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I am closing in on having all the photos from our trip uploaded to my archive on Flickr. The latest batches are from beautiful beautiful Napoli, and feature much in the way of cool old statuary. It was a wonderful museum–though a couple rooms I really wanted to see were closed.

Napoli was every bit as cool as Rome and all of Sicily, but it felt like more work. By then we were tired, of course, but the combination of fatigue, only having a couple nights, dodging New Years’ celebrants and their (huge, noisy, numerous) explosives and then being on the loose in the city on a stat holiday, when basic things like the transit system were partially shut down… it somehow made Palermo and Catania both seem effortless. Which they weren’t.

This isn’t to say I didn’t like the city, or have a good time there. I did! I’d very much like to go back, though, for more than two days and not during a holiday. Then again, I want to go back to every single place we saw, so I suppose all I’m saying is when I go back, I want it to be in some way warmer and fuzzier and more cuddly.

I loved Catania. I had to think about this, because I loved everywhere we went and everything we saw in Italy, but I think Catania and Palermo were the two cities where I felt most at home. Most like I could actually live there, you know?

So here are pics. Naples will come next, and then a half-dozen shots from our last morning in Rome. And I already have some lovely pictures of exotic Vancouver, British Columbia, waiting for their time in the Intraweb sun.

Vendicari is a wetland of international importance; Kelly and went there to chase birds and go “Squee, nature!” Modica is where we spent Christmas and Boxing Day. It is built in a ravine and so we got to do lots of urban climbing, scaling the staircases that connect its various streets. Perhaps more importantly, Modica is where the best chocolate in Sicily is made. Tell a Sicilian you’re going to Modica and they say “Mmmm, ciocolatta.” (Tell them you’re going anywhere else on the island, or Naples, and they tell you that the people of that town are terrible thieves and sure to rob you.)

I loved every place we went in Sicily, but my love for Modica was not so much of the type that spawned “I could live here fulltime” fantasies. More “I would love to live within reach of this town and come for a long weekend four times a year.”

Of course, I might still be chasing birds on Vendicari if the wind hadn’t been a-howling.