Category: Italy

It’s lovely to be in the sun. Gets a bit chilly in the shade and at night, but who’s complaining!

Today starts with Etna and Roman/Greek theatres.

Decent coffee and a decent view.

And the amphitheatre which we had last visited in October 2012 (pre blog!), and it hasn’t changed much…

It would’ve been nice if the clouds had cleared the top of Etna for the iconic picture but it wasn’t to be.

Thought we’d head off to the beach in the afternoon but one of the disadvantages of the low season is that things are shut for maintenance. No funicular down to the beach so decided to drive. And even then too many steps down once we’d got there, and got stuck in a car park because the machine ate my ticket.

Anyway, Castello di Mola was a brilliant diversion.

Sitting at home on a miserable Saturday evening, watching Monty Don doing a tour of Spain, and, having checked the weather forecast said why don’t we just nip to Bilbao for a few days (as you do when you’re privileged pensioners!). So here we are having 10 days in Sicily (also, as you do!!).

And let’s start with a little scam which we fell for. On the motorway out of Catania and hit the toll booth. Unsure of what passes you need, so to be on the safe side go to the only manned booth. Lovely lady hands you the ticket and asks for the €5 toll. Except that it’s €1.80 payable when you exit 30 miles later. Ho hum – didn’t see that one, although Eileen was suspicious.

Anyway, wonderful apartment right in the centre of Taormina (that’s the chair on our balcony).

And a few nice pics to get us on our way.

All fine. As always the car hire makes a guest appearance. Obviously returning it full of petrol is part of the deal. So you get to within 5 miles of the airport and start looking for petrol stations. And of course there are none.

Luckily Mr Google came in handy, and unusually we had left plenty of time 😀. So retrace ur steps for about7 miles and found one. We’re wise to Italy where they very kindly fill up your tank for you for a slightly higher price – €.40 per litre so would have cost an extra €12. Luckily we remembered from our previous Italian trip and found the one self-service pump.

Fed up for trying to be diddled or pleased we’d seen it coming?

Otherwise all good.

We’d been keeping an eye on the forecast for Monday – it looked pretty bad but we comforted ourselves with the thought that it had often been wrong and we could avoid it.

Then we got this from the local Mayor

Translated

And our first thoughts were 1) we had no food and would we be able to shop; and 2) should we run away? As it happens, the storm covered most of Sicily so 2) made no sense, and we thought we’d risk going out to shop.

It wasn’t wrong

Except we got a break at lunchtime where Mr Grumpy even needed his hat

Ho hum. Didn’t make Agricento, and so might never do it.

This is what it looks like just for the record!

Just showing my ignorance of Sicily – Selinunte is another amazing place that I’d never heard of. Like many places in Sicily it has a very complicated history – Greeks and Carthaginians are two that I remembered from the gumph, including lots of stuff just lying about having been ransacked many hundreds of years ago.

It’s an amazing location, but either me or the camera weren’t really able to do it justice. I’ll leave you to figure out which one! So note the buildings, separately note the location and then merge them together.

It did include a cafe – decent views

Obligatory lunch, walk and gelato ..

Last move before we fly home on Tuesday. Hopefully some post-coronation sanity will have returned to the UK !

Took a detour through Marsala (of Sicilian wine fame, not the chicken tikka variety). To be honest probably not worth the detour despite it being quite photogenic.

But extraordinarily windy …

Aiming to dodge the forecast, but in the end virtually non-existent, showers. Also the huge rocks seem to have an impact on sun, cloud, and rain, so a bit of scurrying from one side to the other. But worth it.

And some discussion on how best to prepare aubergine 😁

Another amazing place I’d never heard of. 750m above sea level , and the cable car starts at sea level.

Not surprisingly some decent views …..

And they love their arancini😃

We’ve been anticipating and dodging showers for quite a while, but apart from a 5 minute downpour in Palermo we’ve been successful so far. Anyway, with some sun forecast it’s time to be doing not very much nor going very far.

Happy Xmas!

And a quick hi from Denmark

An amazing place I’d never heard of. You get a clue when you get to the car park.

About 2,500 years old and never finished.

And that’s not all. A mish-mash of Greek, Roman and other as befits Sicily. 

Bit annoying that the clouds lifted as we were leaving, so perhaps should have photoshopped in a blue sky!