Why We Travel.

TWO OLD FRIENDS AT THE TEATRO GRECO, SYRACUSE, SICILYCher Lewis, 58, at right, a retired banker from New York now living in Pietrasanta, Tuscany, with Linda Stark, who splits her time between Australia and Italy, Sept. 10, 2008. ''I lived in the West Village for 32 years, on Bank Street for 21. Now I garden, I have chickens and I make olive oil. It's been seven years now -- or eight years, how time goes. Each year you feel more a part of the country you're in. When I go back, I find it harder and harder to understand what I saw in living in a big city where the values are so different. Here it's not all about money. It's more about family and friends. Linda was my twin daughters' piano teacher when they were 5 years old; she now lives in a town on the other side of the mountains six months a year. We've been talking about Sicily for at least four years. It was very rustic, old-fashioned Italy from the movies: you go through small, dusty town after dusty town, with people still farming. In this photo, I'm probably pointing at the capers. One thing I do when I travel is take little pieces of plants and then try to root them in my garden. I ended up taking a bit of caper but it didn't do too well; I think it's just not dry enough in Tuscany.'' As told to Seth Kugel [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]