Sicily
Monday 30th October                                                                                                                                                                83 miles

I hadn't slept too well, but a beautiful morning with clear blue sky. After breakfast we had a quick walk to the sea, enjoying the beautiful view, but just disregarding the rubbish. We left there at 9.15 and made our way back to the main road SS18 using intuition and cleverness where road signs didn't suffice and then we continued down this last bit of Italian coast before we went across to Sicily, in the stunning scenery, with very steep hills and looking out to sea.
We passed the large town of Gioia Tauro and then Palmi, in this area there were lots of huge olive trees. I took a photo of them with the netting underneath, it was so much an olive area and then soon after that we came to Bagnara - came to it wasn't exactly true, as we were way up in the hills and we could only see it right down at sea level and because we were on the old road and not the motorway we wound and wound our way down there. We passed through a bit of incredibly old houses and old people in black, being a real bit of Italy of another age. We also passed a fountain on the side of the hill and in contemplating whether to try and get water from it, two German motorhomes, one which passed us in one direction and one which was ahead of us, had both also spied it and turned around and got there before we did, so we gave up on that one and we then came down almost to sea level. If we had been on the motorway we would have passed the town on a huge bridge viaduct up in the mountain just behind us, in a couple of seconds whereas it took us quite a long time on our road.
Just before Scilla we stopped, looking to the Rock of Scilla apparently famous - it was mentioned in The Odyssey and had a castle on top of it, and it was a beautiful viewpoint, so we stopped there and had our coffee.
We had been looking at other places where we might get water and then 100 yards along the road we saw two spouts of water coming out from a wall in the hillside, so there we filled with water. A few yards further on again there was a large pumping lorry taking up most of the narrow road but we did fortunately see a bus come past in the other direction, so when we were waved on, we knew that we could get through.
On the outskirts of San Giovanni where the boat to Sicily goes from, we found a Spa shop which actually was quite good. So we went in there and bought quite a bit and we made our way to the port with difficulty as they'd forgotten to tell you how to get there. Adrian got the tickets and we hopped on a ferry as it were, and there we were in Sicily and Messina looking very busy. Lots and lots of buildings and also lots of traffic as well. It was 1 o'clock, or maybe 12 o'clock, as it would appear that the clocks have gone back here as they have in England this weekend and by the time on the tickets, we think it was now only 12 o'clock although our minds told us it was 1 o’clock. So we were out into the traffic of Messina and into Sicily seeming just very much like anywhere else in Italy. I thought the traffic wasn't quite as hectic as Rome and maybe not quite as prolific as Naples but not much better, it was pretty horrendous.
There wasn’t one road sign, but we'd read in our book yesterday not to expect road signs in towns, so this confirmed what we'd already found. We managed to negotiate ourselves in the right direction, it was stop go, stop go for a long time.  We then had a nightmarish journey, because we thought there would be somewhere to stop by the sea, but there was just housing on either side, whether we took the main road south or the side roads, so we just kept going and going. We finally stopped at 2.20 when we found a parking place beside the road overlooking the beach, although it wasn't supposed to be for motorhomes, and the day had clouded over by now.
A plus to mention was that we'd noticed the last few days, in the very southern part of Italy, the hibiscus were absolutely beautiful, along with some other flowers and roses and also that the flower stores and flower shops had the most beautiful flowers, chrysanthemums and gladioli and all sorts. A van pulled in on the other side of the road from us while we were having lunch with a man selling his flowers and there was also a travelling food and vegetable stores of equally good quality and beautifully set out. It seemed so incongruous with everything else here, which is so grubby and substandard as far as we were concerned with the beaches just as littered as in mainland Italy. A short walk on this grubby beach and then we left Ali Marina as it seemed to be called at about 3 o’clock - our time.
By the time we got to Taormina which was a hilltop town, it was raining although the sun was also shining. We wanted to park at the bottom and you could get some sort of lift up. The car parking said ‘no campers’, but we managed to park along the side of the road. We made our way to the cable car and had to wait a while, but having done that we  ascended and at the top and just walked straight out into the town.
The Rock of Scillia
Tuesday 31st of October                                                                                                                                                                 90 miles

We woke early, deciding to keep Italian summer time as I said, so that it's not dark by five o'clock, which it would be in winter time. We breakfasted looking out to the sun shining over the sea and realised that its a long time since that had happened. We had some horrible things for breakfast called bran flakes on the packet, which looked like puffed wheat, but they weren’t, they were very soggy and insipid. We had a walk across to the sea before leaving and realised that up behind us was Mount Etna, which we hadn't been able to see last night, and thinking how lucky we were to have found this spot in difficult circumstances, and also being amazed how a car was driven between us and a tree which we'd just about parked next to, driven back again and hadn't hit us. We left soon after 8.30 (our time) and stopped soon afterwards to fill up with diesel. Mt. Etna was smoking a bit on top, and we stopped and I took a photo.
The weather which had been quite erratic - there was lots of lightning and a storm was coming and a lot of rain was imminent. We walked around this pretty little town, quite a touristy place and there was a Greek amphitheatre there, so we headed for that. On the way we passed a store where the man was selling little trains made out of letters. We thought this would be a lovely thing for Felix, so we bought one for him. Just after that we came to the amphitheatre which cost 8000 lira each to go in, so we said, "no thank you"- we'd spent the money on Felix's little train. We were glad that we thought that because it came on to rain hard just afterwards.
Adrian on the cable car at Taormina
We thought we'd walk back down rather than take the cable car and this was lovely, despite the weather. It wasn't cold, it just rained and rained - luckily we each had our umbrellas. We went through the prettiest gardens we could imagine. We may have missed the gardens at Ravello but these must have equalled it, really beautiful Italian gardens, the whole place was very pretty, lots of luxurious vegetation and we really did enjoy them despite seeing them in the rain. So we descended to the Tiv, we had really enjoyed Taormina despite the weather and it was then time to find somewhere to stay tonight.
We headed off southwards and the weather deteriorated. We passed several huge dry riverbeds and then we passed some smaller rivers which became raging torrents very quickly, one where there wasn't even the sign of a river, suddenly it rushed down, so a bit scary. The visibility was really bad, but we were very fortunate at 6 o'clock (old time), when we found a place at Marina di Cottone, right by the sea - litter strewn, but we'd got a sanctuary for the night - the rain continued.
Taormina   (streetview images 2022)
I put the kettle on and then Adrian managed to phone the dentist in Newbury and made us both appointments to stick back our broken off teeth, when we got home. We then listened to the end of  our 1999 Madeira trip. By then it was dark and sounded very wet outside, but we had a phone call from Emma and it sounded even wetter in England. I cooked supper, including some rice and our runner beans. I washed my hair and we did some more of the Thomas Lawson letters. Before bed we stepped outside and it was a fairly clear sky by then with lots of stars and we could see the lights of Taormina in one direction and other lights down the coast in the other direction. We hoped for a fine day tomorrow, because we would like to see something of Mount Etna. We were surprised how warm it had seemed in the evening and also surprised how much traffic was going along this little road which doesn't seem to go anywhere.
Marina di Cottone             (Streetview image 2010)
We passed by a hospital and couldn't believe the number of florists, flower stores and just people selling flowers beside the road and all the flowers, mostly chrysanthemums, were absolutely perfect . We now followed the signs for Mount Etna, went through Zefferana and soon found ourselves ascending the mighty mountain. It wasn't long before we saw big areas of lava flow, which we stopped at to photograph, the cloud was swirling around us now and it felt quite fresh. We enjoyed seeing the vegetation on Mt. Etna, in particular the chestnut trees which were sort of in their autumn colours. Not as beautiful as England, but still lovely to see.
Misty Mount Etna
In fact, later we saw vast areas of autumn colours very yellow and green and these were alternating with these massive areas of lava flow which was so barren, like a moonscape, a very dramatic difference. We really wallowed in the bit of autumn colour, and other things that were nice were huge broom type bushes, yellow flowers, little cyclamen and valerian. We came to the Rif Sapienza on Mt. Etna the nearest point to the top, after that there was a proper path and you can climb over another 4000 feet (1200m), we were already at 6000 feet (1830m). We found out there what it would be like going back to winter, because we then donned all our clothes, jumper, fleece, caggy, hat, gloves, walking boots, and walked around a little crater called San Sylvestri, formed some time ago and it really felt so icy, although Adrian tested the temperature and apparently it was 53°F, so it must have been the windchill factor. I had difficulty in taking a photo standing still long enough to do. So there we were on Mt. Etna.
Autumn colours on Mount Etna
We returned to the Tiv. On the way up we’d passed what Adrian thought was smouldering from Etna further down. So we took the middle of the three roads which went up to San Sylvestri and after some time decending we pulled in and were able to go for a little walk. However this was an 'ever been had' one, because the smoke was from a bonfire being had by a group of people clearing a forested area there. The walk had made us think of going for a walk on say the Yorkshire Moors in October - the temperature and it was quite forested in places, but there is not a lot of volcanic rock on the Yorkshire Moors. When we got back to the van it was time for coffee 11.15 (our time - but 10.15 Italian time).  The road we had gone down, although not marked green (as pretty) on the map as the other two were, was equally as interesting and alternated between larva and the chestnut forest which was quite magnificent. There were splendid views down over the coast with many little ‘popped up’ volcanoes, and then the sea beyond and the harbour. Who would have thought that a couple of hours after we'd been bundled up in layers and layers of clothing and gloves and hat, I'd be standing in the sea, but that's just what did happen. We continued on the road we were on, going through Nicolosi and seemed to be back down to near sea level in no time at all.
We made our way towards the motor road past Catania, a town which we'd decided to give a miss after Messina yesterday, as this was an even larger town. So we joined the main road south and headed for Syracuse and having skirted Catania we were on a sort of plain area, whereas most of Sicily is high and we took a little road down to the sea at Vacarizos. This place was a lido in season, but there was  no one there then, there were loads of little huts, but we did at the one end of it, find a spare bit of ground with access to the beach, by a horrible pile of rubbish and the German couple in a car who appeared to have set up home there. Nevertheless we made up rolls as ‘open sandwiches’ and sat on the beach for lunch . Afterwards I had my swim.
There was a bumpy little road back to the main road and again I noticed the contrast between the litter on the ground and the beautiful bushes of the huge hibiscus flowers, and carmen coloured bougainvillea. Then it was all change again, we got back onto the fast road towards Syracuse and went past a horrendous, huge industrial area. In the distance was the Gulf of Augusta and we could see the sky as black as black and all sorts of strange colours and it rained torrentially for a while, flooding the road. We thought we'd have to stop, but in fact we kept going and by the time we were approaching Syracuse (where Archimedes had lived and shouted 'Eureka'), the rain was much lighter. We headed for the part of Syracuse called Ortigia which is an island joined by two bridges to the mainland, with a very old part, not the oldest in Syracuse because there was a Greek bit inland.
We parked by a lot of little colourful blue and white fishing boats there, and paid a man few pence to look after the van. We were not sure whether we should have done or not, but he asked for money and we then spent a happy time wandering around this crumbling old part of the town which was being resurrected. We saw so much renovation going on as we walked around, more than we've seen anywhere else. We saw the Cathedral which started its life as a doric temple and had been converted and added to many times since but wasn't open at that time in the afternoon and we also saw the ruins to the Temple of Apollo. Apart from that, it was just a nice wander among all the crumbling old streets. We were very lucky in our walk around because soon after it came on to rain, and it rained rather torrentially again, rather like last night's making rivers down the road.
San Sylvestri crater on Mount Etna and Adrian looking cold
Lava flow on Mount Etna
We left there and wound our way back and found our way to the archaeological sites of Greek and Roman things at Neapolis, but that was soon going to close. We decided it would be a place to stay overnight beside the road and so we made a cup of tea and hoped the decision was a good one and the rain seemed to continue. At one time we thought we'd walk out, but back came the rain, so there we were.
Apollo's Temple Ortigia
Being Halloween I tried to think of something a bit different to do - we hadn't got a pumpkin or even a squash, so we made some pancakes tonight, totally not a Halloween thing to do but I they were absolutely delicious and we really enjoyed them. We finished off with a bit of the bread and butter pudding I had made a couple of days ago, fried in the pan as well - a different and enjoyable meal. We finished up a few walnuts that we'd bought and couldn't remember why and we listened to the first side of our last tape in Italy. We did a marathon transcription of a Thomas Lawson letter. We hoped the traffic would thin out, which it did a bit by bedtime, when we stood outside briefly. It wasn't cold and there were some stars in the sky, so we hoped it would be okay for the next day.
By the archaeological site at Neapolis   (streetview 2020)
Wednesday 1st November                                                                                                                                                      71 miles

And yes it was and we awoke to a beautiful morning with clear blue sky again, what a difference. We had our breakfast and were ready to go into the archaeological site of Neapolis, which we were camped outside. We were really aggravated as we were about to leave asa chap came and parked in front of us and said we had to pay him for parking. Adrian, argued with him for long enough, that we ended up only giving him some change, a total of about 2000 lira [see picture above, they are still there!]. We then had an enjoyable time walking around this archaeological site which contained a Greek amphitheatre and separately a Roman amphitheatre and one or two other things. There were some big quarry areas, some caves, and the 'Ear of Dionysis’. It was already hot at 10 o'clock (our time - 9 o'clock Italian time) so it was beautifully warm, lots of luxurious vegetation all around and rather humid after last night's rain, so pretty good all told.
We left there and on the outskirts of Syracuse, we stopped at a little nondescript cash & carry, but at least we brought some rolls for lunch and some more walnuts and then we went round to the south of Syracuse and stopped beside a pretty, but litter strewn beach, looking across the bay of Porto Grande to Syracuse.
The Roman Amphitheatre at Neapolis
Adrian in the Greek Amphitheatre at Neapolis
The little peninsula we were on was called the Madelena Peninsula but this flat peninsula didn't give us anything, it was very agricultural, a lot of plastic greenhouses and a lot of neat rows of what looked like lettuces. The sun shining through the mostly red bougainvillea was quite something. On returning from this peninsula we went down to a little beach at Ognina but this was a fisherman's beach and not for us, so we continued along the road, passing through what was supposedly a lovely place called Fontane Bianche with a wonderful beach. So it might have been but there was no access to it, only through a lido which seemed to be a paid one.
We returned to main road and then south a few miles to Avola, where I made the mistake of saying “no, don't go to the lido there” - so we were then into the town and it was turning out  time and all the chaos that means - scooters by the 1000's mixed with cars. In front of us were two people on a scooter talking to two people in a car and travelling at about 2 mph with no feeling that they shouldn't be doing this! We eventually reached the sea at Marina di Avola and stopped in the shade beside the beautiful blue sea and blue sky looking to Syracuse in the distance. Well whether that was a nice little cove or not, there there was a whole pile of seaweed on the beach, so we moved on down first to Calabernardo, which had a harbour but we didn't stop there and on to Lido de Noto, where we finally had our rolls on a lovely sandy beach which looked it like it was made of builders sand and when he came back to the Tiv afterwards we realised it had stuck to us everywhere. The waves were coming in today which looked quite fun, so we went for delightful swim.
We next stopped at Noto, another old town, which on the map had 13 churches. I think we passed most of them, but didn't go into any, a lot of them seemed to be closed and others were not in good renovation. The noticeable thing about the place, apart from there not being any people around, was the lack of traffic - the main road through was a pedestrian road and that made it feel really nice. On the way into Noto I'd noticed a water tap, so we made our way back there and before filling the tank with water, we both had showers and washed our hair and then had a cup of tea, the sun was really warm still.
Syracuse (where Archimedes shouted 'Eureka') from the Madalena peninsular
We left there and as we went back past the place we noticed lots and lots of picnic places in there, so we could only think it was the place to go for a Sunday picnic in the summer - it must be hell then. There were lots and lots of stone seats as we drove along. I thought at least we were going to make it a round tour, and we were sent up a road which I hadn't expected and then it would have been a simple road back. But the way we were directed although different at the start, went back onto the same road that we'd gone in on.
Eventually on this winding road through the limestone country we got back past Noto, which we negotiated pretty well and we were heading for the Vendican Nature Reserve just down the coast where we thought there might be somewhere on the outside of it to stop. We made our way down the road to it, but when we got there, the car park was barricaded across - cars were parked in the middle of a road and so we had to reverse again. Adrian was getting pretty weary by now so we went back to the main road, where the old bit of main road was still there, so we thought we'd try that. With the light fading fast, we thought we would easily find a place to stop, but there was just nowhere either side to pull off, it was very much an agricultural area and everywhere that we saw where would might have pulled off was a farmers entrance into a field.
However as luck would have it at about 6.15 (our time), just as this old bit of road was coming back to the main road we pulled into a rather unattractive bit, it was by some tumbled down old relics of houses, but it would do us for the night.
Noto Antico (streetview 2020)
This was in fact our 450th night in the Tiv, so we had a bottle of slightly frizzante wine later on with our meal of fried steak, which was actually a nice flavour. I wrote a few postcards and we listened to the last half of our last tape and did a bit more of the Thomas Lawson letters etc. and bedtime we looked out to see the stars and a really clear sky - it was quite dark there, but unfortunately, in the very short time of being outside I got bitten several times by a mossie!
 
The 'tumbled down old relics of houses' we stayed by (streetview 2010). In 2000 there was a drive by the side
We then had a difficult time. There was a place called Noto Antico up in the hills, and this was supposed to be the remains of a town which was lost in an earthquake in 1693 and I thought it sounded interesting. Adrian wasn't so keen but we decided to make our way there and we followed the signs, but for some reason they didn't send us there on the most obvious road, but on an obtuse road and this was several kilometres away, up in the hills behind Noto. Having gone quite a distance through the wonderful limestone country, on winding roads, we were then sent on a road, which was really very, very narrow, for several kilometres. But the most difficult thing was that traffic was coming the other way, a great deal of traffic. We manoeuvred most of it and then came to a stretch where it went for quite long distance on a very narrow part with high banks and no possibility of passing. We came to a bend in the road and there was a truck coming the other way and behind it were lots of cars, and so the driver said we would have to reverse. So we did, he was quite a pleasant chap, and spoke to us in fluent German, which I couldn't really understand. At that point, I was happy to turn around and go back, but the chap said if we waited 10 minutes, there'd be no more cars. We could see most of the road to the other end of it, so we waited a bit and then dashed through and made it to the other end.
When we got there it was Noto Antico, it was the right place as there was a sign telling us and all the things that were there. However from the car park it really looked just like a load of rubble in a field, you couldn't tell it apart from the limestone pavement that we're on, but we could see some walls of an ancient city in the distance. So we wandered around, there was another couple there also, and not finding much else to see we actually walked up to the ancient ramparts and walked along them for a bit, but we were not sure if there was anything else we were supposed to see so decided it was time to make our way back, as it was getting late in the afternoon.
Thursday 2nd November                                                                                                                                                       87 miles

It wasn't noisy in the night despite the road going past just behind us in our little haven. We had our cup of tea, the sky soon became clear blue and we left early to go and have our breakfast elsewhere in prettier surroundings. We passed through an area with lots of plastic greenhouses, they seemed to be growing marrow type plants, courgettes or something and in other ones we saw tomatoes.
There was a huge area of greenhouses in the most south-easterly corner of Sicily. We took the road down to a little place called Marzameni and this was a little harbour with lots of character and beautifully quiet at that hour of the morning, it was still very early and we sat outside on a little harbour wall and had our breakfast in beautifully warm sunshine. There was a harbour with lots of pretty boats and things, nothing posy and Adrian did a bit of video. Afterwards we walked around the adjacent antique part of the town, which had fallen into ruins but where we noticed that they were obviously going on to restore something of it, it looked quite charming in its antiquity and decadence, so that was a lovely breakfast stop. Adrian was impressed to see a man actually sweeping up!
We then drove along the coast to Portopalo, the most south-easterly point of Sicily, looking across to the lighthouse on Capopassero Island and then we went on to Isola delle Correnti, which is the most southerly point of Sicily, where we walked across the lovely sandy beach there, but with lots of seaweed, both the paper type and the more coconut looking type. It was beautiful sand but much further than we thought to the actual Isola delle Correnti, the most southern point. A road had gone across there in the past but there was a gap, so we didn't make it onto the island. Just before it, we stopped and took a couple of photos to commemorate the event, and then went back to the Tiv to have a late coffee and it was very hot.
We sat on the beach to have our coffee and some of the chocolate swiss rolls which I had bought, which were quite acceptable. A gentleman who'd arrived in another car and had been obviously enjoying the beach also, came up to us and just wanted to tell us, in Italian, which if I understood him correctly, that he was a grocer and none of the people who came into his shop, thought to do anything like walk on the beach and how lovely it was, so that was a nice moment. Also there we'd had a dear little tabby and white cat who either followed us or stayed with us all the while we were by the Tiv and meowed as we left.
On to Pachino through more seas of plastic greenhouses and cloches and then made our way to the south coast to follow along there. We were going on the road quite slowly when Adrian suddenly ground to a halt and it was because there was a little tortoise in the road. I think it was perhaps a pet one - we weren't in Africa. It wasn't long before we came to a delightful beach where  there were no parking spaces made, but we stopped beside the road and had a lovely swim. The water was quite shallow but with some nice sized waves that made it just a bit of fun and of course nobody else around.
The beautiful golden beach continued all the way along to Pozzallo, the sea looking a deep turquoise beside it, but there was never anywhere to park, so presumably one just parked on the road to go to the beach. On the outskirts of Pozzallo, we found a so called hypermarket – only really a supermarket, but the good thing was that it was open because several are closed today, the first and second of November seem to be holidays like All Saints Day. We'd seen groups of people having ceremonies at cemeteries, so we were pleased to have been able to shop. We came down to the sea at Marina di Modica but it didn't take our fancy, so a bit further along we came to Sampieri and right at the end of the road, we stopped by the beach and had a delightful stop there for lunch - we had a lovely French loaf we had bought, so we sat on the sand with this deep turquoise coloured sea and clear blue sky and enjoyed another lunchtime and watched a little beetle playing in the sand.
At Donnalucata we stopped for me to go on to the beach, another fine sandy beach. At Marina di Ragusa we saw somebody kite surfing and then we stopped by the lighthouse at Punta Secca a place lost in time really and by a harbour there and beside the beach with clear blue sky still, we had our afternoon cup of tea. Adrian filled a bottle container with water from the nearby fountain and we topped our water tank up. After more oceans and oceans of plastic greenhouses we finally stopped somewhere on the Gulf of Gela, at a place that seemed to be called Marina di Acate and parked ourselves behind a little building.
Us at and the Isola delle Correnti
It was quite windy there, right beside the beach but we had a little walk out on a beautiful sandy beach and closing our eyes to the rubbish in the dunes, sent over by the greenhouses. We sat and watched the sun go down, looked at maps and decided that maybe we'll go inland from there. I cooked supper, rice, chicken, rosemary scallops and we walked out briefly into this ghost town. There were several buildings there, some finished houses, some unfinished. We saw one light on somewhere and we saw one car that we think belonged to the one fisherman on this remote bit of beach - spooky really. We listened in to the world service and got a programme about Aboriginal education and life expectancy in Australia. It gave us quite longing to go back there, all the talk of Australia.
Marina di Acate   (Streetview 2009)
Friday 3rd November                                                                                                                                                            122 miles

It was a quiet and peaceful night there. We had our cup of tea looking out over the peaceful sea, it seemed quite cool this morning. After breakfast we briskly walked across the beach. We'd managed to tune in to the World Service, it was bad reception, but we heard of severe flooding in England and send a text message to Emma to ask how things were. We emptied the spare container of water into the tank and left at 08.45 our time. Marina di Acate did really seem like a ghost town with the sand blown up from the beach all across the road and made us think of Kolmanskop in Namibia. With its half built and deserted town, with absolutely nobody and nothing anywhere, it was very eerie. At first we got absolutely lost amongst the sea of greenhouses and market gardening, but it was good to see all the workers out in the fields. Eventually we came out and crossed the main road and headed for Niscemi up in the hills. It was very grubby little town and made me think of Cairo with all its half finished buildings. With difficulty we found our way winding down to the large flat plain below with strips of fields and very agricultural. We ascended into the hills again towards Piazza Armerina, where I'd wanted to see a Roman villa which is meant to have a lot of mosaics. We were surprised on the way that it was a hilly and mountainous area but very productive and on the outskirts of Piazza Armerina, we stopped at a little shop. On returning to the Tiv I went to put our shopping away in the fridge and found that the little bit of evaporated milk had turned over and made a mess in there. We had to go through some of the town of Piazza Armerina before turning off on the road to the Roman Villa at Casale and it looked and felt quite autumnal up there. We stopped for coffee just beforehand and then we visited the Roman villa and what a treat it was, the superb mosaics were just wonderful and it was really really good. I bought a few postcards and a little map of it and I'd put on trousers and even socks, but by the time we left the villa, a lot of which was outside, it felt really warm and I changed back into a skirt.
We drove back to the hilltop town of Piazza Armerina, with its huge cathedral and manoeuvred ourselves through and towards Enna. We took a little winding side road off and stopped in the hills for our lunch. This was beautifully peaceful, not one car passed us and we then headed for Enna going first past a lake, apparently the only natural lake on Sicily, called Pergusa which was almost totally dry. As we just saw it in passing it was not at all impressive. We stopped at the bottom of the hilltop town of Enna and tried to get some diesel but they seem to be closed but I managed to post the last of the postcards. We then climbed up and up a hill and managed to park near the centre of Enna which we weren't impressed with, to me it was just a grubby crumbling old town with nothing much to commend it. As it was afternoon, it wasn't very lively anyway, everything was shut up and apart from beautiful views all around - I did manage to get a picture of Calascibetta another hilltop town -  there was nothing that really struck us at all, but there was still traffic was everywhere.
Mosaics in the Roman Villa at Casale
We should have gone back into trousers to walk around Enna as it was quite cool. Another thing which made it not so attractive was the huge amount of building going on particularly in the lower part which was called Enna Bassa. We then progressed towards a town with a similar sounding name to the one that I took the photograph of. It was called Caltanissetta and it was through nice rolling hills and we stopped on the way there for some afternoon tea. We negotiated Caltanissetta, which was a town up in the hills and I found it more attractive than Enna and had some nice buildings which we had plent of time to see as we negotiated the traffic, Adrian expertly as usual, and without any signs to tell us where to go. On the way through I saw one of the two shoeshine men that I'd read about in the book and as we'd stopped beside him, I called out 'Buongiorno'. We continued to the other side of Caltanissetta and then found ourselves travelling in a southwesterly direction on a good to fast road. As we neared  a place called Canicatti, which is supposed to be like Timbuktu to Italians, we took a turn off to it but the road didn't quite seem right from the beginning, and it wasn't, and the map didn't tie up at all. We came across a lovely little town called Delia and full marks, it was a really attractive little old Italian town and it was signposted all the way through to Canicatti and on the way out there was a lovely castle on top of the hill looking a bit like Corfe by its position. We finally got to Canicatti which we had thought wasn't going to be a too large a town, but we found it was huge and as ever, whist trying to follow the map through the town, we were suddenly sent a completely different way in amongst the traffic, just so we could experience their double parking and all the funof Italian driving which Adrian did expertly as ever. The only signposts were to Naro and some to Agrigento where we are heading for tomorrow, but then those stopped and it was only signposted to Naro. As we wanted the road out towards Naro initially, I said yes but then we found we were actually on the road to Naro to late and with no other turnings off, so we headed for there and it was another town on top of a hill and with a steep ascent to it. It was beginning to get dark so we took a road off to Diga, not on the map, but we took it anyway. It became obvious that it went to a dam on a reservoir and we ended up going for miles and miles around on all sorts of roads that weren't on the map and came to rest at 6.15 in the last of the light, right down near the San Giovani Dam in a little area, just big enough for us to stop.
Looking to the hilltop town of Calascibetta
Still cars went by even though we were right down by the dam and the road shouldn't have been going anywhere. We settled down and cooked a very nice pizza for supper. After supper we looked through photos of the trip, and some from home. I finished reading 'the Railway Children' which I'd very much enjoyed and started reading ‘Doctor in the House’. Even though the road didn’t go anywhere, there were one or two cars passed during the evening playing music. We looked out at bed time, when it was partly cloudy with some stars but not really cold at all.
Overnight stop at the San Giovani Dam (streetview 2021)
Saturday 4th November                                                                                                                                                                  85 miles

And Felix is four months old today. It was a partly cloudy morning, the windows were all misted up on the outside. Adrian went out and gallantly wiped those, had breakfast and we left at our 9 o'clock. We found the road to Agrigento and enjoyed everywhere in the early morning with an autumnal feel - everything being damp. It was very much an agricultural area with lots of vines, some of them strangely covered in plastic with the grapes hanging luxuriously from them, still obviously ready to be picked. Perhaps they had them for a late crop and they were protecting them. We saw peppers growing beside the road and amongst all the olive trees was what just looked like white cabbage flower, perhaps a fallow crop that they grow, but it looked like masses of blossom.
We arrived at the Valley of the temples, outside Agrigento and our walk along there was really lovely. The temples were Herakles or Hercules, Concord and Hera and we weren’t allowed to get very close so had to photograph them from a distance.
There was lots of vegetation around and the big modern city of Agrigento was across the valley in the distance, with lots of trees in between and the little white flowers on the ground again. There was also a statue in a little garden to the Englishman, Alexander Hardcastle who had managed to get money  and put the temples together a bit in the 1920's. The garden was lovely too and I actually took a picture because we quite liked the pebble and brick patio effect.
Valley of the Temples - Herakles
Valley of the Temples - Concorde
Valley of the Temples - Hera
We were quite a while as it was a long but enjoyable walk, there were lots of catacombs and old walls and then all the hills around.
We went back to the Tiv for coffee with another temple beside us, The Temple of Olympia Zeus. But we didn't visit that one because you had to pay and that seemed a bit silly having seen all the others, just to see one more. So after our coffee, and then look around the tatty little stores there, I photographed a Sicilian horse & cart like Grandma Bower had brought back for us, 30 years ago. I had to do it surreptitiously as the nan was charging to photo it, so it may not be very good.
Statue of Alexander Hardcastle, Valley of Temples, Agrigento
Now, mistakenly it turned out, we went down to San Leone, but we did find a baker and bought rolls, some baker type pizza for tonight and some biscuity things and we found a chemist and at great expense bought some more rennies of which we're running out.
We could see the sea raging in, but the road didn't go along there, so we had to retrace a little to Agrigento. We then turned down to Porto Empedocle, which is the port for Agrigento, the road was shown as green on the map, but it wasn't very pretty as we went along there. Just as we went into the little town, we could see a ceremony going on and stopped and walked back and it would appear to have been like our Remembrance Day Service. There were a lot of old people around and they had large wreaths that they laid and had what was like the last post played. A priest talked and then some dignitaries also talked and band played at the end, it was really nice to feel part of that.
Sicilian horse & cart
Looking across to the modern city of Agrigento
We found our way down to the bay and went down beside the water. There was a sort of grassy beach there, absolutely quiet and we had our lunch.
We continued now northwesterly but the road wasn't by the sea. We did turn down, foolishly it turned out, to Eraclea Minoa another archaeological site in a beautiful remote position by the sea, but it was one you had to pay for and we didn't need that today.  It must have rained really hard recently as the road down there was really filthy and it got the van all mucky which wasn't really very bright. It rained a little bit on us us but it was a lovely bit of coastline there, completely unspoilt, a sort of Nature Reserve, where wildlife and nature has stopped the development of much of this bit of coast. The sea looked a deep turquoise blue, with a heavy grey sky hanging above it.
We drove down to the little town of Seccogrande, but it had a pebbly beach and it looked a bit damp and grey - the sun was trying to come out now. We continued to Sciacca an old spa town, which had a few nice buildings which we hadn't expected, on our tour through the town. We then took a road down to another place called Porto Palo and this was a dear little harbour, where they were actually redoing the esplanade. We thought they'd blocked the road completely but we could just about get through. Also the rain, like in other places, was very much in evidence here, rain that we didn't experience but a lot of places obviously did.
Everywhere looked a bit wet, but we had a cup of tea looking out over a little beach and we found there was a water tap. There was another motorhome there, but we made our way there and while Adrian filled the water tank I telephoned Tom and got through to him on our other mobile and then thought this would be a suitable place to stop for the night.
Remembrance Day Service at Porto Empedocle
At 5 o'clock we set off for a walk around the bay  and got back to the van exactly at 6 o’clock. A very pleasant walk on a warmish evening, not cool anyway and watched the sun just going down as we've got back. We had showers and then I cooked our meal of spaghetti first, followed by the pizza we had bought earlier, which was excellent.
Porto Palo and our overnight spot (streetview 2021)
Sunset Porto Palo
Sunday 5th November                                                                                                                                                               58 miles

A pleasant morning, we had a cup of tea and then moved along to refill with water and then along a bit further to a pleasant bit of beach to look out across to a pleasant little cove to sit and have our breakfast. We left through this drab looking town, and then in the direction of Selinunte which was another site with lots of old temples. This one we’d decided to visit. We had to pay an entrance fee, but there were the ruins of 7 or 8 temples, and one which was standing which was very photogenic against the blue sky.
It was pleasantly warm although it clouded up a bit while we were walking and we actually walked around for over two hours. We got there at 9 o'clock as they opened, which was 10 o'clock to us and didn't get back till getting on for midday. It was a very pleasant and this one had never been rebuilt on, as most of the others had in later times. There was quite a lot of walking involved along the hilltops, but it was right beside the sea, so altogether it was very pleasant.
We came back to have our tea and coffee and noticed that a bit of bush we'd driven over earlier was stuck underneath the Tiv. Adrian managed extricated it and we made our way back and towards Campobello, through areas of vines and olives of which there are many in this area. Interestingly the olives in Sicily, aren't netted as they were in southern Italy.
Then it was on to the Cave di Cusa which was a real winner after the silly entrance to it, which was a half mile of crazy paving made road, a pavement one side and bumps every little while. We thought we were bound to have to pay to go in to that one but no and we wandered for half a mile or more through the quarries where the stone had been taken from, for the temples that we had just visited. I photographed one bit of a huge cylindrical piece of rock, which had obviously been  started to be  cut out, but hadn't been taken. It was a pleasant walk, completely on our own, amongst olive trees and other vegetation, so really enjoyable.
The temples at Selinunte
When we got back, we found there was a tap at the entrance and so on this nicely paved road we decided to wash some of the absolute filth that came from yesterday's abortive attempt down a mucky road to a site that we never saw in the end!
We made our way back to the sea at Granitola, the southwestern part of Sicily and we stopped there for lunch in pleasant little cove, and afterwards went out for a walk and what a delight. The stone was a sort of tufa sandstone, two different types, but on walking around, we found lots and lots of fossils shells embedded in a particular layer of it. So we got to work with hammer and with my camera and it was really superb.
Adrian sits on a unused pillar of rock at Cave di Cusa
We had read that the town near there was built of golden tufa, so we imagined that's what they'd used.
We left there and went on to Mazara, a fishing port, not to be confused with Mazarla which is just up the coast. However the road between the two along the coast hadn't been completed, which gave us a little bit of consternation going along some unsurfaced roads until we got back to the main road. We then went down to the coast to go along to Marsala and then right around by the harbour and just up the other side we found a place that we thought would make a nice stop for the night, outside Villa Genna and looking out in the pleasantly warm sunshine to some islands. It being November 5th, bonfire night, we we're trying to make it a bit special.
Well what a laugh! We had a cup of tea and then decided to go for a cycle up beside this wonderful bit of coast looking out to the islands and nice and flat to ride on, beautiful and peaceful and it was a delightful ride apart from the amount of cars, which was abominable. We thought it must be the thing on a Sunday afternoon to go along there and congregate, there seemed to be scooters by the absolute 1000's. We went a long way up the bit of coast, along the little road and eventually came to a whole area of salines - salt pans, and little windmills all looking quite delightful and photogenic.
Golden tufa sandstone at Granitola
We then turned around and came back, we thought the traffic would be getting better, but it got worse and worse. We passed some huge groups of people, but as we got back almost to the van there was a little road junction and there was a police car stopping everything. He let us go past as we were on bikes, and then we saw a real Curtin Springs happening. There were cars by the million parked along the road, completely surrounding us and blocking us in and everyone was walking along the road to something, so we went to find out what it was.
Salines and windmills in the sunset at the end of our ride from Villa Genna
Imagine our surprise to find the Tiv completely surrounded when we returned from our ride
Well we did - 100's and 100's of people were in the grounds right adjacent to where we were and our minds went through all sorts of things to do with All Saints Day still, or Remembrance Day. After a bit, some people started spouting, a priest and some dignitaries and there were some children playing a bit and all the hundreds of people just standing around. They were mostly in nice clothes, actually dressed up a bit like you would be for church, but we then realised it was something to do with the town. After a lot of putting our heads together we realised that the place we were in was being opened, it was like an official opening of the grounds and we joined the throngs on a walk through the so called gardens which were like derelict rubble with a lot of superb tall palm trees. There was quite a nice little fountain and then we went to queue to get up some steps or rather pushed up some steps to a little area. When we got there, we could look down over spare bit of ground, seeing our Tiv standing up amongst the cars and then the sea.
Adrian looked down and said it looks like they are going to have fireworks. The sun had gone down with the most beautiful sky we've had for a long, long time - absolutely beautiful. We took a couple of photos but we were in the ceremony at that time.
We made our way back to the Tiv and sat there with a drink and some nice crisps and then lo and behold at just after 6 o'clock their time, it was already dark and the most superb firework display happened right behind us. We stood outside the door and just enjoyed, it was a fantastic firework display really good, really fun and then when it finished all the 1000's of people had to get into the traffic jams and get themselves out of the way.
Sunset at Villa Genna, Marsala
Then we had some food for Bonfire Night. We had tomato soup and cooked the Frankfurter sausages that we'd brought and had a nice meal and a delicious bottle of wine which Tom had given Adrian for his birthday. The cars gradually disappeared and just as the last couple of cars were leaving the event organisers locked the gate and off they went – what an amazing bonfire night they had laid on for us!. We walked out back towards the direction of Marsala, it was actually quite cool, but a pleasant walk out.
The nice fireworks they laid on for us for Bonfire Night!
Monday 6th November                                                                                                                                                              68 miles

We awoke lateish after a rather disturbed night, and it was cool this morning, quite cloudy. I briefly got the 'world service' and heard of gales in England and Northern Europe and so it was better than that - just a bit windy and not as nice as it had been. So we breakfasted inside, we had thought yesterday we might be sitting outside. We left before 10.00 (our time) and headed for Trapani, at first going along the way we'd cycled last night and realised that we must have cycled in total about six miles and then on the outskirts of Trapani where we stopped I went into a Spa shop.
Trapani wasn't good news for us, we started going into it and couldn't really get where we were going and as was on a long peninsula, so we knew we'd have to drive back out of any traffic we got stuck in, but also, we needed to be the other side of the railway line to ascend to Erice, a mediaeval town on a hill to the side of Trapani. So we had to retrace our steps a bit and eventually we did find the right road to ascend this huge hill, and we stopped coffee looking down with a fantastic view over Trapani and the Egadi Islands below, but the wind was howling at this point. We continue ascending and stopped to look at the amazing view down to Mount Cofano, a huge great lump of a rock and Capo St. Vito beyond it.
These were places we wouldn't be going to because the roads go there but it was a long way and we would have to return the same way as there is no through road, but they looked quite spectacular - it felt quite cool up there.
We stopped to walk into the little mediaeval town of Erice and had to pay 2000 Lira to enter there. A wind was howling, and the clouds were swirling up, like smoke from a fire. We walked around this town for perhaps an hour, but it felt like being in London in the fog in Dickens time. Virtually all the streets were paved and there were lots of little churches, but the overriding feeling was of the really wintry feel. We left there and came down the other side, came out of the clouds and looked down to the view that we'd seen just before visiting the town, it was just a spectacular, more so really because the sun was shining on it and we'd come out of the sudden winter. It was quite a way down the winding road, but we were able to pull in and have our lunch by a ‘dry’ fountain, with the wonderful view.
We now descended to Valderice and towards Castellammare del Golfo across pleasant country. There was spectacular scenery to the north of the rather inaccessible part. We stopped just above Castellammare del Golfo for a little time and then we descended to the fishing port, with a old Arab feel to it again, with narrow streets. We found it difficult even with no other drivers around at the time, so we rapidly made our way out and set off eastwards along the Gulf of Castellammare. There were some fine beaches, and wonderful scenery, quite hilly and ahead of us, the countryside before Palermo.
We stopped for a cup of tea between Balestrate and Trappeto at a beach translated to mean 'golden sands', and it was just that, with lovely hills either side of a wide bay but nothing to commend it although the weather was warmer there, but still windy. We didn't see it at its best, but the sea and the hills were beautiful. The peace was shattered by a chap who'd come down on one of those noisy mopeds to give non stop rides to various children. We went on a short way further and just before 5 o'clock we turned down to a beach just past Trappeto [probably at Torre del Trappeto di Partinico], a rubbishy bit of ground with a pebbly beach but lovely rocks in front of us and we thought this would make a nice place for tonight.
View down to Trapani and the Egadi Islands
View to Mount Cofano and Capo St. Vito
Well, the best things in life they say are surprises and this turned out to be absolutely brilliant. It turned a lovely evening, very mild. Adrian got going and picked up some wood and we actually had a fire, the first time this trip, right on the beach in our isolation. The sun went down splendidly, so a superb sky, just magic really. We had our bonfire and our bonfire meal of potatoes, and sausages and squash and then later tried some chestnuts.
Torre del Trappeto di Partinico (from Streetview 2010)
We sat outside and ate outside and it was just one of those evenings to be in our memory - absolutely brilliant and we didn't come in until bedtime. Then we had an email come from Val & Mike, so that was good as we weren't sure how well people were receiving our messages.
Adrian & Rosie on the beach by the fire at Torre del Trappeto di Partinico
Tuesday 7th November                                                                                                                                                           107 miles

A disturbed night for me, the sound of the sea through the pebbles kept waking me and giving me weird and wonderful dreams and we awoke to a grey morning but not cold. At one point it became very windy and the waves were much rougher than last night. We had a strange email from Tom which puzzled us. We now set off around the coastline towards Palermo and somewhere north of it, we came to a so called Spa hypermarket, but not with a huge selection. We did buy a few things, including the mota type of cake to take home with us and then we had coffee in the car park afterwards.
Still heading for Palermo, we managed to get to the beach at Mondello north of it following the signs and avoiding most of that town and then we took the coast road round the huge lump of Mount Pellegrino. Just outside Palermo we passed a massive cemetery where there were dozens of flower shops outside, so it must have been Palermo's main cemetery. We kept as close to the port as possible and actually negotiated slowly along with all the traffic right through Palermo, seeing a few of the sites on the way and certainly some decrepit buildings and thinking of George Thompson Lawson coming there in 1840. We managed to get right out and along the other side, the eastern side of it. Our book had told us to spend as many days as possible in Palermo to visit the museums, the churches and the palaces but we didn't think we needed to do that.
We had a fruitless search on the outskirts of Palermo for gas which seemed non existent and diesel which seemed to be closed and continued travelling eastwards, but finding it difficulty to find anywhere to stop for lunch. We seemed to be going through habitation after habitation and they were on the coast for most of the time. We went right round Cape Zafferano and down the other side past the ancient site of Salunto. We finally stopped at a place called Solanto where we were able to pull in above a not very exciting bit of beach and have our lunch although the loaf we bought in the Spa shop was tough and not at all exciting. We continued on eastwards, it was too crowded along there for our liking and we still had problems getting diesel, Adrian finally got 10,000 liras worth from a machine.
We stopped at Cefalù which was a delightful old town and we wandered around the streets, which were supposedly pedestrianised, but there was still traffic. It had lots of character, a dear little port and we wandered down and bought and ice cream. Mine was called 'sip and breezy'? a bit like a like a cassata really and Adrian had pistachio, but by then it had got quite chilly and the sea was definitely a bit rough.
We continued on our way eastwards, but by now it was rather difficult because the road and the railway were beside the sea. It was quite a nice bit of coast but they were building a new motorway along there, which made finding anywhere to stop extremely difficult. We finally did come to a place by the name of Villa Margi, just outside Santo Stefano. We were getting a bit desperate by then because it was 6 o'clock and even then things did nit go easily. We turned off and had to cross the railway line on a level crossing, there was a red light and we had to wait a good 10 minutes to go across and even then, in the little place that we were going through we were diverted with an arrow as the road was closed in our direction. The diversion had to go under a building which was luckily high enough for us or the whole thing might have been in vain and we finally came to rest on the seafront at about 6.10 with darkness lurking.
Looking down to Cefalù
We were able to tune in to World Service quite clearly. I phoned Renee and heard that Lena had had her operation and was okay. I cooked a fish meal and we did a bit more Thomas Lawson stuff and looked through some more highlights of our trip and we looked out briefly at bedtime.
Our overnight spot on the front at Villa Margi - the building on the left is the one we had to drive under (streetview 2021)
Wednesday 8th November                                                                                                                                                           116 miles

A fine-ish morning, there were big waves. We had a cup of tea and then we moved along to look out over the waves to have breakfast and briefly walked across to look at them and left just after 9 o'clock. We had to wait again at the level crossing before leaving this place [they had built an underpass by 2009!]. There were two trains this morning, so it was over a quarter of hour we had to wait and then we returned to a petrol station but they wouldn't take a card. Luckily we'd got some cash yesterday, so filled up with diesel. There was road structure up behind us like part of a gigantic wild mouse thing at the funfair but little did we realise it was our road because they were building a motorway through there and diverted our road onto this huge structure which we ascended and then immediately went into two tunnels. A nice side note here was that in all the holes in the concrete walls at the side, there were swallows popping their heads out. So we were very quickly up into the hills. For the first time in Sicily we'd noticed netting under the olive trees and then Adrian saw a water tap and he waited while a lady finished filling her bottles and then slowly filled three container-fulls to pour into our tank.
So we finally got going an hour after we'd left, at just gone 10 o'clock. In the mountains at Reitano I spied a bakers, so we went in there and had to wait a long time for the man to come out and serve us three rolls for 1000 lira. We continued in the most splendid country which was very green and through the beautifully characterful town of Mistretta. I noticed as with Reitano, how clean the places where and I actually saw people sweeping up in both places and people seemed to have a lot of respect for the town in great contrast with some of the other places in Sicily and  Italy. We stopped up in the hills for our morning coffee sitting outside in the sunshine, the air was quite cool and Adrian thought it was like being up on the downs in England in the summer. Whilst we were sitting there two chaps came up on their noisy scooters, said 'buongiorno', stayed a minute or two and left. I think they must have spied us from way off and come to see what was up. Adrian cleaned off the little mark he made when we had a little contact with something. We rounded a bend and there we could see Mount Etna in the distance, quite exciting.
The landscape had now become rolling countryside, very agricultural looking with some barren and green fields and dotted with little trees here and there and also isolated rock outcrops. The animals we'd seen were large cattle with bells around their necks and beautiful black horses, pigs, a baby sheep and goats and peasant people bashing olives down from trees. We drove down towards the River Cerami, and then climbed and climbed to the little town called Cerami, which actually in saying little, it seemed to have grown a lot in recent times. Adrian thought maybe for skiing, who knows and again from here in the distance we could see Etna rather mistily, but I did try to take a picture. From the top of the valley we could see another hilltop town Capizzi with wonderful views all around and near Troina again a good view of Etna and Adrian took some video as we could see it smouldering well.
We came down beside a mostly dry riverbed with again views up to the smouldering, smoking Etna and in the warm sunshine, we sat and had our lunch. There were yellowy coloured autumn trees in front of us mixed with some evergreen trees making a nice foreground for Etna. We climbed again to high on a hill and soon afterwards stopped to take a bit more video and a photo of Etna of course and we could see now that there was snow on it near the top. Just before Randazzo we stopped to view Etna, we thought for the last time. We could see the snow quite clearly and the autumn trees and this town apparently had never been destroyed by Etna. However it looked as though it would have been a good idea if it had been, it was very dirty, presumably from all the smoke coming down from above. I took a photo with the church in the foreground.
Mount Etna (hazily) in the distance
We turned north back towards the coast  and as we got up in the hills a bit, Adrian took a nice bit of video, and the further we went we still kept saying “the last view of Etna” and still we kept seeing it, but we didn't mind and we now had some absolutely beautiful autumn colours. We saw a couple of little barbecue spots and thought about stopping there, but we carried on a bit further and stopped soon after Floresta to have our cup of tea, the colours not looking so brilliant now as it had come over a bit greyish again.
We continued high up in the mountains for some time and then our descent after Naso to Capo d'Orlando was rather rapid. In fact too rapid for me as by the time we got down to sea level I was feeling pretty travel sick. We travelled through the little place of Cabo d'Orlando and got stuck in the traffic as ever, but it seemed to be some problem with fuel. Cars were filling up at a fuel station, in the middle of the road sometimes as they often did there. So we were not sure what the problem was and we hoped it wouldn't affect us too badly.
We turned right now and went down to a most beautiful beach and then carried on a bit further to San Gregorio where we stopped in a parking area beside the sea where there was a little children's playground and some geese. One was standing guard all the time and looked like an artificial one and there were lots of oleander bushes and palm trees.
Mount Etna near and in Randazzo
We walked out briefly but I was still feeling rather giddy, so I had to actually lay down for a while. Then we had a message from Tom on the phone, the phone had been out of contact for a little while, saying that he was going to move into a house at the beginning of December in Tooting. I cooked a chicken meal, and afterwards, we rang Emma and then had a short walk out before bed.
Our overnight spot in San Gregorio  (streetview 2022)
Thursday 9th November                                                                                                                                                                  64 miles

A late get off. A fine morning and we decided to have breakfast a bit further back where we had passed a beach yesterday. So a nice start to the day and I had an email from Dot Oswald, about the Bishopshalt reunion, so that was a bonus. There was a blue sky but clouds came up rapidly and it became rather hazy. So we had breakfast of poached egg back at the other beach and then we had a pleasant walk along it towards a great rock with a church stuck on the top of it and looking at the superb bit of coast ahead of us in the mistiness. Where we turned round by the little church there was a large pool of water on the beach, like a pond with fish in it, so presumably a pond made by the sea, but quite large. So we didn't leave until 10.15.
We filled up with diesel as we were still not sure whether there was a problem with fuel or not, but at this place there didn't seem to be. We continued along the coast. At Gioiosa, Adrian enquired about some camping gaz because there was a sign, but the a man didn't have any and then round Cape Calavà to San Giorgio, we drove down to a large area of grassy beach and had our coffee. There were nice views to the next headland ahead of us. At Patti Marina, we shopped including some bottles of red wine to take home for our boys and some more films, so I don't completely run out.
We now had to go up through the hills a bit through the town called Patti and then we came to a really lovely site, Tyndaris, another ancient site on a rocky promontory. The scenery there on that bit of coast was really lovely and adjacent to it, an enormous sanctuary church, rebuilt this century and very pretty inside - we peeped inside just was just about to close.
We parked there and walked up to the ancient site, on a beautiful position above the sea. It was lovely to view some more ancient buildings. There was a theatre, some mosaics and other buildings.
The Sanctuary at Tyndaris  (Streetview 2024)
The interesting thing as we arrived there was two groups of other people, the only people there and both English speaking. One we think was an Australian woman, with her bright little boy about three, and the dad appeared to be Italian although he spoke English, and we think it was his mum there too, she tried to talk to us. The other group who spoke to us were three people, there was the Sicilian woman and her husband, and their friend who was from Hong Kong, and the woman and the Hong Kong chap had met when they were at Cambridge, but she'd also spent time in Bath. The Hong Kong chap still lived in Hong Kong, but he'd just been visiting old friends in Cambridge and now he was visiting the friend there who he said he hadn't communicated at Christmas for about 14 years and this was his way of meeting up again. He's had a lot to say for himself and was quite jolly. We did ask her about the fuel situation and it would appear that people in Sicily are very angry at the price of fuel. 40% of Italian fuel comes from Sicily and they were complaining that the price has been so high and there was some panic buying going on. We also picked up some fruits that they were pointing to, that looked rather like large cherries but in the same way as Sharon fruit when they are not ripe they were absolutely awful. The husband gave us some which looked really overripe and yucky, but they tasted rather nice, I think must be related to Sharon fruit. We also talked a bit about olives, her father obviously owned or ran an olive company, so we have a little chat about that too, so a very pleasant visit all told.
We then looked down to the beach that came out in a little spit there with an unusual formation, obviously quite well known.
Tyndaris  (Streetview 2024)
Rosie's photo of Tyndaris
Greek Theatre and Mosaics at Tyndaris  (Streetview 2024)
We photographed and then we came down the hill a bit to the lower carpark and sat to having our lunch outside, overlooking the scenery to our east to the lovely hills, a bit misterly though and it felt really hot, hotter than it had for days. But after the good times, we then had the frustrations. I'd really fancied a swim as it was so nice, but the road played tricks with the motorway and railway and went inland here and there. We tried lots of different places for a swim, non seemed suitable and we were then sent on various diversions presumably for roadworks and all sorts and we eventually come into Milazzo, which was where we were heading for and still nowhere for a swim.
We tried a little area but it seemed to be a fishing boat area and rather pebbly and we actually drove right up to Cape di Milazzo, but this road was high up so you couldn't get to the sea, but we could see the sea way down below us. When we did eventually get to it, it was a steeply shelving shingle beach and the waves just came in, the sea was smooth but the waves crashed on the beach. Although I made two gallant attempts to having a swim and got drenched from head to foot, I was a bit too scared to go out, wondering if I would be thrown back in against the shingle. So I was feeling very frustrated about this on such a nice day. The other thing we wanted to do was to find out about the ferries to the Lipari and Vulcan islands from Milazzo and that proved very hard work too, but did end up finding the times and the prices for tomorrow and hopefully that will work out. On our way back to the little fishing bit we'd stopped at first of all, I'd spied a fountain but in fact just beyond that was a tap, so we were able to fill the water tank and then went on a little excursion to try to find out about car parking for the boat tomorrow, which didn't exist.
We went back to the little area we seen earlier, it was then 6 o'clock and pulled into what we thought was a suitable spot when a gentleman looking a bit like Mr. Toad came up. We thought he was coming to cause us trouble but not at all he was coming to admire the motorhome, he spoke a little bit of English and lived just a bit inland from here where we should have turned off and was saying how awful it was having the oil refinery which is on the long peninsula here.

The Spit at Tyndaris
We both had showers and hair wash and then I cooked the other fish that we bought the other day which had actually got rather smelly, but it tasted good and seemed appropriate as we were there amongst the fishing boat area. We listened to Shania Twain and drank a bottle of Porto Palo and the walked out into Milazzo along beside all the little fishing boats and one of the areas where the men had obviously been cutting up their fish. There were lots of little fishermen’s shrines and then a pillbox thing made with a painting on it. We had a sort of fond feeling of it, it seemed a happy place, lots of young people about and we walked right down into the town. We found a photographer and the man said he would do photos, so that might be on for tomorrow and we came back and it was bedtime.
Probably where we stayed at Milazzo (Streetview 2010)
Friday 10th November                                                                                                                                                                  4 miles

We we're up early today, so no early morning cup of tea because we wanted to go out to the islands. We had breakfast and stopped at the water tap and refilled before heading for the port in Milazzo. It was already quite busy in the town but we managed to park beside the road and got our tickets and made our way to the boat and were quite amused by a chap who came at the last minute with several boxes of chicks or chickens, at bit like an Ealing comedy we thought. Then at 8.30 am (local time) we were on our way to Volcano Island.
Unfortunately, it was rather a greyish morning, although the sun was trying to come through and about 40 minutes later we arrived at Volcano Island. We were amused at everyone else on board and it was just like being on the 'tube', people reading their papers, filling in diaries and things. Well, our time on Volcano Island wasn't the best. We spent a lot of time wandering this way and that wondering which way to go. I was sure in season, it would all very obvious but out of season, there were no people and only a few signs - there were bikes and things to hire. Adrian had decided that we wouldn't climb up to the crater which was one of the options. Another option was to go to a beach where apparently you could wallow in mud and then swim in the sea and following our book, it said that this was a place two kilometres away. So we made our way there, walking along the roads and when we finally got there, saw no mud, just a nondescript bay.
As we walked back towards where the boat had come in, we saw another pool, but it was closed, but that was obviously the place one would really go in season - at least we'd had a try. We'd written down the boat times of the two different services that run to the islands and we had to remember that we were always an hour on from what the time is here, which makes it a bit of juggling in our minds. We went to buy our onward ticket to the next island, Lipari, which you couldn't buy in Milazzo and luckily saw the little place to do it. The lady was a slow as slow and the boat was due to come in at that point. Luckily, all was well and we got onto the boat, there was even a loo downstairs, so that was good, and 10 minutes or so later we arrived at Lipari Island.
Now this was quite a different kettle of fish, really really pretty, lots of character, perhaps a bit like Capri without the tourists and almost the first thing we did was to sit and have a coffee and a cake, which wasn't as exorbitant as Capri and we did enjoy with the surroundings and churches and the castle up behind us.
We wondered what to do and eventually asked somebody and he pointed me back in the direction near where the boat had come in, we could have just walked along the beach a little away and that's where it was, it was just where I would have imagined myself.
Even then it wasn't clear what one had to do and by now the stench of sulphur was really strong. and we could see yellow marks on the ground and stuff oozing out from it. We found a large area with little bubbles coming up through which I attempted to sit in and then one was meant to swim in the sea, well that looked rather oily so I didn't do that.
Volcano Island
Rosie sitting in a smelly sulphur pool on Volcano Island
Later we wandered around the streets of Lipari Town, the place looked really pretty and cared for, lots and lots of plants, lots of balconies and lots of little narrow streets there. If it was possible, the locals got their scooters down them, but there was no traffic in a lot of them. We then we made our way up to the castle area which had several churches in it, a big Baroque cathedral and a museum which I had toyed with the idea of going in, but was actually very large would have taken us too long. There was also a recently built theatre (1978), but looking like a Greek theatre, over the port, so that was rather nice and also a lot of ancient remains. We heard a woman talking to the one party who seemed to be American, explaining about it and it was in different levels of antiquity.
So having enjoyed this area, we made our way down through some steps and then we walked off around hoping to go to somewhere as we knew pumice stone came from there, but we didn't get to that area and we were walking along a road which wasn't particularly pleasant. But we did make our way over the headlands and into the next bay because the bay we were in was all harbour area and no swimming anywhere.
Around Lipari Town
The next bay was made up of very much volcanic looking pebbles and I'd taken just a little bit of bread-type sandwich for lunch, so we sat ate that that in the warm sunshine, we were in shorts and T shirt and then I did at last have my swim, which I was very pleased to have done.
Looking back down to the harbour in Lipari Town
We were looking out to three more of the islands on this group, the furthest of which, and perhaps most important to us was Stromboli, and we could see the vapour, fumes or whatever coming out from almost the top of it. That made a lovely sight with the two other islands of that group ahead of us, so we have now seen all seven islands of this group. We walked along the front of this pretty little place of Canneto, and then thought about getting the bus back. We located the bus stop and Adrian cleverly located a timetable but it was difficult to understand it, so we decided to start walking back. I stopped to take a photo and I was just doing that when Adrian spied a bus, so we ran and we were the only passengers on it and in no time we were back in Lipari town. We wandered around there a bit more and then went down to the harbour and purchased our tickets and watched the sun go down behind the hill opposite and enjoyed our last little while here watching the fisherman. We then had a trouble free trip back, it was lovely seeing volcano Island silhouetted against the sun.
Adrian at Canneto, Lipari Island
Saturday 11th November                                                                                                                                                           63 miles

Well Adrian nodded off whilst looking at the photos so we continued in the morning and it was a beautiful morning. We had our cup of tea and then did a few housekeeping things. I washed out a couple of items as we realised it was almost three weeks since we went to do a laundrette type washing. We had breakfast overlooking the sea, the sun coming up opposite in the mistiness, which was really nice and left about 09.20 and stopped to fill the water container at the tap along the road. We passed the fisherman's area and obviously they'd been out at night, caught their fish and they'd now got it for sale in front of their little boats.
We left Milazzo and made our way eastwards along the coast and stopped at an Interspa at Monforte Marina and got more shopping and then we had to find a home for where to put it away. We carried on and at Spadafora stopped for coffee on a gritty beach in the warm sunshine looking back to the Milazzo peninsula and out the the Eolie Islands. We continued on around this ‘sticking out’ bit of the northeastern corner of Sicily, quite attractive scenery, but never really near the beach and through lots of towns and houses.
We then had the horror of arriving back in Messina, but we eventually found our way to the port and got tickets to catch the ferry back to mainland Italy.
We had a quick and trouble free crossing, looking back to Sicily and across to where we were going and then we were off the ferry at Villa San Giovanni. I hadn’t had time to make up a roll, I’d just grabbed a packet of crisps when we went on, and it was now lunch time but before we knew it we were on the motorway, which we hadn’t intended and then we got off the motorway and found ourselves in the middle of Reggio Calabria, just as schools were coming out and traffic chaos, so we ended up beside what would seem to be a main road through, but with virtually no traffic, with bushes beside us and thought we’d better stop and have our lunch and assess the situation, which is what we did.
We realised we were looking up to the mountains of Sicily with Etna in the middle. After lunch we found our way back to the last bit of motorway and then a fast road south and we saw a sign ‘to the sea’ and turned off and came down to a beach at Lazzaro which was so nice and peaceful after Messina and Reggio that we thought we’d stop.
Then at 6.15 as it was just getting dark we arrived back at Milazzo. We found a chemist where we wanted to get some Rennies, but could only get some more expensive antacids, then to the bank machine and got some money. We got back to the van and then took my photos in, no luck with a laundrette, but we did have luck with the camping gaz. The man in the tourist information had told me where we could get some, and lo and behold, he was right, so two containers of camping gaz, jubilation on that score. We returned to our place of last night down by the fishing boats and we decided that tonight was the night to go out for a meal. So having had a beer and some crisps and refreshed ourselves a little, we set off again and walked down into the town, as if we hadn't done enough walking today. We first went and got my photos and then made our way to a restaurant on the front that we'd seen which had a tourist menu for 18,000 liras each and thought we'd eat in there.
There were other people eating in there but we never actually saw any other people eating anywhere else tonight. Being Friday night it was buzzing with people everywhere. We really enjoyed having our meal sitting outside as it was that warm and I was in a dress - I wore my dress and even put on my posh sandals. We started with me cannelloni and Adrian lasagne and then I had a not very good calamari dish and Adrian had a steak that wasn't very brilliant at all, but we had chips which were excellent and a tomato and lettuce salad and a litre of Sicilian wine, which was really good. So it was £12 for our meal with the wine and we really just enjoyed sitting there with the lights across the bay. Okay, some of my meal was not up to much, but overall it was really nice experience. We wandered our way back through this place that we felt a great affection for, particularly the part nearest to us which had so much character with the fishing boats, the fishing nets, the antiquated houses and people living their busy sort of lives and so we didn't come back until quite late 10.30 our time, so we'd had quite a long and busy day and then we looked at some photos.


Setting sun as we leave Lipari Island
Adrian on the boat back to Villa San Giovanni
So after lazing a little, we made a cup of tea, peaceful that is except for a railway line which runs along beside us and sounds like it’s ‘going through the middle of the house’.
We walked along the beach in both directions, with views across to Sicily and Mt Etna. I phoned Nicky and had a chat (Paul was out) and then sorted some of the photos. Later I cooked a pizza in the oven, which was nice and after supper, I wrote emails to Dot Oswald and Val & Mike. We watched the full moon rise above the sea and at bedtime we walked across the beach, under the full moon.
Our overnighter at Lazzaro next to the railway and the sea  (streetview 2009)