February 21, 2026

Catania > Gela, Sicilia, Italia

Another travel day. The car is picking us up at 11:00 and returning us to Gela and Palazzo Gioffrè. We don’t hurry this morning but are out the door and on our way to Levante Gelato Artigianle a morning coffee and brioche. The meeting place is right in front of the café.

We had seen a photo of a coffee that had a rim of chocolate topped with pistacchio nuts. Mary wanted to try that this morning. It is called a Affogato 2 Palline di Gelato. An affogato is a simple beverage featuring a scoop or two of gelato “drowned” ina short of hot, fresh espresso. In this case the rim of the cup was dipped in chocolate and the covered in pistachios pieces. The cappuccino was all I needed or wanted. We shared a brioche with jam.

Once we finished, we saw a Mercedes van double park in the Piazza Manganelli. Since it was 11:00 we assumed it would be our van and driver. It was. We spent the next hour-and-a-half in the van riding to Gela. When we got to Gela, we unloaded the van, went to the door and rang. The main cleaning the rooms let us in.

Once we got settled, we headed out to get me some honey for my tea and some lunch for us. Unfortunately, there aren’t many places open at 13:00 on a Saturday. Neither supermarkets or restaurants. We found one market on Corso Vittorio Emanuele which was open until 13:30. We tried a couple restaurants but none of them were open. We finally ended up at Le Corte Sicula where we ate the other day with Maria and Carmen.

However, today we can have meat, so we ordered burgers. I got a steak burger, and Mary got a chicken burger. Both were much bigger than we could finish. I got close. Mary brought her’s back to the room for dinner. After lunch we returned to our room. We rested and took it easy.

We played a couple games of canasta. And then called it a night. Very relaxing day. Tomorrow we are going to Piazza Armerina to see a Roman Villa with Carmen and Maria.

Buonanotte e Ciao,

Enrico e Maria