Italy Trip Review: Vietri sul Mare, Palermo, Taormina, Naples, Pompeii, Sorrento, Ravello, Capri, Organic Farm Visit, Mt Etna Tour

Our guide was fun, personable for Naples and Pompeii. She quickly adapted our trip to Pompeii when she found out that Herculaneum was closed the day we were supposed to go. She just spent more time and details about Pompeii. She and the driver picked out a great place for lunch in a small family winery. Our next guide was for a day in Sorrento. We toured the organic farm where her family grows everything you can think of. We had fun making buffalo mozzarella and ricotta cheese. We then had even more fun making our own Neapolitan pizza. Our driver then gave us a great driving tour of the Amalfi coast. He was such a great driver on the narrow roads and also gave us history about each city. In our stop at Amalfi, he pointed out the best restaurant for lunch in a quiet square off the beaten path. We ended the day with a stop in Ravello and overlooked the coast from the wonderful gardens of a villa. A different Massimo was our captain for out boat tour down the Almafi coast. It was completely different to see all the same cities but from a more relaxed and laid-back time on the ocean. Our captain added to our previous history and took us to all the sites and around Capri before taking us to lunch at a small beach restaurant in Maiori. Our guide in Palermo gave us all her knowledge about who had conquered the city and took us through that history in Monreale touring the churches and cathedrals built by the invaders. We toured the fresh food markets and saw vegetables that we had never seen before, but all looking wonderful with lots of color and shapes. After a nice lunch in the middle of the food market, we ended our day walking down the large walking street the runs through Palermo. We moved onto Taormina and had a fantastic tour of Mt Etna with our driver/ tour guide. He has extensive knowledge of volcanoes and went through all the details on our tour and stopping at a number of areas to see the impact of Etna over the centuries. He took us off the roads to see how the last eruption moved some 20 miles and blocked roads, ran over hotels and how with time before the eruption how some facilities were saved with a concrete wall and knowledge of what a lava flow moves. We ended our day a delicious lunch at a Winery with a full 5 course lunch with matching wine selections. Lastly our final tour included making and sharing a Sunday meal at a local family's home; it was a wonderful opportunity. We picked a lot of the ingredients on their property and then were put to work making sausage patties and hand making macaroni from scratch. It was quiet the adventure working with a Sicilian grandma. She made it look so easy, but when we put our hands to the task, it didn't look like her examples. Our guide was filling in for the mother's daughter who usually does the tour. She was fantastic and got right into making the same stuff we were doing and also struggled. She was a great companion at lunch and told us about the family and how they have been growing their organic garden for years. We had a great experience with fantastic food and some of the best wine during our 14 days in Italy. Truly, Sicily captured out hearts.