay for this, but was glad we saw it. I happily paid for the Doria, though.

Dinner was an extraordinary, peppery tonnarelli (a little thicker than spaghetti and clearly homemade) with pink peppercorns and black pepper in a light four-cheese sauce, at Enoteca Trastevere, Via della Longaretta 86/87.

Day 5—Catania, Sicily

Today was about hospitality—eating cheaply and well all day, shifting to another city—no attractions visited. In the morning, we dragged our suitcases to the other boulevard near our apartment so we could catch the Metro and finally discovered a breakfast caffe we really liked, on our last morning in the neighborhood: Picasso Bistrot, Viale Guglielmo Marconi, 302. Dina had a whole wheat croissant, I had an eggplant panini and a tiny little fruit and nut cookie, and we both had hot drinks: cappuccino and steamed milk. All were quite good. Total cost, €8.50 (under $10).

Arriving at Termini, Rome’s central train station, we were amazed to see high-end designer fashion shops lining the corridors, and a row of cheap Indian/Turkish eateries. Then we went to the other end, Via Marsala, and easily found the departure point for the airport shuttle buses. And then in search of lunch, we found an organic foods restaurant directly across Marsala Street from the train station, Caffe Trombetta.#46/48. They advertise that all their food is organic, although it’s fairly mainstream fare. The food is well-prepared if not overly exciting, and they have a quick-lunch selection that was perfectly adequate and very cheap. We loaded up with a plate each of white beans, green beans, and potatoes, along with a generous bowl of pasta with eggplant in a rich tomato sauce and a full 1-1/2 liter bottle of carbonated water for a princely €10.50.

All the museums and ancient sites in that neighborhood seemed to be closed on Mondays, so even though it was very early, we got on the airport bus and enjoyed a very scenic tour of downtown Rome, including some parts we hadn’t seen, like a big chunk of what I think was the old city wall.

Very amused that even airport food shops sell very fancy gourmet pasta in a wide variety of shapes and colors including many rainbow varieties..

We’d been eating very well in Rome, and our first meal in Sicily surpassed most of those meals. Another €10 fixed menu, at a place with the odd name of Cavalier Roxy, right down the block from the castle.An enormous amount of food, starting with an interesting green tomato bruschetta and fried potatoes, continuing through a roughly 16-inch pizza apiece (sharing one with eggplant, tomato and ricotta, and another with a pistachio pesto over cream cheese), and finishing with homemade lemon and strawberry sorbets—along with half a liter of the house red wine and a liter of sparkling mineral water. All this for €10 apiece. Wow!

We’re blessed to be quite centrally located but down a quiet back alley, which made it easy to walk between the Renaissance-era church square and the striped Fortino monument on opposite ends of our 1-kilometer street.

Day 6. So glad for this day in and around Catania, which we hadn’t really planned to spend any time in until we looked at the logistics of getting anywhere else after our late plane arrival.

We would have missed the beautiful Duomo (main church), with its elegant statues and fine paintings. Not to mention the marvelous morning farmers market, where we spent over an hour exploring, chatting with vendors, snapping some pictures, and buying veggies for dinner. The quality was astonishingly high, prices were pretty low, people were friendly, and the market was low-key. It also provided a good view of the very busy fish market adjoining, which, as vegetarians, we were happy to witness from above and not walk through.

In the afternoon, we took a long walk from Garibaldi to Stesicorso for an Indian lunch (fine but nothing special), then down to the bus and train station for a side trip to Acicastello to explore the castle and the sea. This time of year, the bus only runs once an hour (with at least one hour skipped), so check the timetables and give yourself an extra ten minutes to buy your ticket (from the ice cream cart!) and find the right platform—the same one as the Alibus to the airport. We just missed one and took a cab.

We enjoyed the castle itself and the beautiful views walking to it—including the rock from the Cyclops legend—and from the stairs leading down to the volcanic rocks on the shore just below it, as well as our little foray into the town center to locate the beautiful church we’d seen from the castle ramparts. There’s also a small museum in the castle, but we didn’t feel like paying for it. We were unsuccessful, but we didn’t stress about it. Nor did we stress about accidentally getting off seven kilometers too early on our way back; we just added to our walking mileage, stopping for coffee along the way.

Day 7 - Catania/Taormina

Just a few blocks from our apartment, the Castillo Urbano (City Castle), built in 1237, now houses a very informative small museum. The main galleries showed “What the Stones Tell Us:” a history of ethnic and cultural communities of Roman times, including tombstones, a letter from a bureaucrat to the emperor (carved in marble!), a manufacturer’s stamp from several centuries BCE done so perfectly evenly you might think it was typeset, and even a few items from the ancient Jewish community.

The next gallery, as well as the floor above, had a magnificent collection of ancient Greek vases. And the building itself—what we saw of it—is spectacular. Half of it was a special exhibit on Dalí, which cost €12 versus €4 for the permanent collection. Since we’ve been to the Dalí museum on the Costa Brava in Spain, we stuck with the museum’s own holdings.

Advice to visitors: the ceilings are enormously high, so to go from floor zero at the entrance to floor 2 feels like about five flights of stairs. There’s an elevator.

Then off to Taormina by train, an easy ride with some sea views.

It’s a bit confusing to get from the train station up the hill to the center of town. There are multiple bus companies, the drivers were not following either the timetable on the bus stop sign or the time printed on our ticket, and the first bus that stopped would not honor our ticket and made us wait for the other company.

But once we were on the bus, we were treated to perhaps the most beautiful city bus ride I’ve ever been on: magnificent serpentine curves going up the steep mountain through lush bougainvillea, palms, deciduous and coniferous trees, lots of flowers—hard to believe this is the Northern Hemisphere in January. Taormina has four levels. The train station is at sea level, the city center is halfway up, and then a small and a larger castle are above (there’s a castle at the bottom as well).

Arriving when most restaurants seemed to be closed, we had few choices and went to a place we might not have gone to otherwise. Trattoria Piazza Badia had such great food—gnocchi in tomato sauce and grilled vegetables—that despite the high prices, we ordered dessert: a delicious and very substantial almond parfait.

After checking into our sea-view room at the gorgeous La Terrazza sul Mare, about 15 minutes on foot from the bus station, and then resting for a while, we headed back into town. It’s extremely scenic even at night, with lots of quaint alleys, ancient buildings (so many castles and castle-like buildings!), staircases up and down hills including a huge one going all the way down to the beach, and very modern shops, many of them quite high-end.

Day 8. Etna! We booked an excellent half-day tour with EtnaPeople.com and were lucky enough to get Giulia on the phone to book our reservation and Roberto as our guide. Both were a pleasure to deal with. Giulia patiently answered our many questions about difficulty levels and equipment, food options, and where and how to connect with the tour.

As we were the only participants, Roberto designed the entire tour, from meeting us at 8:30 a.m. to dropping us off again at 3:30, to be perfect for us. On the hour-and-a-half drive to the mountain basecamp (which looked and felt like a Vermont ski lodge), he shared much not only about the local culture and history, including many tales of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but the various types of eruptions, kinds of volcanic matter, and forest ecologies as we climbed from ecosystem to ecosystem—plus a few good jokes. He was warm and personable and very knowledgeable as he outfitted us with snowshoes, poles, winter windbreakers, neck-and-face warmers, and extra gloves—even waterproof hiking boots! Of course, he personally adjusted our snowshoes and poles.

And we needed all of it! With temperatures about 20°F/-6°C, a snow squall and then a hailstorm, and a bitter wind chill from the 25 mph/40 kph gusts at altitudes of 5000-6000 feet/1500-1800 meters, the only part of me that was cold was my hands—even with two pairs of gloves. But my hands are often cold.

While we’re in our 60s, we’re in good shape, hike or bike pretty much eery day at home, and are used to cold winter temperatures and snow on the ground. We were easily able to snowshoe about an hour in, up some steep grades, and visit several craters, then snowshoe another 40 minutes back to the road. Only a few minutes of the last steep downhill were at all tricky, even though I’d only used snowshoes twice before, not in about fifteen years, and not at all proficiently.

Etna is the largest active volcano in Europe, and quite beautiful. Also quite massive, and the spread of lava from its many eruptions (several a year) covers the whole area from Catania to Taormina, some 54 miles/87 km. This hike covered only a tiny piece of the mountain, of course, and we were nowhere near the 3350 meter summit—which was just fine with us.

After the hike, we returned to the lodge for panini and two very nice local wines: a hearty dry ultra-red Nerello Mascala and a sweet, brandy-like almond-infused wine with 13% alcohol content. Glad I wasn’t driving down those curvy roads afterward!

And Roberto dropped us off as close to our B&B as the narrow streets would allow, cutting the hilly ten-minute walk down to one minute.

In the evening, we returned to the city center for another couple of hours, taking pictures of the beautiful sunset and shopping. Our big discovery was Nove, an entire store dedicated to pistachio products. The owner was sampling a pistachio cannoli crust, and it was so good we shared a whole large cannolo (singular of cannoli), filled to order; Dina described it as the best cannolo she’d had in her life. Then he gave us tastes of a pistachio liqueur. Prices were high at this store, but he was very pleasant, his stuff was good, and we didn’t mind.

After the sugar high, we needed real food, and found it at La Buca, whose elegant combination of modernity and tradition was very pleasing—as were the homemade tagliatelle and gnocci. Like most places in Taormina, it’s pricy compared to Rome or Cantania—but it was also quite good, though a bit heavy on the salt.

Day 9

We saw some of the nicest parts of Taormina just before we left, especially the magnificent Public Garden, densely packed into a small plaza but full of wonderful plantings, cool faux-Renaissance buildings (constructed in the 1890s), and scenic vistas of the beach and Etna. We’d tried a bit earlier to climb the 300 steps to the Madonna of the Rocks church and overlook, but it was blocked off about a quarter of the way up. And since we knew the highest castle would take more time than we had, at 3 very steep km each way, we were thrilled to find this lovely alternative.

Nearby, we stumbled on the beautiful town library, which has a fantastic and extensive collection of 16th century books, including a massive volume by Thomas Aquinas.

It’s easy and painless to get from Taormina directly to the Catania airport, by Etna Bus from the station just below the center of town. It makes several local stops including the train station, then runs express to downtown Catania before going to the airport.

Once we got to our hotel in Naples, it was too late for much exploring, but we did walk a few blocks over to Pizzaria Vesi, Conte di Ruvio, 6, that advertised itself as the “laboratory of gluten-free cooking.” We were quite content to order a regular wheat crust, though—with both cow and buffalo mozzarella as well as delicious tomatoes. We also liked the €8.50 price for a 16-inch pizza, especially after paying almost double that in Taormina. Sharing one pie, we had room to order a very tasty pistachio mini-cheesecake.

Day 10 - Napoli (Naples)

Another fun and beautiful day, walking for hours through many piazzas, alleys, and churches. Who needs an art museum? The churches and especially the main cathedral have amazing collections of painting, sculpture, fresco, bas relief—not to mention the architectural details from the marble floors to the stained glass windows to the high domes.

I hadn’t expected Naples to be particularly pretty, but many parts are quite magnificent. It is, however, a crowded, noisy and very urban place, with buildings tall enough to block a lot of the sun. And while in Rome, stepping into a crosswalk would bring all the cars to an instant halt, Naples is hazardous to pedestrians. While it’s safer to cross the street here than in some other places I could name (especially Xian, China), the stereotype about reckless Italian drivers might well have originated here. It’s also much less disability-friendly than Rome.

We particularly enjoyed the stunningly unique facade of the Castel Nuovo (New Castle), unlike any castle I’ve ever seen before—and then going two blocks away to the small-boat marina at Molosiglio, home to the beautiful wooden racing sailboat L’Italia, which won the 1936 Olympics race. From the adjoining commercial port, it’s possible to buy boat tickets to Sorrento and elsewhere.

I found it quite interesting that in Sicily, we hadn’t seen any “Sicilian pizza” of my childhood. Growing up in New York City, a Neapolitan pizza was a circular pie with medium-thick dough (maybe half an inch thick, much taller at the edge), in pie-shaped slices between 12 and 18 inches long, while Sicilian was rectangular and much thicker—an inch or more. In Naples, both kinds are widely available, along with the thin-crust style common in the north and a round thick one with cheese at the center and tomato sauce around it. Many shops sell slices, too.

But even though the previous night’s pizza was delicious, we wanted a much lighter lunch: a seeded whole wheat panino with grilled veggies and mozzarella at Anhélo, Via San Biago dei Librai, 19. San Biago is part of the famous Spaccanapoli, a straight, mostly pedestrianized street that bisects the city and changes names several times.

Napoli has a strong food culture, like everywhere else we’ve ever been in Italy. You’ll find a pizzeria or two on every block, plus scores of produce shops, caffes, restaurants accommodating every price, butcher shops, pastry shops, wine bars, and gourmet groceries. Bread bakeries exist but there seem to be a lot fewer of them, proportionally. Except for a few kebab and curry shops and one forlorn Chinese restaurant, the food is almost all southern Italian. And nearly all of it looks delicious.

The other thing that’s noticeably absent is laundry service. We had held off doing laundry in Taormina because the laundry was all the way on the other side of a hilly town, and we’d figured there would be one every few blocks in Naples. Wrong! In four or five hours of walking, we only noticed two. Google turned up a few more, all but one of which were closed on Sundays. Our B&B host called a few for us and I was shocked at the answers: drop-off Saturday for pick-up on Thursday? How do they stay in business?

Because we'd read overwhelmingly positive reviews AND learned that the chef had won a pizza award, we had perhaps unrealistically high expectations for our dinner at Pizza al 22. They were not met. This was a mixed bag. The service was great, and as a party of two, we were able to be seated instantly despite the long lines for both table service and takeaway. And we really liked both the dough and the rich tomato sauce. But overall, the pizza was too salty, the mushrooms had a weird taste, and the whole thing didn't quite hang together. I did see a lot of beautiful looking food coming out of both the kitchen and the pizza oven.

However, it's very inexpensive and perfectly decent for the price, just not worth the hype (or the long lines).

Day 11 - Sorrento

Our graffiti-covered train to Sorrento reminded me of NYC’s #6 train lumbering through the South Bronx,—the start of the famous Amalfi Coast—stopping every few blocks—at least 30 stations in a ride of about an hour, though the train skipped a few of them. My phone was pickpocketed on this ride, unfortunately.

Sorrento is really cute, with mountains around it, cool little shops, parks. The downtown is only a bit bigger than downtown Northampton, so it’s easy to see the whole thing.

After attempting to report my stolen phone and being told to come back the next day when someone would be the who spoke English, we heard some unusual music and followed the sound to a soccer stadium, where we were invited in to watch the game. The singing was the cheering section for one of the teams. They were rowdy and fun, and even though we weren’t even in the seating area, we were quite close to the action. Later, when we were walking around the center of town, we caught a fireworks display, and we think it might have been celebrating a home team victory.

That was right after we’d stopped at Gelateria Primavera, Corso Italia, 142, for artisanal gelato and hot chocolate “amargo”—bitter, which is the way I like it. My cup of steaming, strong, unsweetened hot cacao in water (no milk), with a healthy dose of cinnamon, was perfect for me, and Dina thoroughly enjoyed the gelato. I sampled a dark chocolate gelato and want to go back again before we leave and get a portion of it.

Around the corner at Via San Cesareo, 67/C, an English-speaking gentleman at Nino & Friends offered tastings of chocolates, limoncello-filled candies, and other goodies, all in a way that honored the luxury and specialness of the experience. One of the tastes was a pistachio cream better than any I had in Sicily—good enough that we bought a small jar of it to take home. A few doors down, Sapori & Colori (Flavors and Colors), at #57, was sampling artisanal limoncello.

In Napoli, we’d passed by a restaurant that advertised itself as the inventor of the Pizza Margharita, but we didn’t eat there. Here in Sorrento, we found one that bragged about inventing cannelloni more than 100 years ago and invited guests to enjoy their “mystery garden.” O Parrucchiano, also called La Favorita, was founded all the way back in 1868, by a seminarian. We’ve experienced a number of establishments that were well over 100 years old, including some going back to the mid 18th-century (1760s), and we were up for trying this one. We had spinach-and-cheese cannelloni, a rocket (arugula) salad, and a ricotta torte with bits of pear that were quite nice—but the real highlight was the amazing garden, full of sculpture, plants, old restaurant artifacts, and a citrus orchard. It was like a combination art gallery and indoor/outdoor garden. Although it was founded as a small trattoria, it’s now enormous, with at least five huge dining rooms and total capacity that’s got to exceed 500. A fun and romantic place.

Day 12

The day started with an excellent breakfast caffe around the corner from our hotel at Lievito Madre Iomella, Corso Italia, 259/A. and on the way to the police station, making a second trip to report my stolen phone, in the hope that our insurance might cover the loss if we had a police report (it didn’t, as it turned out). The same officer who had told us yesterday to come back today when there would be a translator was on duty, but this time, I think he felt sorry for us and called a colleague who spoke English. We got the report filed, and both of us found this cop endearing.

Then we went to the Museobottega della Tarsialignea, a museum of marquetry (the art of wood inlay). The marquetry of Sorrento is very different from marquetry I’ve seen in Massachusetts or in pieces from the Far East. A far greater percentage is story pictures as opposed to abstracts, and some are like church ceilings with many images on the same piece. I found that I was as excited by the depictions of 19th-century village life as by the craft itself. The museum is on four floors of an 18th-century mansion and includes far more than inlay. I was quite fascinated by a section on citrus packaging that included a museum-quality wrapping tissue for an individual lemon with a beautiful picture and a lacy design, posters for export from a citrus grower, and slate packing labels that labeled each crate with company, quantity, and destination country—the company and destination via pictures. So a crate destined for the US would have a picture of a Civil War soldier, while one headed for Scotland would have a bagpiper in kilt.

Although we only went to this museum because it was raining, and it was a bit pricey at €8, we spent over an hour there and enjoyed it quite a bit.

A friend had recommended a restaurant here, which we thought would make a good lunch stop. They were closed for our entire visit here but the owner was working on the interior and recommended his favorite pizza shop, Pizzeria da Franco, also near our hotel (not that anything in Sorrento is really far; it takes only about 15 minutes to walk across the entire downtown). We shared their large veggie pizza and were quite impressed. In fact, our second night in Napoli we’d chosen a pizzeria that had won an Italy-wide pizza contest, and I thought this one was significantly better.

After raining all morning, the skies finally cleared around 2:30 as we were eating that delicious lunch. By 3:20, we had finished our meal, stopped at our hotel, dropped off raincoats, and headed out the door for a hike up the paved trail to the Grand Hotel President, atop a huge hill overlooking the harbor. We just went to the sea end of town and started climbing through olive and citrus groves, enjoying the fantastic views of the mountain and its luxury hotels, and the working-class neighborhood around the harbor marina, and then descending down to the marina for a closer look. So in one hike, we were both above and below the city. We found out later the mountain portion is one of Sorrento’s most popular hikes, but once we were above the road that went to the half-way-up hotels including the Bristol, we didn’t see a soul until we were below it again. That’s January in Italy!

After the two-hour hike and another round of Primavera gelato—that ultra-dark chocolate was just as amazing all the way through as it had been when I’d sampled it the previous day—we rested a bit before going out again to dinner at Aurora, on the main square.

I usually avoid restaurants on the main square in tourist destinations, but this had some interesting things on the menu and reasonable prices, and the food looked good. It was! We were very ready for a change from pizza, pasta, and bread, so ordered a zucchini risotto and a plate of vegetable antipasti. And we happened to be seated right next to the pizza oven, so we spent the hour enjoying watching the pizza artist make exotic pizzas and feed them into this enormous wood-fired oven. Some of those pizzas were pretty enormous also, party-sized for takeout and too big to even fit in the delivery box. The pasta looked really good there, too, and when we returned the next day, we found the homemade pasta quite tasty—although the tomato sauce served over it was very poor: salty and with little flavor.

Day 13

We spent a lovely day in Positano, the first town out of Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast. It turns out that our destination on the previous day’s hike was only about 1/3 of the way up that mountain. Today, the bus drove past all the road intersections we hiked through yesterday, and kept going up, up, up, an then down, down, down to Positano. It’s a beautiful town snuggled into some mountains, and we hiked partway up one of them, then down past our starting point to the beach.

The town is largely closed for the winter, but it would be very fun to come here in spring or autumn with a big wad of money and shop all the fancy boutiques on the narrow, curvy streets, stay in the fancy hotels, etc. Not how we usually travel, and I’m happy about that—but the day certainly sets the mood to imagine that kind of experience. I’ve done very little luxury travel, and I’m thankful that I enjoy traveling simply, eating in local places, staying in places that have a good bed, good temperature, good wi-fi connection, clean nonsmoking rooms and friendly people; that’s really all I ask of a hotel or B&B (I spend very little time in the room anyway).

But I have done a little. Sometimes when I speak I get housed in very fancy hotels (once in the San Francisco Ritz-Carlton), we’ve had great hotels on some of the few group tours we’ve done, and my in-laws have given us four cruises. I enjoy them but I don’t need all the frills. I sleep, wake up, and go exploring. I like staying with people in our homestay networks even better, and when we return to Rome, we finally have a homestay.

Back in Sorrento, we did a little explore on one of the backstreets, out of the tourist district (though only a block away from it). We went to a little park named for Henrik Ibsen, who visited the area. I love that Italy names so many places for writers and artists, but this is the first time I’ve seen one named for a non-Italian.

On our way back to the Corso (main street), we glanced through the open door of the Cheese dei Servi di Maria (Church of the Servants of Mary) and saw such stunning art that we had to go in. This relatively simple Franciscan church has beautiful paintings and sculptures from the 1600s and 1700s, and I liked it a lot better than the much more ornate main cathedral. It’s not as simple as St. Francis’s magical country church inside a huge basilica in Assisi, which amazed me in 2003. But it’s really sweet and worth a visit. You can get a taste of the art at http://www.servidimariasorrento.it/drupal-6.17/?q=it/foto-chiesa

And even though we must have passed it 20 times, it took until this evening to notice the archeological dig right off the main square, featuring a tiny, cute ancient house deep down a hundred feet or so.

Day 14

Our original plan for Sorrento had been a day on the Amalfi Coast and a day in Pompeii. With the rain on the first day, of course, neither of those were going to work and we stayed in town. But we discovered it would be easy to do Pompeii or an alternative ruin at Ercolano (Herculeum) on the way back to Napoli; both were accessible by the same train that terminated at Napoli.

The more we looked into it, the better we liked the idea of Ercolano, an easy ten-minute walk from the Ercolano Scavi station. It would be a lot less crowded than Pompeii, of course. And it was also better preserved, easier to see in the limited time we had before catching our train back to Rome, and quite a bit cheaper.

A victim of the same 79 A.D. eruption that took out Pompeii, Ercolano is much closer to Vesuvius. Thus, the impact of the lava was much faster, preserving much more—including lots of art. Though many are fragmentary, it’s still easy to see frescoes and mosaics (and a few statues) that look as if they were painted only a century ago, not 20. Even some wood, tuned a deep black, still exists. Thus it’s possible to learn quite a bit about this village of 4000, frozen in a time when people who had walked the earth during Christ’s lifetime were still walking the earth.

We chose to to do neither the audio tour nor a guided tour, instead reading about it online the previous evening. We didn’t regret our choice, which allowed us to spend as much or as little time as we wanted at each location.

The site also yielded a large library of papyrus scrolls, which scientists are trying to figure out how to read with sophisticated x-ray machines that can separate the carbon of the ink from the carbon of the volcanic ash. These are not on display but will probably yield enormous knowledge of period life, eventually.

We walked to the far end (closest to the train station) and worked our way back, ending with the crypts containing the bones of some of the 300 people who were killed waiting for evacuation ships (most of the residents escaped that way). On the way out, you’ll also see a white building containing treasures from the site, ranging from glass household objects to silver and gold jewelry and coins (some encrusted with lava) to lava-covered daggers. Definitely leave 20 or 30 minutes to see this little museum.

Logistics: Inexpensive trains run about every half-hour from Sorrento and twice as often from Napoli (which is much closer and has two lines serving the station). 500 meters (about a quarter-mile) from the station to the entrance. Good, clean, free bathrooms both in the entrance building (before the gate) and in the museum (after you’ve gone through the entrance turnstile). The site is medium-friendly to people with walking disabilities, with a long ramp into the main pit and some connecting gantries. If you are in a wheelchair and go with someone who can get you up and down a single step of eight to 12 inches, you can see about 70 percent of what an able-bodied person will see and it will definitely be worth it. If you can’t, you’ll miss almost all the mosaics and more than half the frescoes.

Back in Napoli, we had some time before our train to Rome and went in search of food. Piazza Garibaldi, an enormously wide boulevard only a few blocks long, begins at the station, and we’d walked the side on the left as you exit, past a string of touristy restaurants. This time, we did the right side and circled around the block. It was like being in an entirely different country. People kept trying to sell us cases of cigarettes, many of the signs were in Arabic, almost all the people on the street looked African, many were Muslim, there was a big and very crowded market, and almost all the places to eat were stand-at-the-counter kebab shops that wouldn’t be good with our suitcases.

We retreated to the station, where we found the Time Cafe on the lower floor (not the much smaller version on the main floor). And to our delight, their pre-made sandwiches included tofu and avocado with dried tomatoes and tapenade on seeded whole grain panini bread. Vegans and vegetarians, rejoice! This was the first tofu we’d seen in an eatery here, probably because we haven’t tried any of the numerous sushi/Japanese or occasional Chinese restaurants.

Day 15 -Rome

A wonderful day at the Vatican Museums! We spent six hours there and at St. Peter’s Basilica and didn’t begin to see it all. This totally surpassed our expectations.

We expected a great collection of Christian art by the Old Masters—particularly Raphael and of course Michelangelo—but were pleasantly surprised by the strong collections of pagan artifacts not just from ancient Greece and Rome but also Egypt, an excellent contemporary art display including at least three Jewish artists (Marc Chagal, Ben Shawn, and Jacob Epstein), some nice little displays in the food court of 200-year-old copper cookware used by one of the Vatican’s most famous chefs, and more (including a whole underground museum of coaches, sedan chairs, and cars used by the papacy). I would have liked to see the Ethnographic Museum, but it was closed during our visit. It looked really cool from the posters outside it.

In January, it was easy to get in to both places. At the museums, we arrived about ten minutes before the 9 a.m. opening and by 9:20 we had gotten into the building, through security, and through the ticket counter. At St. Peter’s, it was under five minutes to get through security (admission is free).

And it’s very well-organized: Plenty of toilets and elevators, well-designed suggested routes, and the freedom to wander in the various museums pretty much as you wish, other than the Sistine Chapel—which is also the only place that bans photography. There are also several inexpensive eateries. We ate in the main cafeteria; the food was mediocre but sustaining. Later we wandered through the pizza shop and that might be a better choice. It certainly looked better.

Seeing the Sistine Chapel is an experience everyone should have. There’s been a lot of restoration, so the colors are as vivid as they were 500 years ago. Big panels tell Biblical stories from both the old and new testaments. Outside on the patio, a series of three posters describe the main pictures on the walls and ceiling; I recommend studying those first before visiting the chapel (we saw them afterward but figured out a lot of them while we were in the room, and that was still fine). Well-photographed art books about the chapel are for sale in several languages at very reasonable prices—but flip through before purchasing, because some of the books are much better presented than others. There were a couple in the €15-16 range that looked quite good.

Our final segment back in Rome was also brightened by our only homestay of the trip. We enjoyed dining with our host family and the excursion they took us on to some overlook where we could see Rome in its nighttime glory. Such a great way to travel!

Shel Horowitz, Editor of Global Travel Review, writes and consults at the intersections of profitability, social change, and environmental healing. His award-winning tenth book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, is available at his main website, http://goingbeyondsustainability.com