TIS, Sicily is really incredibly beautiful. You should definitely make it. The biggest hassle to traveling to Sicily is that you have to change planes in either Milan or Rome. However, there's an Italian airline (not Alitalia) that now flies direct, although I don't know if they do it from the West Coast. http://www.euroflyusa.com Check them out. By the way, we took my grandmother when she was in her 80's. She was climbing ladders and picking peaches. When we yelled at her that she was going to fall, she picked up a handful of soil and said, This is my earth. It will never hurt me. I was amazed that after all those years, she still felt such a connection.