1. Sicily - Greek Theatre, see Mount Etna glowing brightly

Covering 3 May to 7 May 2019

the Greek Theatre in Taormina

what grass ?

Unsurprisingly there was conflicting advice on the internet about ferries from the mainland across the Straits of Messina to Sicily.  So we had a jolly little tour through the back streets of Messina, with just the one opportunity to back out of a side road to avoid a low bridge.  This was backing into a main road (no tootling of horns by the locals) and we turned up at the large ferry port to find it deserted.  We found someone who told us that we needed the next port up the coast to get to Sicily and fortunately it was only a short way.  Heather was convinced we weren’t going to get to Sicily that day or possibly even the next but the fair winds of fortune blew for us again.  We pulled into the ferry terminal and got a ticket for the next ferry which was only forty five minutes away.  The straits are narrower than I expected and the boat took only twenty minutes or so to make the crossing.  So, Sicily here we are !

the Meditteranean isn't always calm

It would have been useful about a month ago to be sure that Sicily was the biggest island in the Mediterranean because a team of friends and I would have won a quiz instead of coming second - but how many of you would have known ?  We’d decided to move clockwise around the coast with forays inland, mainly because virtually every campsite is on the coast.  We did stay on one inland site and we were the only people there but we still had electricity, hot showers and internet.

I suppose in many people’s minds their knowledge of Sicily is limited to stories about The Mafia but the island has a really rich and fascinating history.  Various cultures, invasions and destructions have taken place over the years and you can’t help wondering how many ordinary people have had their lives ruined or lost because of various warlike intents.  Back on a Mafia note, anyone who knows or likes The Godfather might be interested to know that Marlon Brando’s character surname Corleone really is the name of a town in the west of the island.

Taormina's Greek Theatre again with Mt Etna behind and to the right

We really got started on Sicily at Taormina, a town set above the scenic coast of the Ionian Sea with Mount Etna a little to the south west.  We caught the local bus into town on a warm sunny morning.  The big draw here is the Greek Theatre or the Teatro Greco as they insist on calling it.  It really is quite something and dates from the 3^rd Century BC.  We wandered up with money in hand to find that entry is free on the first Sunday each month - guess which day it was ?  It was horseshoe shaped with the audience facing south west, so that behind the actors there is a backdrop of Mount Etna.  In the other direction from the top of the auditorium there are wonderful views northwards along the coast.  Stunning.  Of course it’s impossible to know what is restoration and which bits of stone have actually been sat on each other for not far short of two and a half millennia but it has an air of unfinishedness about it which to my mind was very appealing.  To me it meant that it hasn’t been over restored. 

us with the Ionian coastline running north from the Greek Theatre

looking south from Taormina

the thinnest Alley in town

Taormina town was very busy with one large pedestrianised shopping street set up mainly for tourists.  We did indulge ourselves in a couple of local sweet delicacies, a moist almond paste cake for me and a cannolo for Heather.  Cannoli are crunchy pastry tubes filled with sweetened Ricotta and topped with nuts or candied peel.   Another delicious tidbit we bought for later was strips of candied orange peel dipped to half their length in chocolate.  We did manage to buy some bread but it took some finding.  Lonely Planet says that Taormina is “a popular resort with gay men”.  Now I couldn’t care less, I’m not bothered, interested or needing to know so why do the editors at Lonely Planet think it’s at all necessary to mention.  I’ve yet to see a town described as “popular with heterosexuals” or “ginger haired women” or “one-eyed black men”.  It just doesn’t matter !!   and thrice !

lemon orchard and Mt Etna

The next two days were taken up with a couple of trips to Mount Etna.  The two easy areas to reach are the south side and the less touristy north side which we went to first.  On each of these areas it’s only possible to get about halfway to the summit without a guide but even so at 5,000 feet it sure is cold.  There was a strong wind and I had on two

dressed for the temperature

pairs of trousers, two padded coats, gloves, hat and scarf.  I did not find that I was overdressed.  There was a definite air of out-of-season ski resort about the place and there were still some sad looking patches of snow lying in shaded spots knowing that their end was nigh.  There were lava flows in various directions with the skeletons of dead trees littering the slopes like huge matchsticks.  Stands of conifers stood around with the rough grassy areas between dusted with a few wild flowers.  As we

finished our cups of tea in our van we saw a group of other visitors clustered around something at ground level in a couple of places and guessed, correctly, that they were a Botanical Tour group.  As we braved the outside, the group were peering at something growing in the edge of the tarmac so I asked what it was.  A middle-class English voice said “Oxford Ragwort - mountain form”.  Hmmm.  To be honest it didn’t look very interesting and I’m very keen on wild plants.  We met the same woman a little later who said to me “are you alone ?”.  I misunderstood and said I was with my wife but she seemed amazed that we weren’t with “a group”.

old craters to the south of the main peak

It felt that on a visit to Sicily, going at least partway up Europe’s largest and one of the world’s most active volcanoes was a given.  The south side was far more touristy and we went up on the cablecar from what was a grey ash covered area to a higher up grey ash covered area.  It was a bit moonscapey, if you can imagine a moonscape with a blue sky and a convention sized number of astronauts wearing brightly coloured clothing wandering about on it.  This south side of the volcano had many more visible old caldera and looking across the lower ground below us we could see at least a dozen cones, now fully greened up with vegetation.  Closer to us were grey caldera, presumably much more recent.

we paid to get up here !

As we left Etna and started to get closer to the coast, items of clothing had to be discarded and by the time we got back to our campsite with a pitch right next to the beach it was difficult to believe that only an hour or so earlier we’d been in such a cold environment.  It was less than a vertical mile but that mile made a huge difference.

a bit more like it - Isola Bella