Christmas in Sicily!

After an odysee rivaling homer's quest, we finally arrived in Messina and were able to spend the holidays with Carlo's family. Little Sofia was the highlight of it all!!!

Sofia and Flora

The best present of all!!!

Cute as a button!

I was still stuck with the flu....

Pit stop in Malta!

The snow chaos in London left us with few options to arrive in Sicily for Christmas on time.

We decided to take drastic measures and booked a business class ticket with Air Malta to Malta -no stopovers etc.! The next day we would then continue our treck to Catania, Sicily.

This meant we would not be able to return to Munich in order to gather christmas presents and stock up on clothes...but with the chaos in London complete, we were glad to have escaped the cold and grey...

Malta was sunny and relatively warm. For us at that moment a very welcome change!

The WHITE CLIFFS of Dover, England!

Flying high above Sicily on the way to Malta!

Gulf of Palermo, Sicily

Mt. Etna in the distance!

Once we had almost arrived, we were able to laugh again!

Crossing Sicily to land in Malta (a speck in the water, not even seen yet)

Sunset in Sliema, Malta from our hotel.

View across the city towards the sea.

View across the harbor to Valetta, the capital with the huge dome. (UNESCO world heritage site)

Jellyfish seem to be a problem here too...

The busses seemed out of a different time! They were!

British architecture meets mediterranean!

On our way to the airport the next day - to fly to Sicily.

Weekend in London-with snow chaos!

We had planned to spend the weekend in London and attend Carlo's companies christmas party, and return to Munich shortly before christmas. Further we had planned to then leave for a ten day stay in Sicily for the holidays... It all started well with a very fun party, but then went downhill fast.
I caught a bad case of the flu and was held up in the hotel with fever for two days... It was not a good situation... To make things worse, due to the snow, which is unusual to fall in London, numerous airports closed for hours and a complete chaos followed, stranding passengers for days!!! Including us...

Here a few impressions... first from the PIMCO christmas party and then of London in the snow...

Ahhh! London at christmas time! Lovely!

The venue was held at a very cool spanish inspired tapas place.

taking the bull by the horns...in this case the muzzle...haha!

Terrace with London Eye in the background...

At least somebody had a sense of humor amidst the chaos!

On the Heathrow Express - Finally!

Still hopeful we will make it out of the city!!! After 5 days!

Air Malta to the rescue!