Volaré, Wo Oh...

We are really having a good time. We made it to Siracusa, on the east coast of Sicily, late yesterday afternoon. It took three days to go what anyone else would drive in three hours because of our detour into the mountains to cook with Joanna in Gangivecchio. 

Also, there was the stop in Piazza Armerina to see the astonishing late-Roman mosaics which had been buried for centuries, and therefore preserved, by mud from a landslide. This villa, at whose floors we can once again marvel, belonged to a wealthy Roman importer of exotic animals from Africa and Asia.

Remember, you are looking at floors. The wealthy landowner must have been the Larry Ellison of his day. Some of these floors are 100 feet long. This is all mosaic, not paint. Each tiny color change is a natural piece of stone.

But the Roman Empire, that was already split up and in decline when the villa was built, really began when the Romans defeated the Greeks in Siracusa, Sicily, in 212 BC. 

And even older than that is the volcanic underpinning of Sicily, which comes from Mt. Etna, north of Siracusa. Theee days ago Etna erupted again. The smoking mountain is clear from the autostrada.

It's a strange feeling, life. Sometimes you feel like you got to the theater 2500 years late and you're the only one there and the show has closed.

But then you realize everything just begins and begins and begins again.