The Importance of Travel Insurance

You book your trip, your Travel Agent highly recommends you purchase trip insurance, you think to yourself:  Nothing can happen to me!

 

Travel insurance covers you while traveling.  Suppose you need medical transport back to the U.S.  Or you misplace your medicines that you left behind at the previous hotel. Travel insurance can help you get your prescription refilled. 

REMEMBER:  Most US health insurances will not cover you fully outside of the US.  If and when you purchase insurance please know that Travel insurance is always there to help you 24 hours a day.

Travel insurance also covers you before you leave for your trip.   You may need to cancel before you leave because of work or illness.  A relative or you become sick and you must cancel your vacation and you cannot get back that non-refundable deposit.  Travel insurance will help you get back that deposit. Cancel for any Reason allows you to do just that.

You arrive at your destination but your luggage does not.  Travel insurance will help you with your reimbursement for lost or delayed luggage.

When purchasing your insurance, it is important to purchase it within 15 days of the deposit date so that you can get FULL coverage.  You can purchase up to 24 hours prior to your travel plans and it will cover most things BUT not everything.

 

Travel Tips:

1.       Make copies of your passport and leave at least one home.  Store your passport in the hotel safe and keep a copy with you while traveling.

2.      Make copies of your credit cards and again leave one copy home and store the copies in the hotel safe.  Make sure you can clearly read the international customer service phone number.

3.      Call you credit card company and alert them about your travel plans.

4.      Check with your bank and do the same especially if you have a debit card and will be using that for the local currency.

5.      Remember to ask your credit card company about their foreign transaction fees.

Safe Travels!

 

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Cooking in Catania with Monica.

What a wonderful  experience that was!  We met her in Catania near the outdoor market area. She took us shopping in the markets in Catania:  the cheese vendors, meat stalls, fish stalls, vegetable stands and the amount of shouting that was going on made it a bit difficult for all of us to hear her comments.  To many in the group they had never experienced this before.  To me it was the largest food market ever! And I have been to a few in Italy.  After everything was purchased we walked back to our bus and we followed her to her private home/cooking school and prepared our lunch.  We made caponata, homemade pasta, Sicilian meatballs, salad and she prepared a lovely dessert for us.  Of course, it was served with local Sicilian wines.  She made it very special for all of us and we all appreciated her techniques and hospitality.  Hopefully many of us will take what we learned from Monica and try to duplicate the meal in our own kitchens.  She did provide us with the recipes .   We all received a certificate and a very contented appetite.  No need for dinner that night.

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Here we are with Monico inside the market purchasing our ingredients.

Here we are with Monico inside the market purchasing our ingredients.

The fruits of our labor. So light and delicious!

The fruits of our labor. So light and delicious!


Taormina - Our last stop in Sicily

Taormina is a very picturesque small town on the eastern coast of Sicily and is a very popular destination.   The views from this part of Sicily are well worth it that it really should not be missed. A stop in this town in a must!

View from the top of Taormina.

View from the top of Taormina.

Hotels are located from the seaside area of Mazzaro’ to the top and the town is connected by a cable car. If your hotel is in the middle of the mountainside chances are the hotel has a shuttle to the top where the town is located. There are a few hotels at the the top and if you do not stay there it is worth a stop to have a drink and take in the views. My son and I decided to take in the views from the Belmond which is in the center at the top of Taormina. Pictured is the Belmondini. Delicious!

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Not far from our hotel, Grand Hotel San Pietro is the beautiful Villa Comunale di Taormina and it’s beautiful gardens. No entrance fees so if you are in the area it is well worth the visit. It is full of lush greens: palm trees, flowers and succulents.




This statue is at the entrance to the gardens.

This statue is at the entrance to the gardens.

 

While staying in Taormina many took advantage of the free time to shop in the many boutiques.  I always give my group time to shop as it is so important to us ladies.

In between time we had a tour of Mt. Etna with a wine tasting and then one day we took a cooking class in Catania with Monica Consoli. More on our cooking class in another post.