Sunday lunch in a castle {Caccamo, Sicily}

In our family, I am the one who is usually eager to travel and explore, whereas Elliott is grateful for weekends to stay home and rest.  I’m home all week, so when the weekend comes, I’m like, “Get me outta here!”  But I know how much Elliott loves quiet time with his family; he will spend whole Saturdays building block towers and having dance parties with Lena and Gil.  Therefore the greatness of his sacrifice was not lost on me when he offered to take a Monday off and let us travel somewhere over the weekend.  I might have done a happy dance.

After a little research, we chose to go to Cefalu (cheff-a-LOO) on the northern coast of Sicily.  On our way there, we decided to detour to the mountain town of Caccamo (KAH-kah-moo).  Our guide book raved about the lunch served in a restaurant below a castle, and we know Sunday lunch is a tradition in Sicily.  We made it to Caccamo in time to explore the castle before stuffing ourselves on a huge four-course meal.

View of Caccamo as we walked up to the castle.

There was a mountain bike race ending right at the foot of the castle, right outside the restaurant.  Mountain bikers were everywhere, including the castle, and one of them was kind enough to take our picture.

Also… ahem.  Lena was fascinated with this ancient toilet.

Lake, valley, mountains… so much of the scenery reminded us of California.
Also, I love my cute family!

Hand-painted floor tiles.

Inside the Great Hall of the castle.  On the other side of the room was a huge fireplace and windows overlooking the mountains and valleys.

You catch a glimpse of the ocean to the left.  What a setting!

And now… time to eat!  I loved the brickwork and the decor.  All the baskets are very distinctly Sicilian and are woven by hand from strips of olive wood.

Gil is eating so much now, and we are hoping he’ll fatten up!  He’s still hanging out around the 10th percentile for weight.  He ate a lot of our delicious meal, which included the traditional four courses: appetizer plates, two kinds of pasta, meat and salad, and cannoli and espresso for dessert.  Definitely more food than we could possibly hold!  There is nothing like a traditional Sicilian meal, eaten slowly over 3 hours and washed down with vino della casa.

Of course, everything was about 5 times more stressful for us than any of our neighbors because of our tired little kids, but Lena and Gil did pretty well, and we were grateful we came.  Around 4pm we buckled them back into the car, and they were asleep before we left Caccamo!

Up next… photos of our beautiful weekend in Cefalu.