Caltagirone- A Girl's Day Out!

When Greg returned home from a 2 week visit to the States, I jumped at the first opportunity to have a day out.  A couple of friends and I went to Caltagirone for a day of shopping and lunch at a nearby agriturismo. 

 

 

Caltagirone is known for hand painted ceramics and displays handpainted tiles on every step of the beautiful staircase in the center of town. 

 

 

 

Shop after shop displays their handcrafted wares.  After visiting a couple different shops, we settled in to a small place with a very friendly owner who showed us his workspace and let us take turns painting one of his unfinished pieces!

 

 

 

 

 

We decided to buy some tiles as gifts for loved ones and began digging through piles of tiles.  When I say digging, I mean we planted ourselves on the floor in the showroom and went through hundreds of tiles.  It became a game of stacking and restacking until we found perfectly matched sets.

 

As our reservation time for lunch approached, we made our way to the agriturismo.  The GPS led us down some questionable roads with significant mudslide action and sharp turns where we had to honk the horn to let the other side know we were there.  Driving is always an adventure here!

We enjoyed our lunch inside a cave!  The restaurant is actually carved out from the side of a mountain! 

 

To complete the adventure we met some goats in the street and saw a giant bird fighting with a bush.  I didn’t get a picture of the bird… I don’t do birds.

 

We had a fun day with lots of laughter and I’m ready to go back!