We are extremely happy to be back in Italy, and Sicily no less. A handful of summer commitments means that we are on a bit of a tight schedule, so this is a brief stop, just six days. And we’re dividing it between the two Sicilian destinations we didn’t quite make it to last year, Catania and Taormina.

Catania, Sicily’s second city after Palermo, is really a beautiful place. It’s got everything we loved about Naples and Palermo — grand but crumbling architecture, laundry hanging everywhere, bright and colorful markets. But it’s a little less chaotic and even a little more elegant.

We can partly credit the great earthquake of 1693, which completely destroyed the city. This led to a rebuild in glorious baroque style with countless grand squares linked by broad beautiful avenues. It’s also a university town, so those lovely squares are packed with vibrant cafes and bars.

And then there is the food. No place else does the arugula taste like this. Or the olive oil. Or the bright red cherry tomatoes. Or the fennel. We’ll be in Italy for just over a month, and we’re pretty happy about that.

CORRECTION: My posting of May 26 incorrectly identified some kind of green produce as cauliflower. Our LaSalle-based agriculture editor provided evidence that cauliflower doesn’t look like that at all.

It’s hard to believe our time in southern Italy has come to an end. When we started this visit with a four-day stop in Naples, we were utterly fascinated by the place. So after 5 weeks of island hopping in the Bay of Naples, touring Sicily, and biking through Apulia, we decided to end our visit with another four days in Naples.

That allowed us to correct two flaws from our first visit. We hadn’t managed to get to the famed Naples Archeology Museum, and we hadn’t quite made it to the spectacular ruins of Pompeii. I’d seen Pompeii in my European backpacking trip 29 years ago, but I probably appreciated it a little more this time. It’s incredible to see so much of a city that was buried in ash 2,000 years ago. And the museum in Naples is an amazing complement with its vast collection of mosaics and household objects from Pompeii and statuary from throughout antiquity.

But we especially just enjoyed wandering around in this utterly unique, chaotic, and colorful city. It teems with life. Every stereotype of Italy, good and bad, is on overdrive here. On the surface, Naples often looks surprisingly like a developing country; you could practically be in Egypt or Jamaica. We stayed right smack in the center of historic Naples, a vast area that feels a bit like a slum. But it’s a slum with Italian flair, overflowing with crumbling monuments, religious shrines, and endless culinary temptations.

So this morning we’ll board a fast train for Rome, where we’ll have just enough time for lunch before we head to the airport. And tomorrow morning we’ll land in Bangkok for a whole new chapter in this great adventure.