I bought some plane tickets on Orbitz recently, and this appeared during the purchasing process:
How cool is that? They'd emailed me the discount notification a few weeks ago, but I just archived it and forgot about it (I didn't have any travel plans when they first emailed me).
Amazon should do this too.
Posting from the 2400 year-old Teatro Greco at Taormina, on Sicily's east coast - it's simply stunning! The theatre is situated on a mountaintop looking out over the town (pop. 11,000), the Ionean Sea, and the various towns scattered down the coast - similar to Cinque Terre south of the Italian Rivierra. If the weather were clear we could see Etna (which we climbed yesterday), though alas it's pretty cloudy today.
Apparently there's a yearly film festival here, which would be fun to see someday.
My cousin has turned me into a coffee fan - we're having cappucinos at breakfast every morning and lattes or macchiatos in the afternoons. Next I suppose I should learn how the fancy coffee/foam machines at the office work.
The car's been fantastic - we've driven over 1000km so far (Sicily's big, and there's lots to see) and only had to fill up the tank once - no biodiesel, though. We've got ~250km left to get back to Palermo, and are part-way through the Harry Potter IV audiobook (gotta be up to speed - the movie comes out Nov18).
Ciao for now,
-E
..to tell the story of "The Accidental 15-Course Meal and the Best Cannoli in Sicily."
We (my cousin Mary Ellen and I) got out of Palermo as soon as we could - were hoping to rent a Smart, but sadly Avis' were rented already. So we're cruising around in a 2005 VW Golf TDI instead. (I definitely prefer the <2005 design, but the new one is growing on me).
Segesta was impressive and Erice was just delightfully charming! The neatest spot so far was Cave de Cusa, a stone quarry with several *massive* in-progress columns still embedded in the rock. The columns were destined for Selinunte, whose temples were insanely large.
Corleone was a tad disappointing, given that I was hoping for the old Godfather village clinging to the Sicilian hilltop - today it's a small, standard city.
Today we're stopping by the Valle dei Templi in Agrigento, and the Villa Imperiale de Casale on the way to Siracusa - we're making good time.
