Marinello Reserve and San Giorgio

We explored the local area around our agriturismo on our first two days in the northeast of Sicily. We headed first to the Marinello Reserve, where we were told small boats would take us to more remote beaches. After a quick lunch at Marinello lunch, we had the great adventure of tracking down said boats. Finally, on one, we were whisked across to the pebbly beach where we spent the afternoon swimming in the deep water. People around us were there to party- clearly camped out for a whole day with large groups.

In the distance in the first photo, is the impressive site of Tindari, a Greek sanctuary from 398 BC. We didn't make it up the windy roads to see it in person, unfortunately. We learned our lesson about dragging kids to the tops of hills to see magnificent Greek sites :)

The nature reserve

I had remembered Sicily for the beaches and rolling hills scenery of our first trip. It was much more mountainous in this area and really beautiful. 

We had to wait for a boat to take us back and then COVID social distancing measures were thrown out to sea as we were packed in like sardines to return home!

Dinner on night 2 was blessedly quiet after the karaoke party the night before!

Our kids were being so photogenic, it is just so gosh darn hard to choose my favorite ;)

With the kids upstairs watching tv, we could actually chat with our lovely dinner company! 

The next day we spent the morning at the pool, where stylish hair caps were required ;) Pretty sweet views from there. 

We facetimed briefly with Nana, who got the kids to actually pose for some photos in their window (balcony below). We had lunch that day at the agriturismo, served indoors with the AC. 

I needed a granita fix so we headed down (some gnarly roads) to the town of San Giorgio on the coast. The granita was really good and there was a large playground behind it, shaded by big trees. We didn't have much of a plan for that evening, just that we would eat dinner out somewhere. The Assody's met us in town and we picked the restaurant with the best of the mediocre reviews. More playground and more gelato to end the night.

There was good sea shell to find

Aaron lost more of his gelato than he was bargaining for when we agree to give Maeve "a lick"