Farmland of Ganzirri, Italy

Our next stop in Sicily was Ganzirri, for our workaway. We spend 8 days working on a Donkey farm on the hill top overlooking Messina. It was beautiful and really cool. Our host took us into town with her and showed us around the town to the highlights. Messina was pretty much destroyed in an earthquake in the early 1900s so there isn't a ton of historic sights there, but the ones that are are very cool. So when they rebuilt the town after the earthquake they built on top of the ruins so the few buildings that still stood are like 20 feet lower than the streets. Apparently it is pretty common when they are digging for construction that they will run across some roman or Greek ruins and have to stop construction and bring in historians to rifle through the area because they lost those things in the earthquake. 

While we were out with our host she took us to the local cheese markets and they let us taste all the cheeses, it was so cool. I wish I could have taken it all home with me! She also took us to have Canolli, because when you are in Sicily that is a total must. We also got to try another Sicilian treat of Gelato con Brioche, so good I had pistachio. The gelato comes in a cup with cream and chopped nuts on top then you make it into a sandwich or just dip the bread. Very sweet but it will rock your world. 

Our host was everything that I would expect from an Italian host, Nadia was awesome. She cooked spectacular food gave great tips on how to pick the best pastas, we made homemade pasta and I was lucky enough to get a few classical Sicilian recipes from her. Since they live on a farm as well everything is so fresh which made it all that more amazing. They had a lot of animals running all over there were Chickens, Ducks, Peacocks and Guine Foul that they collected eggs from everyday then there were several Cats, a Dog, Donkeys and Horses. It was a really cool place to see and very cool to see how self sufficient they are. They are also on the very top of the mountain so it was a spectacular view of everything. Definitely a beautiful place to see, and great experiences to have had.