A little late in coming, but here's the Flickr set of photos taken during my vacation in Sicily -- where my brother had his wedding -- and mainland Italy. Most of these pictures were taken by Flea.

Some highlights from the trip:

• Visiting the Capuchin Catacombs in Palermo, which I wrote about earlier this year. [Photography not allowed.]
• Eating homemade Sicilian food with my extended family.
• Sixty American wedding guests taking a charter bus to the small Sicilian town where my parents grew up, and my dad giving a tour of the town. (Here he is describing the olive oil making process in a building where my grandfather occasionally worked.)
• My brother's wedding, and relaxing at a Sicilian villa the morning after.
• Watching Strombolian eruptions on Mt. Etna from the villa, several days before a somewhat major eruption, which we missed. [No photos.]
• Viewing colorful frescoes in Pompeiian houses.
• Dinner with Jon May & Lorelei at a vegetarian restaurant in Rome's San Lorenzo neighborhood.
• Dinner with old Italian friends in the Valpolicella wine-growing area near Verona.
• Early Christmas shopping in Venice.

It was a fantastic trip, and we ate extremely well, with good people.

I will be vacationing over the next two weeks, and hence this blog will very quiet for the duration. I will be attending Andrew Sullivan's wedding, with Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart as my guests. (Bill Maher can't come -- he has to work.)

OK, the truth: tomorrow we're flying to Palermo, Sicily for the eventual purpose of going to my brother's August 31st wedding in Taormina. I have a vast network of family in northeast Sicily who will all be attending, along with 90 or so American friends and family. We'll be flying out of Venice, so we'll be seeing various parts of Italy as well.

Congrats to crazymonk.org commenters NYAnthony and Elissa!

Italy has dropped its Sicily bridge plans. The bridge, which was to cross the Strait of Messina, would've been the largest suspension bridge in the world. (Scylla and Charybdis would of course destroy any underwater supports.) One of the reasons cited for killing the project was the stranglehold the mafia had on the construction contracts (La Vangata Grande, anyone?), but I was under the impression that the completion of the bridge would in the long run hurt the mafia by fully integrating Sicily with the Italian economy.

A few years ago I remember visiting the promontory and noting that the upscale houses there with an ocean view would soon be overwhelmed by a massive suspension support system and a highway onramp. I guess they just saved a substantial amount of property value.