Our first weekend in Sicily, we explored Catania.  For our second weekend, we joined our friends Justin and Maddie at Murgo for Maddie’s 23rd birthday! Murgo is a winery, restaurant, and B&B that sits at the foot of Mt. Etna just north of Catania.  The drive there was quite beautiful.

Once we arrived, we located our table and then took a walk around the grounds to take in all of the general splendor.

Our table, specially reserved for Maddie!

 

The grounds were breathtaking! And, there were plenty of dogs to go around, as is typical in Sicily.

We then moved inside for lunch. Murgo’s resturant features agriturismo style food, which is freshly made food served family style. They served course after course (I think there were 5 all together), along with their speciality crafted wines.

And those were just the second course!

The third course was pasta.

And fourth, meat!

 

The last course was dessert, which was yummy, but the real favorite was Maddie’s cake from Caroline’s Soulfood. Not only was it beautiful, but it was DELICIOUS!! The cake was unicorn themed toped with a vanilla bean Swiss meringue frosting, pistachio Macarons, fruits, and cotton candy.

 

After lunch, we took some empty liter water bottles to the barrel room for a fill up (seriously, straight from the hose). For 2€ each, we got to bring back two liters of wine for later! We also got a tour of their cellars and factory to see where the wine is made. However, it was in Italian, so don’t ask me a lot of questions!!

 

Maddie and Jordan also took turns getting weighed on an old school scale.

Hopefully, it was a birthday for the books for Maddie! I know we had a great time.