HOLIDAY IN SICILY

We broke with tradition this year to have a holiday in Sicily this year before going to Rome which is what we have done every summer in the last 8 years. When we have holidays, our destination of choice has always been dictated by how much fun we think the boys would both have. We also always go to the seaside ironically for a family that live yards from the northern sea in Scotland.Having two kids with a 15 year gap between them and us as parents looking forward to have fun and a nice break from both our hectic working lifestyles it is a difficult balance to strike. For our Sicilian holiday, we wanted a good sea view, nice spacious old Italian town and to be able to eat amazing food. We settled on the quiet sleepy in the day and vibrant city of Trapani. As  a small city, Trapani has everything, gellateria, amazing restaurants, bars,  beautiful beach and plenty of room for the boys to play on the streets. Trapani attracts a lot of tourist but despite its numerous hip bars at night, it seems to attract the more reserved calm and mature tourist. Trapani is more for families with young kids than Aya Napa or Kavos.

On the history side of things, Trapani also is rich in Italian old traditions which is told in many forms through the city’s beautiful architure which depicts the importance the city played in
Italy’s history. It also has several impressively restored old architure
such as the old town centre, the Temple and Amphitheatre at Segesta. Trapani
international airport was still functioning in the summer of 2014 with
flights to Edinburgh, Dublin, Paris, London( Luton), Brussels,
Frankfurt and Barcelona but our taxi driver adviced that it was due to
be shut soon although you can fly to another city and rent a car to travel in. In

Gelateria Gino

We stayed at the Garibaldi31 which is a very decent b and b. We had a back room with a window overlooking the Sea. Garibaldi 31 is right in the city centre which made it handy for going for nightly walks. There are a lot of specialist ice cream parlours that make one off ice creams such as the jasmine ice cream at Gelateria gino and the fish market where we were able to buy sword fish and other local fish on days that we cooked.

There are several activities for both parents and kids to enjoy when visiting Trapani. One day we took a trip via cable cars up to the top of the mountains to visit the town of Erice a very beautiful ancient town perched at the top at 750metres. There are also several salt pans, which can be educative for kids to see and learn about where salt comes and how salt it is mined. San Vito Lo Capo beach has a back drop of a tall city like buildings and the wine town of Marsala is only about 20 minutes away when you drive.