Lazy Days.....

When I said it was a one photo day yesterday I exaggerated a little. I actually took two photos and Marjan too took photos. I showed you one of Marjan's. We also took a couple of photos with the phone when we went up into Sant'Ambrogio for bread. Marjan loves the NO Trumpet signs. It was an unsuccessful trip as the only store in town was closed for stocktaking. Still the nice man at the bar gave us some of yesterday's bread and made us a cuppa, and personalized it for Marjan. Our house is at the far left of the bay, and Cefalu behind the big rock at the end.

What was not exaggerated, was that we were complete slugs. We caught up with daughters and grandsons, ain't skype wonderful, we bought some old bread, what can you do, and we lay about swimming, crystal waters at 21C, reading, Kindles are wonderful, catching up on world news, depressingly unchanged,

.......small digression.......
where does a dingbat with a law degree get the right to tell 90 environmental scientists they are wrong? Let us sentence the world to environmental degradation, as long as Gina is happy.
Breathe Raf, breathe.
............end digression

 napping, on a sun lounge with the sound of waves, and generally being on holiday. That is really why we chose this place on the water. To ease off after the sightseeing before.

Well today was pretty much the same. We went to Cefalu, so we got fresh bread and a few yummy nibbles.

I made a point of taking a couple of pics though.

Cefalu and an old farmstead turned B&B to our left

The Icily Oily generating clouds off in the distance

Crystal clear water and clouds at our feet

Sant'Ambrogio and the 19th century folly turned holiday apartments on our right......

and me stuck in the middle with Marjan.

Yesterday we had a man paddle board from Cefalu to Sant'Ambrogio in the morning and back in the afternoon, and another picking up driftwood 100 meters away. Today we had a woman paddle for a while 100 meters away. and other than the odd goat, an occasional train or driver who believes he is Fangio, we just listen to the waves on the pebbles.

A One Photo Day

I hate Steve Jobs...

I know the man is dead, but he is responsible for everything Apple, and that means Jaimie Lee is his fault. Bloody Apple Maps!

OK. So we got up, checked out, had some breakfast and were driven down to the docks to await our ferry. Yes I know the order sound a little off, but just go with it. Two ferries arrived at the same time, late, or at least ours was. So which do we get aboard. The PA is worse than useless in that it sends half the people in queue 1 to queue 2 and half the people in queue 2 to queue 1 and the half remaining in each queue looking perplexed. I asked a Mooring hand which was the boat to Milazzo, he asked what time was the boat supposed to leave, I answered 8:15, he pointed to the first boat. Off we headed, as we settled into a normal Italian queue brawl the man at gate 1 said in an exasperated yell that Milazzo was leaving from gate 2 and that gate was was gonna close. We did finally get on a boat, and it did go to Milazzo and we did not even drown.

We found our car still parked in the long term car park and off we headed, through the crazy Milazzo traffic. People parked wherever they want, guys doing work on a car with their legs sticking out on a street, people who just drive right out of side streets and then decide to look if there is anybody on the main road, normal stuff. Marjan was stressed, after a day of no traffic she found the change of pace a challenge to her sense of personal safety and if she could would have murdered every Sicilian in Milazzo. That is when Jaimie Lee decided to help, she ordered us to take a turn which was contrary to the signs, a novelty for Sicily, pointing in the direction we knew we wanted, we ignored her and she proceeded to keep wanting us to do U turns at every opportunity. We switched her off and followed the road signs to Palermo. Monday morning traffic though this road was a joy. Half the intersections appear to be unsigned, and what appears to occur is that whoever really wants to cross gets their way. So at a major five way crossing, I just went through, everybody kinda waited assuming I must have something important going on, Marjan looked agog at me, but her eyes appeared to hold an admiration for my crazy audacity. A few intersections later we had a four way stand-off, we just went with the pedestrian pushing his father, an assumption, in a wheelchair through the intersection. Now he was not on a footpath, as those were clogged with parked cars, he was on the road an just pushed out into the intersection. Marjan in a voice that came from you and me said "Hide behind the man in a wheelchair!" and began to laugh uncontrollably. We did and get across. It was that kind of a morning.

We drove in and out of tunnels for most of the rest of the way. Not a lot to report, long tunnels, high bridges, people doing crazy speeds. We switched Jaime Lee on just before Cefalu, and apart from one mistake of mine we made it to the car park without incident.

Cefalu is an old town on a peninsula backed by a big rock with a lovely arch of beach. It is tourist Mecca for sun seekers.

We lunched. It was OK but a bit overpriced. Then we explored Cefalu. Interesting little streets, some running up the hill, some to the bay, the view from the pier was lovely. I wondered if the man fixing his fishing net was a tourist prop.

Some signs are a scream.....w chose a different ice cream shop.....

We eventually made it up to the cathedral. Perhaps our favourite building in Sicily. Norman, 12th century, with an amazing 12th century mosaic, very Byzantine, above the altar.

I was trying to take a tourist free pic, but the bastards kept getting in my way. It just gets you down.

We had a very nice ice cream and slowly worked our way back to the car and a supermarket for supplies.

That is when Jaimie Lee struck again. We were trying to get to a bar to meet our host.  Jaime Lee insisted on taking us in what was palpably the wrong direction. We stopped, recalibrated, same result, then the phone just started to do stuff we had not asked it to do. Steve Jobs, what happens to your stuff in Sicily? It is crap.

We eventually managed to find our way back, on the tollway, back past where we wanted to go, do several loops and find the bar required. Alban, our host, was there and took us to our beachside lodging, down an amazing incline, along the beach and Oh My!

About five minutes after Alban left we, or should I say I, managed to lock us out. Marjan's face was a picture.....one of those  awful Hieronymus Bosch pictures with death and destruction everywhere. Alban came right back and was lovely about it.

It took a bottle of wine and a barrow load of lovely ante pasta to put us back on track......mostly.....don't even ask about the washing machine.......

We plan to do as little as possible tomorrow. Apart from bread we have no external needs. Hopefully a 20 minute run to the local little town for some bread will be all we do apart from contemplate the ocean and each other without thinking of Bosch....or God forbid that Goya one.........

Peak Chill

We did get up early, and we did head for the volcano and we did walk up.

Pretty steep but not a huge walk. It was interesting. Black basalt rock and gravel broken by great erosion gullies, then near the top a lighter coloured fine sandy/muddy layer. Again quite badly eroded. They had tried to keep erosion at bay but I suspect it is a losing battle. The mountain is scarred by erosion gullies all the way down.

...and of course heavenly views all the way up........with the occasional dong of a goat bell. The local goatherd was moving his herd from night pasture into day containment. Probably to keep them off the road.

Not many people on the mountain at this time. We saw a few spring chickens coming, well leaping down. They must have come up for sunrise. Other than that, one lady passed us near the top.

Near the top the erosion got quite bad and had undermined an attempt at a path. A little tricky but just near the final plateau.

The reward for making it was a view of hell.....smoke coming out of the ground, the smell of sulphur, and a dangerous looking pit in the middle. Sulphur crystals were growing around the vents, but you could not get a good look, the smell was overpowering and I could not get too close.

I just wanted to look the other way at the Icily Oily

Did not bother to walk all the way around the crater. How many angles do I really need after all. SO back down we went. A lot easier than up I have to say. Now the path was a traffic jam with people every 10 or 15 metres. I loved a group of teenage girls, all looking like they wanted to be on the beach taking selfies rather than hiking up here.

We got back, changed into swimmers and headed for the beach, where the cool water was a blessing to our sweaty selves. We were accosted by Indian, a guess, gentlemen selling trinkets on the beach. There were several of them and they took it in turns to do a walk along the beach trying to sell volcanic jewelry.

I am amazed by the number of people who do not seem to swim around these parts.

After a couple of swims we wandered over to the other side of the isthmus to buy some makings and eat a picnic lunch. On the way I took a shot, photographically but don't tempt me, of people smearing themselves in radioactive, smelly mud. They have paid 3EU for the privilege so good on them. I am not kidding about the radioactivity, there is a warning for pregnant women to keep out, though the smell of sulphur would keep me out.

I am not embarrassed to say that we followed that by a nap in our hotel.

You know you have reached peak chill when the discussion around what to do after a nap, comes to a violent agreement to lay about by the pool. Bugger the sightseeing, bugger the photo ops,let's just lay around and think about reading a book.

We followed that up by sitting at a seaside bar for a few hours, nursing a couple of drinks and having a pizza. We amused ourselves with a little historical research on Vulcano, and by checking out the almond eyes that many island women have. Life is quite simple sometimes.

Icily Oily

Woke to Etna crowned with a crown of her own making.

It was travel day, so we packed and sorted and got going. We were mostly on autostrada with numerous tunnels. So even though it was pretty good road there was a fair bit of NSFW chatter going on in the passenger seat.....divers, pedestrians, police, toll operators, road maintenance guys.......you know, any Italian really!

Some pretty countryside between us and the sea, and some amazing villages perched on hill tops. Jaimie Lee suggested we needed to take a turn towards Icily Oily. For a bit we were quite confused till we saw the sign saying Isole Eolie, of which Vulcano is the nearest. We got to Milazzo, and found a place to park whilst we found a place to park.......we needed a long term car park as we did not want to ferry the car over.

Got all that sorted and had lunch, picnic, by the harbour whilst we waited for our hydrofoil. Had a group of Germans put their chairs on our toes and build a wall of blockheads in front of us whilst we waited. They got grumpy when an Italian fellow sat on a chair they had marked out for their own personal and exclusive use. They are so charming.

An Italian queue was formed to get on, more NSFW chatter. The ride over was quick and travel sickness free. We checked into our hotel, only to find there was no water, so we went to the beach and had a swim in the crystal clear water. It looks odd because the sand is black, but the water is so very, very clear.

We watched a wedding photographer use Icily Oily as backdrops....

...and watched the boats come and go against the backdrop of Lipari and Salina.




Feeling very refreshed we went back to our rooms and the water was back on so we could shower before going out to dinner. We sat and watched the car ferry, and the kids playing and the people strolling by the harbour whilst we had a drink.

Then on to Maurizio's where we had a degustation dinner. Very nice and very interesting combos. Marjan found the squid looked a little too much like squid to finish, but other than that we got ourselves into a very sated 'another after dinner mint' state. The ricotta grated over the pasta was minor highlight. Never encountered hard ricotta before, though we had been told about it by Cristina and Angelo.

We hope to get up early and head up the volcano in the morning. We'll see.

Jaimie Lee - Halloween in Sicily

We woke and Etna had shrouded herself in clouds.

Still no use skulking. So off we set for Castiglione di Sicilia, a town recommended by our hosts. The road in was pretty countryside and the first views of the town stunning. Wish they had a proper look out. I took this whilst dodging buses on the road.

The town is off the main tourist route, no buses, only a few self drive types like us. We got there reasonably well and found a park in the main, lower, part of town.

The place is lovely with two Norman castles or keeps at the top of the hill and a number of churches and squares that would look better of they kept cars out of the occasional nook and or cranny. We wandered aimlessly for quite a while an enjoyed the town and the views of the surrounds it afforded.

We then headed down to the Alcatara River. This is a nature reserve for a decent stretch of river and then more broadly around a gorge. We started near the top of the reserve and had a walk. very tricky the basalt was slippery from the rain. Almost had a couple of accidents.

We then decided to head for the gorge. So I punched the location into Jamie Lee and headed off, started OK, then we were on a road that was very narrow, and it got narrower and narrower....barely a car wide and finally it turned into a rocky donkey road. It took us a good five minutes to turn the car around, and that was only because there was a driveway into a vineyard. Jamie Lee had taken us on the wrong side of the river. We were level with the Gorge park entrance but on a goat track on the other side. Back we went. Not sure what we would have done if somebody came the other way. Oh the horror.

By this time tummy and nerves were calling for lunch. We went into a place that appeared to be run by a guy who seemed to be still living in the 60's. He had some awesome music, and sang along and occasionally playing air guitar. The Italian accented version of Ruby Tuesday was a highlight.

Well rock and roll had to wait. Into the gorge we went. We took the tourist option. That meant we got a lift down and up. Lazy, but easier. The gorge is an old lava flow. so basalt columns etc. Freezing water. With all the recent rain, the water was a little milky rather than its normal clear.

We headed back eventually, and Jaime Lee took us through the most circuitous, narrow roaded route possible.

Even to the point where we had to wait behind a flock of sheep wandering down the road.

Still we made it home.