Caltagirone

This past  weekend, Mike had Friday and Monday off, but the kids only have Monday off.  So Mike and I took a ride to a little town about 45 minutes away called Caltagirone.  It is a town known for its ceramics.  However, it is also known for the Staircase of Saint Maria, or Scala di Santa Maria.  This is a beautiful staircase which has 142 steps.  I knew that the best time to hit this town was when the kids were not around because we have spent enough time listening to them complain about how much they have to walk.

The town is built on a hill, which meant windy, steep roads to get there.

We parked in a parking garage outside of town.  There was really no way we were going to be able to fit our vehicle through those little streets!  Although there were cars the size of mine driving around.  The Italians really know how to navigate their little roads.  Above is a view from inside the car where we parked.  The garage was right on the edge of the hillside, and where we parked was on the outside edge of the garage.  Just straight down on the other side of that fence.

This is the town looking up from where we parked.  Our goal was to walk our way through the winding streets, check out the ceramics and find the staircase.

This is the stairway looking up.  It looks like nothing in this picture!

Aside from there being a lot of steps at the Scala di Santa Maria, the real attraction is that each riser is decorated with hand painted ceramic tiles.

Along the way up, there were little ceramic shops where we stopped in and looked around, while resting a while.  And once we reached the top we sat and watched others climb up.

Behind Mike, there were 4 little boys playing a game of soccer in the small square.  At one point the ball went down the steps Mike is sitting on and approached the big stairway.  As the little boy's eyes got really big watching the ball, it somehow managed to hit one of the few posts that line the top of the stairway.  I can't imagine having to chase the ball all the way down!

As bad as it was walking up, it was just as bad walking down.  It was a pretty steep set of stairs and no rail to hold onto!

And after a long morning of walking up and down hills and stairs, we were hungry.  So we stopped for our favorite Italian mid-morning snack......

That's right, gelato/granite and brioche.  I figure we walked off all those calories before we sat down to eat them =)