Ciao! Welcome to our sicilian adventures

About Us

Buongiorno! We are Jim and Laure Barr, both originally from Wisconsin, now natives of Rochester NY. Jim is an overworking electrical engineer. Laure is a photographer for equine and human events. We chose to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary with a grand splash on a tour! Ever since our 1st Rick Steves "Best of Europe" tour in 2018 we have been raving about the whole experience – so much so that our friends Barb and Bryan decided they would join us if we would go to Sicily! Barb had relatives from Palermo and Noto and was interested in seeing where her family originated. We agreed and planned on travelling in 2020. Covid delayed our plans, so we started with a lot of advance planning – over two years worth! We were fully vaccinated, tested and masked when on the bus or in museums. We carefully followed Rick Steves Travel tips (https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/trip-planningtips) Jim recommended that our friends buy the packing cubes to not only reduce air volume in clothes but to put our worn clothes into to keep our clean clothes clean! (https://www.rei.com/product/195442/rei-co-op-expandable-packing-cube-set) Shopping was great fun – mostly Sierra Trading company (https://www.sierra.com/) and we loved thier clearance sales.. Another great investment was a great pair of hiking boots ( I lived in mine except for our fancier meals!) I loved my Keens – they were both waterproof and durable Before our trip was walking – lots of walking to get ready for the 2 to 8 miles a day we were expecting. Lots of free time and interesting things to see and do. There are websites to train you – or as we did you can just get out and walk around the neighborhood a time or three! It took Jim 3 months to plan our 1st three days before our last tour- one of the best things about Rick Steves tours was that all the planning, meals, lodging and entry fees were taken care of already! We arrived a couple days earlier than the tour to get used to the 6 hour time difference. Jet lag is real and we found ourselves exhausted mid day on our 1st trip. Here's our 1st website https://jbarr39.wixsite.com/europe14