Family in Agrigento

Wednesday morning we got to the airport without hitting much traffic. I had paid for covered parking in one of the parking structures right across the street from the terminal. With help from Dee on the navigation front, we got into the structure pretty easily. On each floor they had an display showing how many spots were available, but we never found any until we got to the roof (uncovered). My suspicion is that the people who paid less for uncovered parking just grabbed the first spot they saw. No biggie, but I will know better if there is a next time.

Our Alitalia flight to Palermo was on time, but the legroom was atrocious. Given my height (just over 6' 1"), I am used to being tight on US flights, but I literally could not sit with my legs straight ahead. I bent them out a bit, but could not move them at all for well over an hour, so it was not fun. For the return flight I decided to pay a little more to reserve seats in the Comfort section, which should give me a bit of room. We got our Budget rental car without any issue. It was an Audi, but very small. It was supposed to be similar to our Yaris, but not really. Our luggage fit ok because Wes & Alyssa each had just a backpack, not a carryon, but even Dee didn't have much legroom. Our drive to Agrigento was uneventful, only about two hours, with beautiful scenery along the way, including a lot of ocean and mountains. 

We found our hotel, Colleverde Park Hotel, easily enough, on the east side of town.  By happenstance, it turned out to be an amazing location, close (within a mile) to each of the following: the Anziani and the church (where we delivered some mail and a new cell phone), Alyssa's relatives, and the ancient Greek temple sites, a huge tourist attraction (the best-preserved Greek temples outside of Greece). We hadn't planned on seeing the temples Thursday morning, but now we will since they are so easy to get to for us.

Our daughter Chiara also officially reserved her flights to visit us over Christmas. We are really excited!

We went out just before 6pm to drop off stuff to the Anziani and visit Aurora, the sister of Alyssa's maternal grandfather. She and her husband Alberto are both in their late 80s, somewhat forgetful but pretty sharp and very delightful. Their daughter Patrizia was also there. They were all so delighted to meet Alyssa. Dee & I translated as much as we could. We also had Alyssa call her grandfather and put him on the line with his sister and brother-in-law. Aurora gave him a hard time for not keeping in touch and made him promise to come visit next year; we'll see -- it is hard to travel at that age. They were crying as they talked. Aurora brought us out huge pistachio cannoli for us to eat and wouldn't let us share one; so we each did our duty and ate an entire item -- they tasted incredible! Aurora also gave Alyssa a doll to take home. Their apartment is on the 7th floor, with a gorgeous view of the town, the ancient Greek temples and the ocean. We left after about an hour, because they were getting tired out. It was a wonderful experience for everyone. They also kept asking when Wes and Alyssa were going to get married, which made everyone laugh.

Aurora, Alyssa, Alberto, Patrizia

The view from their home

Alyssa with her new doll

 

Fulvio, a friend of Alyssa's grandfather, was supposed to come by as well. Turns out that Aurora had forgotten to tell him we were coming, so we missed him. Bummer.

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and had a wonderful dinner in the outdoor covered restaurant, with an amazing view of the Greek temples lit in the distance. We all ate until we were stuffed. Two of the waiters there, Nino and Franca, were lots of fun. Franca said that she had lived there all her life but never been even to Scala dei Turchi, which Alyssa had just asked us to go see the next day.

We are so delighted at how well it worked out. This trip was our gift to Alyssa, and it was a joy to see it come together.