Air, Landier, and Sea

Bongiorno from Sicily!

Today was the first new stop with our Bucketlist Xperience group, so we started our morning with the very exciting and much anticipated plane reveal.

Well, we didn’t exactly start the day with that, because we had to be driven to Pisa because there were fires in Florence (not near us) that limited the flights leaving that airport. So we hopped into a van and took the roughly hour-long ride to Pisa.

The drive was so beautiful! Similar to the train, it was a great time for admiring the Tuscan countryside.

After arriving in Pisa we got to see the plane that will take us on the remainder of our world tour. Let me just say it did not disappoint!

Upon arrival in Florence, we picked a number out of a hat that corresponded to our seat position for the whole trip.

I picked good ol’ number 8 C, D, so Bryce and I are sitting right at the wing, so we were quite pleased with my lucky draw.

We took a quick 90 minute flight to Sicily and then were transported straight to a gorgeous boat to take us to Taormina.

Bryce and I decided to sit on the bow of the boat with two other couples. It was so peaceful. The gentle bounce of the boat allowed for a gentle mist to wash over us every so often. As one of the guys said, “It’s like a lullaby. I feel so calm.”

We got to enjoy this for a good 45 minutes, until the water got rougher.

At this point, only one of the other couples was up front with us and now it wasn’t so much a gentle mist, but like being in the front row of the Shamoo show at Sea World. We would hit a wave, the white would crash over the rails, and occasionally I even got a little air as we sped over the waves. At one point we tried to get to the back of the boat, but we would slightly worried if we tried to walk back we would be thrown overboard by the waves so we stayed up front.

Just for the record, we were in no way in danger, nor was it stormy, it was just choppy waters- not atypical of being in the ocean. So for the last 45 minutes of the ride it was just Bryce, me, and one other woman and we were just cracking up as we were completely soaked, bouncing around on the front of the boat.

The boat eventually pulled into more of a cove for swim time and we were able to walk to the back of the boat.

Everyone in the back was completely dry and the three of us looked like we already had our swim time. It made it that much easier to jump in the sea and go for a nice swim.

The water was the perfect temperature (even for Bryce and me who like our water very warm) and we floated around with life vests for a bit, and then headed back to the boat for a snack and prepared to disembark and head to the hotel.

A water taxi brought us back to shore and a van took us up into the hills to our hotel with the most gorgeous views.

We enjoyed dinner in the hotel gardens, which overlooked the water.

Also, the hotel, with the information provided by Bucketlist Xperience, gave us the cutest surprises upon our arrival to our hotel room!

They decorated our room and brought us a special chocolate heart box, which when we broke it open was filled with more chocolate (so far we love Sicily!)