After two hours of sleep we headed out to Napoli airport to catch a 6 o’clock flight to Catania, Sicily. Brutal!

But the advantage of an early flight is that you get the most amazing sunrises (which I usually never see do to beauty sleep requirements)

A diver picked us up and after 2 hours we reached our first destination: Milazzo, where Ted met some of his ancestors – the only difference is the hair style: back in the days they had longer hair and beards and such 😎. And no shoes!

Beside the visit to the opera, we had two more nights in Napoli that were outstanding! One was a pasta making class where we learned the art of making original pasta from Napoli! And ragu, a slowly simmered meat and onion sauce that needs to cook several hours!

It looks so simple what you can do with just a few ingredients, but it is labor intense! We used our hands only, no mixer or pasta machine involved… One example: ravioli filled with ricotta and served with marinara sauce – delicious!

Another example was the tagliatelle pasta with beef ragu (that should cook many hours). Ragu can be made with or without tomatoes btw.

The other evening event we were treated with was a dinner party at a private house (I’d call it a palazzo, but what do I know). The host with her two daughters whipped up a miracle dinner that was outstanding in itself, but with the setting in her private home, it just made it super special! Filled with artwork mainly from one of the daughters, Celesta Bufano, it was such a delight [[[ Celesta studied art at the same Akademie in Munich as I did!!! ]]]. What rounded up this evening was a music performance that Arturo organized, with a Singer from Napoli. He even dedicated one of the songs to Ted and I, “the love birds” in the group! ❤️ Ted had to sing with him (in his Italian soprano voice) and I just melted away – ok, it was pretty hot too 😅