a trip to the beach

Very, very spontaneously, Elliott and I decided to go away to the beach this past weekend.  The decision was made when Elliott was looking at hotels online, and when I asked him why, he said, "For Memorial Day weekend."

This was Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend.

The hotel he'd found, though, seemed perfect.  Glowing reviews on booking.com, lovely pictures of gardens, famously delicious meals in the hotel restaurant, and just 100 feet from the beach.

"Let's do it!" I said.  "You said you wanted a getaway to a white sand beach.  We can go tomorrow afternoon and come back Monday."

And so we did!

Hotel Villamare was fabulous; I think we'll go back if we can.  White sand surrounded a bay of turquoise water, although unfortunately the scenery was marred by a lot of seaweed.  (We missed the annual seaweed clean up, which was scheduled for June 1... oops!)  We worked around a winters' worth of seaweed, though, and thoroughly enjoyed sand and sea.

That evening Elliott and I enjoyed a delicious three-course Italian meal in the hotel restaurant.  We lingered over our bottle of wine, savoring the cheeses and meats, the fresh pistachio pasta, the fillets of fish.  Breakfast the next morning was just as noteworthy, and we got special attention because of little Lena sitting primly in her high chair at our table.  The waitress brought us a special dish of almond granita and brioche, a very traditional Sicilian breakfast.  We slathered the sorbet (granita) over the sweet bread roll (brioche) and ate up like true Sicilians.

On Monday morning our good friends Josh, Becca, and their kids joined us on the beach, and another friend and her two sons came as well.  They all dug a huuuuuge hole, which little Stevie said was for Lena to swim in.

Princess Lena awaited her pool while playing with everyone else's beach toys and trying a taste of sand.

She loved her handmade pool!  She also clearly loved the beach, and her friends, and the sunshine.  Now whenever Lena sees a bottle of sunscreen, she asks me to pop off the lid and then carefully dabs her fingertip in it and wipes it on her face.  She's ready for summertime in Sicily, I think!