A Most Dreamy Hotel, Bus Ride & Origions of Pizza #GJWRisingStar

Buongiorno from our home in Sicily. We're going to go to Giardini Naxos and one of the hotels we're going to be using on one of our tours. Let me tell you, this is such a spectacular spot. The views from the rooms, the proximity to the beach, to restaurants, etc. And oh, the dinners we had. And then we're going to go talk to our dear friend Roberto from Sicilia's Cafe in Giardini Naxos about, you know, all things Sicilian. You know, we reserved 10 Seaview rooms there for next September 2025. We're going to be taking a group there. I think we have two rooms available. If after you look at this place, if you're interested, give Esther an email or whatever because it's great. I've been there in the past. I stayed there. My brother has stayed there. Many of my friends have stayed there. All to rave reviews including, by the way, Lisa Zoba. Hi Lisa. She sent me an email when I told her we were going there. So, come on down. All right, take a look and then we have more info on the other end. End of October. Can you imagine this? People still swimming. Madonna, look how clear Etna is today. Still no snow on her. Look at this. Cup sandwich. That's a good looking sandwich. Thing of beauty. The entrance to the hotel with these beautiful Greek symbols. There's the Trinaklia. Very classy. And look at this view. The fantastic thing about this hotel is that not only is it walking distance from the beach, but also all the shops and restaurants. Pretty spacious rooms. Beautiful bathroom. Let's see the bathroom. It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it. We came here to vet out this hotel for a very special tour next September. And Al, you had the tough job of trying a panini, but not any panini. It's a special. No, it wasn't a panini. It was a work of art. I almost wrapped it up, got a nail it on my wall. That's how good it was. It was a club sandwich at the Helena Yard Club. 20 years. It's the best club sandwich I've ever had. What made it so special? The mayonnaise. I had mayonnaise for the first time in, I don't know, two years, but I said the hell with it. I'm going to eat it because people on the next table were eating it. It had chicken. It had some high-end ham. It had tomatoes, lettuce, and stuff. But the thing is, the bread was just killer. It was a toast. It was a toast. And one other thing I want to say about that sandwich. Any country club in the States, usually they serve really good club sandwiches. Believe me when I tell you, this was the very best, best that I ever had in my life. I'll be dreaming about this sandwich. Okay, now I'm headed to Tarmina. I'm taking the bus. We'll see how that goes. This is just a great street to walk around. Lots of shops and restaurants and bars. And then, of course, you have this view of Tarmina. The interbus is actually pretty good. It's costing me less than two euro. Euro 90 to go from Giardini Nexus up to Tarmina. And it'll take me to the Porta Messina, not the Porta Catania, Cape of Catania. 4.30 in the afternoon. And this is the scene here. End of October. People are still wearing shorts. And, of course, checking out this incredible sunset by Mametna. Let's take a pizza. This is how you do it, right here, with this beautiful scene. Buon appetito. Look what Alfred's having. Cheeseburger. Cheeseburger. Patatine, insalata, vino. This is it, guys. Now, that is my favorite dish right here. Do you hear the ocean? It is so smoothing. Buon giorno. Caffè, acqua, and this view. That's how you start a morning. Now, we're gonna go to Caffè Sequilia and our dear friend Roberto. Let me tell you, Roberto can speak about just about any subject. He is charming. He's intelligent. He's like the mayor of Giardini Nexus. We went on a car ride with him. He was saying hello to just about everyone. Plus, his food is absolutely out of this world. We go there. We try to talk, get him on our camera. And let me tell you that he has something new. He always has something interesting and fun to talk about. I think you'll enjoy this section. I've known the man for over 25 years. 25 years I've known Roberto. I knew him when he was a recent graduate from the University of Messina in economy and business. I knew he was a smart guy there. And now, today, I'm pleased to announce to the world. Can I make the announcement? Go. Roberto became a father six weeks ago to a beautiful little baby girl by the name of Ida. After his mother. I-D-A. We will pronounce that in English. Ida. Ida was the mother's name. She was the matriarch of Roberto's family. Now, a lot of our viewers have seen Roberto on the video. So, you have a little bit of sense. But a lot of our travelers, if you've been on tours with us here on the East Coast, you've met Roberto. And listen to this. His girlfriend is Hungarian. So, not only Alfred was a Hungarian, but he's Hungarian. From Budapest. From Budapest. Let me just say one more thing, okay, if I possibly can. I felt his spirit elevated two days ago. I have never seen that man so emotionally happy. And he's no young spring chicken either, you know. He's in his north side of his 50s, okay. Handsome man. Handsome guy. And this baby, I can tell, in the last, well, you know, is now the center of Roberto's universe. And his sisters. And his sisters. All right, let's go talk to Roberto. But we want to wish them, all of them, the whole Shedidlo family. And that's got to be Sonia, Maria Grazia, Nancy. Those are his three sisters. And we're so happy for that. So, now let's go and see what Roberto has to say. In 2014, when I first came here and interviewed you and we were sitting over there, that's exactly what we had. Buscata. What do you have to say to the world today, Roberto? I'm so happy to be, to sit here with my friends. Alfredo has a special part in my life. It's not just a normal person that you meet and you know and you enjoy. There's more, much more. You guys are like brothers. You see, if you could open my breast and you see my heart, one side is occupied for Alfredo. Sicily is an island. It's a part of Italy. In the same time, it's a small continent. It could be a single country, a single state. It doesn't need to be with Italy. It could be even alone. It's really a rich place. But not now. This has been since the history, since always. Sicily was the land, the piece of land that was in the mind, in the wish of all the countries in the Mediterranean area. So everyone tried to get this island. That's why if we read the history, we see that we passed a lot of colonization. A lot of people have been here. Everyone believed here, a part of them. Some a good part, some one not a good part. But the population... Who were the good guys? Who were the people? No, everybody from the Normans, the Greeks. The Greeks left a lot. The Arabs left a lot. A lot. The food we eat and you know, they left a mark. Knowledge about the agriculture. Everyone have been leaving some, a little treasure. If this is, what do we, if we try to understand today, to see who is the Sicilian, it's hard even to say. Because there is a Sicilian from Catania, there's a Sicilian from Messina, Sicilian from Palermo. Everyone have different in the DNA. It bring different roots. So if we're going to check the DNA of the Sicilian today, it's a melange, a melange of population that have been here during the last 20th century, 40th century. You know, people are always surprised when they do the 23andMe and all those tests. Oh, I have Arab, I have Jewish, I have this, I have that. And it makes a lot of sense, even Greek. That's true. Have you ever seen the tableau of the Sicilian style, the Sicilian art? They are made by red color, blue color, yellow color. Okay. It's the roots of the Arabian, but it's a milk pot, like the population of this country. I used to say country, not island. By the way, for those of you who may not know Roberto, he's old time friend of Alfred's and I met him 10 years ago. And of course, we come here with our groups because his food is legendary, including the pizza, because now you're a professional pizza maker. We can easily say because I love pizza. I like to eat pizza. Well, then it makes sense. It helps a lot because it's, you know, there's the fashion of the pizza. There is the pizza that became the gourmet pizza. So everyone's improved. The world of pizza exploded in the last maybe 20 years, 15, 20 years. Now we see that there's the biggest chef that they do all the pizza, they talk about pizza. Always. Yeah. But before pizza was a junky food. Pizza was a food for poor people. Just thinking that pizza was made like in the 1800 here in Italy. And we just find out that the pizza was going everywhere maybe 50 years ago, not longer. After World War II. Sorry? After World War II. After World War II and also after a lot of people, they emigrate to the States because the big market was the States where they go everywhere. But in the beginning, the Italians that were there, the South Italian that used this pizza, they just made at home. They don't say around. They were shy to say out that they're eating pizza. Pizza was for poor people. You can say even the Romans had the focaccia and they just put olive oil and maybe some herbs. Pizza started in Naples. You should be thinking also that in that period, in the 1800s, Italy almost was just a young country. It wasn't a city. The biggest country before was the Kingdom of Sicily. And the three biggest towns in Europe was Paris, London, and Naples. The Kingdom of Naples was really huge and powerful. So all the new things, like today the new mode, the new fashion coming from New York, from the biggest country, where there's a lot of money going around. That time was the three capital of the world. Like we can say the world. One was Naples. So it was almost natural. The pizza as we know today with tomato. Let's not forget that before a man named Columbus discovered America, we didn't have the tomato here. That's one of the things people are shocked about. Yes, there was no tomato in Italy. That's what I'm saying. The focaccia was the focaccia since the Roman times. The pita. Today they're still calling the Arabian desert pita. In Israel. You have Israel and Lebanon, pita. So pita, pizza is close by. You know, the Mediterranean is like a condominium, a residence. Everybody stay in the balcony and look into the orders. What are you cooking? I make paella. Give me a little bit. Tasty. In Greek, just in front of us, we have Greek. Another country name is Greece. And they make moussaka. With eggplant. Yeah, with eggplant. If you try the parmigiana here, it's almost the same. Have you ever tried in Catania, the insalata Catanese? Tomato, ricotta cheese on the top. And onions. And onions. Try the Greek salad. It's almost the same. We're living in a residence, so we almost know what our neighbors are cooking or what they're doing. We are too close. It's the magician of our way to be Sicilian. Always entertaining. Always a pleasure. Grazie mille, Roberto. Thank you. There's a movie out right now. It's called Iddu, which is Sicilian. The Ultimo Padrino, the last godfather about Matteo Denaro, who just recently died. He was one of the last godfathers, came home because he needed medical attention and got caught. It's a very interesting story. I'm sure you've heard of it. The United States and other places. And I'm talking about it a few months ago. I'm just taking a little walk outside of our hotel. Wow, that is magical. Can you believe it's 76 degrees? Crazy. You know, as I mentioned, we've done many videos with Roberto and I'll leave you links down below. He's shown us how to make pizza. He's talked about, you know, a little bit more about history and so forth. So that's that. Wait a second. You know we didn't talk about the specifics of that tour, that we're going to go to Giardini Naxos. Oh, the September 2025 tour. Let me just give you guys a little bit of what's going to happen. Then we're going to be in Giardini Naxos for a few days. Then we're going to go up north to Cefalu, spend a few days there and do some of those mountain villages up there like Petrelia, Sotana, Ulitsa Genorosa, Castelbuono, one of my favorite little towns up there. Then we're going to go to one of the Aeolian islands and spend some time there. So that's that. The last thing I wanted to say about Sequilia and Giardini Naxos in general is that it's really, and compared to Taormina, which of course is the pearl of Europe, the prices there generally are 30 to 40 percent cheaper than they are up at the hill in Taormina. The Racanati section of where he is, there's big signs that will say Racanati. By the way, people don't know what that word means. They think it's named after a person. They're not sure. But it's a great place. There's great little restaurants over there. There's the Delta Hotel, what used to be the Marriott there. Let me just warn people right now that 2025 is looking to be a banner year for Sicily. So if you're thinking of coming and you haven't made reservations, believe me, you need to make them soon. The only thing I want to say about buying tickets, it may be premature to buy a ticket now. Here it is at the beginning of November of 2024. People are saying, oh, there's $6,000. That $6,000 price that some of these airlines put up is basically a placeholder. Because the first thing that they do is they send to the different travel groups, how many do you want to save? How many do you want to save? Do you want us to save for you? And then what happens is right after Christmas, first part of the year, is when you should really start shopping your tickets. But I'm talking about hotels. I'm saying the hotels, as we know, are getting very popular. Anyway, you still have to talk about our shop. Listen, all our stuff for Christmas is not only in, it's in the United States for immediate shipping. She's going to post all our stuff that we have. We even have a Christmas hat this year, right? Yeah, we've had that Christmas stocking. If you go down below, it says shop. Just click over there and it'll take you. There's hats, t-shirts, aprons, Christmas stockings, mugs, and all types of things. So it's really fun. I want to say something about the mugs. They are the high-end mugs. They're not junk. I want to say something about the t-shirts, especially for a big guy. The XXL's that I wear, because I like things roomy, they're roomy and they don't fade. And like I said, they're there for immediate shipping. So please, if you need, they're great presents and they'll ship all over the place. You can order one for your sister Helen in Detroit, Michigan, the other one for Nancy over there, blah, blah, blah. They'll ship them for you. And they'll ship them for you. You don't have to worry. It's one-stop shopping and it helps us, really, it helps us on our mission here. Am I correct in saying that? We have a mission. That's correct. And the last thing I want to say. Well, before you do that, I want to make sure that we still have some Sterling Silver Trinocrias left in. So those are also ready to be shipped immediately. They're in Massachusetts. So those are great gifts as well. Any interest in a golf slash Pilates slash yoga slash wellness slash vino and foodie tour, let me know. Because we're thinking about putting together... It's not on our website yet, but we're thinking of doing... We have a putting green and a driving range near our house, about 45 minutes away. There's an 18-hole beautiful golf course on Mount Etna. And now there's a yoga and Pilates studio here. But I was thinking we can do it on the roof of the hotel and have the sunset and do yoga over there. And of course, we have several vineyards that we're thinking about putting in there. So let us know. Is that something you're interested in? I know a place to eat lunch that I'm going to talk her into. For us going on the backside of the mountains in the Brody Mountains. Is that the Brody Mountains? Why don't we go next week? We're going to go next week. I went there 15 years ago. I wrote about it in my book where she's talking about zero kilometer. I'm talking about zero meters. Okay, everything is grown on the farm and I want to integrate it in one of our tours. And this may be it. That may be the one we're going to do it in. Let me know. November and December is the time that we push our memberships for our... What's that thing called? Community. Our community, right? We have a bunch of people on it right now. And that's another way to support our free videos. We've spent quite a bit of money traveling around Europe. Well, we go to Tuscany, I guess we can say Europe. Budapest. Budapest, we could say that. Is that for $1.99 a month, if you go to Starbucks and you buy a cup of coffee, they got to charge you, I don't know how much, $50 a cup nowadays with the price. No, seriously, it's less than a cup of coffee and you're supporting our programming and it enables us to do more. So join. $1.99 a month and she always does special stuff. We have a newsletter goes out and all this other stuff. So that's what I wanted to say today. Talked a lot. I got to tell you, one of the fun things that we did this weekend was really great sharing this memory with you, Alfred Zappola, going to the Helena with that beautiful view. Ching Ching to you. I really enjoyed our few days. We do this to vet out hotels for you, so you have the very best. And we hope to see you back here in Sicily. Thank you so much for watching. Ching Ching. Peace be with you. Love you. Ciao. Savannah Diego.