The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
Chillin' in the 'Hood
If you're smart, the first day of a trip should be more about recovery and re-balancing than sightseeing. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
< href="http://www.vrbo.com/786602ha">The apartment is really quite well done. Comfortable facilities in a decent location at a good price! The building is old but the renovation has been very well done. The original walls were built from lava rocks (Catania is at the base of Mt. Etna -- a never-ending supplier of raw materials!) This ground floor unit has ceilings that arch to about 15-16 feet. Quite impressive! There's a sofa sleeper, a trundle bed and full bath on the main level in addition to two sitting areas, a well-equipped kitchen and a small couryard. Up the stairs is another bedroom and en-suite bath.
As you might imagine from our adventures yesterday, we were totally beat when we arrived last night, so today was devoted mainly to restoring some semblance of human-ness. We slept in, nested, putzed about the apartment and finally ventured out for a bite to eat around 2pm. We had no real idea where we were going, just explored the neighborhood until we found something that looked workable.
As with many of these towns, there's the old center and the new center. We ended up on the edge of the newer part and found Il Pananivendolo (roughly translated, the Sandwich-Seller), a little sandwich shop whose tables were nearly filled, inside and out, at 2:30 in the afternoon (although not by the time I took the picture!) A full house is always a good sign and we went for it. Temperatures were in the high 60's -- a tad cool but pleasant enough to eat outside. Margene had a foccacia sandwich bigger than her head and I went for a fresh pasta with sun-dried tomatoes and hazelnuts in a cream sauce. Add a cold bottle of Birra Moretti and I was a happy camper.
One of the car clubs had some of their vehicles displayed on the wide sidewalk as we wandered down the main drag. There were some real beauties in the row from some perfectly restored models of the 30s to a '68 Ferrari. Classic cars are just such eye candy!
That was about as much as we wanted to handle today. We got in a good walk and regained a bit of balance. One more night of good sleep and we should be up for something more active ... or maybe not!
© 2013 Restaurant Doctor
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