Day 25

Catania to Torino

Today was our last day in our beloved Sicily. I can understand if people don't like Sicily, it is dirty and gritty. It doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is. If Sicily wasn't getting invaded it had exploding volcanoes to deal with. One thing that Sicily does better than most places, it accepts and embraces tourists and refugees. The mayor of Palermo, Leoluca Orlando, is always getting in trouble with the government in Rome. Rome wants him to stop accepting so many regugees but the mayor simply says 'But these people need our help" The other quote attributed to him was '"Palermo in ancient Greek meant ‘complete port’. We have always welcomed rescue boats and vessels who saved lives at sea. We will not stop now." I can ignore the rotting piles of rubbish knowing that Sicily has a soul and is full of some of the nicest people anywhere.

We took our bags to the main station at Catania where we discovered they do not have luggage lockers. We eventually found a Lido under the main railway station that looked after our bags and we went and had a few beers in the heat. A Lido is a private place where you can swim, you pay to rent a bathing box and deckchairs and umberalla's. The lady didn't have to let us in but I assured her that we would spend some money at the bar so "Va bene"

BELOW: This tunnel led from the railway station, under the railway tracks to the Lido.  

BELOW: It didn't have a beach but it had steps into the water to go swimming. The lifeguard is in the red shirt, the whole time we were there he was looking at his mobile phone!

Now not many people know this but I am a roving ambassador for the skin cancer council of Australia and part of my job is to ensure people are protecting their bodies in the baking sun. I had some work to do at this Lido. BELOW: This young lady had told me she had SPF 20 sunscreen on and that was enough, I sternly told her that in this sun she needed SPF 50, she promised to get a tube before her next day at the Lido. 

BELOW: This young lady was a real renegade and had no sunscreen on whatsoever. I told her to stay in the shade until I returned with a tube of SPF 50. I feel I performed a valuable service in combatting skin cancer today and will sleep well!

BELOW: Soon enough it was time to get a train to the airport at Catania for our flight to Torino. I don't know about you, dear reader, but airports are my least favourite part of living on planet earth. In fact, I think I'd rather spend a day in a cholera containment hospital than 2 hours at an airport. We had chosen one on the super cheap airlines, Wizz Airlines, where they body scan you before boarding and if you bladder is more than half full they add a surcharge. When you search for flights the results say you'll only pay 19 Euros for you flight but after adding in bags, dentures and the fact that you don't want to stand during the whole journey and actually want a seat the ticket price goes up to 5000 Euros. Well maybe I'm exaggerating a bit but you get the idea. They don't even pay for skygates so it's a walk onto the tarmac to get on the plane.   

The flight went well but as any self respecting Aussie would do when travelling on an airline called "Wizz" I had to go to the toilet so I could say "I had a wizz on wizz"    

So we are now in Torino, where everywhere you look north you see the Alps. Torino is the home of Fiat cars and is a major industrial city. It is also about 1000 times cleaner than Catania but most things were closed when we walked around at 8.30pm in contrast to Catania where the city would be hopping. Our B&B host picked us up from the airport  (for a 35 Euro charge) and got us set up. We went to a trattoria our host recommended, he also recommended a local dish Vitelle Tonnato, which was very thinly sliced veal with a tuna sauce, sounds weird, but it was amazing! We won't be long here as we catch a train to Switzerland tomorrow and escape the heat!

Days 23 & 24 (late update)

Tonight was our last meal together. Tomorrow Louise and Damian fly off to Malta, apparently they haven't had enough of the hot weather, I reckon that makes them true blue Aussies because Kris and I have declared our innings closed on the hot weather and are are flying up north for the Swiss Alps where it will be much cooler. 

It has been a wonderful 3 weeks travelling with Louise and Damian and I think we will miss them for the last 2 weeks of our trip. 

We ate at a place recommended to us by the lady at our B&B. On the menu there were many dishes with horsemeat, this is quite common in Sicily. I ordered a pizza that did not have any tomato base but had cheese, mushrooms and truffle oil. It was amazing, the only problem was it was big enough to feed a family of six!

BELOW, my pizza was so big it didn't fit on the plate, I ate less than half and felt quite guilty knowing that many people are starving in the world.

BELOW: On our walk back to the B&B Kris took this night photo of the brollies.

BELOW: Here's a photo by Damian of the view from their room.  

Catania and Mt Etna

Lasst night I was simply too hot and too tired to even think about writing> Today I have my stregth back! Yesterday we awoke in Ragusa and hit the road early in the rental car as we had to return it by 10.30am at Catania airport. At the airport we got a taxi into Catania. The taxi driver had fun with us by driving very fast towards the boom gate at the end of the carpark, as we were nearly about to hit the boom he yelled "salita" (Italian for rise) and it rose, he got a laugh at our reaction as we would have hit it  had it not risen. He found our street and we stopped in front of the most derilect building on the street and pointed to a doorway filled with rubbish, "Your B&B" he said. My jaw hit the floor, he looked at me, burst out laughing and slapped me on the shoulder, oh he was a funny fellow. He dropped us at our B&B which wasn't ready yet as we were much earlier than we had told the host. We waited, across the street with our backpacks in the heat, we were quite close to the fish market and we watched a mountain of rubbish getting higher and higher and stinkier and stinkier in the midday sun. Catania does many things well but rubbish collection is not one of them. We went for a walk, drink and dinner at a pretty unremarkable trattoria and went to bed early with the aircon on full bore. 

 

ABOVE & BELOW: The main fish market and eating areas are defined by 100s of umberallas hanging above.  

 

This fountain next to the main piazza should have made us feel coole, but it didn't, listening to it just made me want to pee, which in Italy can be problematic (finding a toilet) and will cost you one euro. 

ABOVE: This bloke was trying to sell Tuna but it looks like it was too hot even for a local.

ABOVE: Another stall at the seafood market "La Pescheria" Apparently this market has been going for hundreds of years. Most of the streets of Catania are paved with lava rock from Mt Etna. 

We caught a metro train to Catania Borgo where the 950mm private railway around Mt Etna departs from. This wasn't our train, we had to wait a while for one of the two per day  that goes all the way around, this was a short trip local. They are not more than a bus on wheels. BELOW:

 

ABOVE: This was the best view we got of the steam column rising above Etna.

ABOVE: Finally, after 2 hours in the unairconditioned train we arrived at Randazzo, here it paused for 52 minutes. We went into the station cafe and got some pretty decent wraps along with some ice cold beers.  

We finally arrived at Giarre which is the station where you get off to connect with Trenitalia trains going along Sicily's east coast. I took a very similar shot of our train here when we rode it 5 years ago, amazingly it was the exact same car, ADE 13!

ABOVE: Finally back in Catania and Kris found the exact Vespa she  wants.

ABOVE: We've had some amazing views from our apartment's balconies on this trip, Catania wasn't one of them!

Day 22

Ragusa & Modica

Salvatore brought us our breakfast to our room and we had to resist the tempation to go back to sleep. Ragusa actually consists of two towns, both on opposing hilltops, we decided to brave the heat and walk down to and then up to the old town. We descended about 412 steps with the grim knowledge that we would have to walk back up them. Along the way we say a wine bar which wasn't open but thought that it might be a nice pl;ace for a drink later. We got to the old town which seemed to be barren of most forms of life due to the heat, there were a few tourists sheltering in the shade but you could tell that their hearts wern't in it. We had decided to take the train to Modica, a smaller town about 20km south of Ragusa for lunch but the thought of climbing back up the stairs to our place and then climbing up to the station was out of the question. We found a taxi rank at which there was also a bus stop. I went to the tobacco shop nearby to buy a bus ticket but was told that you got them on the bus. The bus pulled up and we asked how much "is free" was the bus drivers reply, So in about 5 minutes we were at the train station which would have taken at least a half hour of serious stair climbing to get to. We met Damian and Louise at the station. BELOW our train to Modica arriving Ragusa.

 

ABOVE: The tunnel on the left is how trains from Ragusa enter Modica, the old steam loco sheds are on the right, BELOW is a photo of the sheds in action in 1955 from the Italian rail Historical collection.

 

There were two reasons to visit Modica. We ate at a trattoria called Ricotta & Co and thought they made the best ricotta stuffed ravioli we've ever tasted. We ordered it again and were not disappointed. The other reason to visit Modica was to buy Gabby bars of their unique Modica chocolate. We bought 8 bars but we will have to eat them ourselves if the heat starts to melt them. They make their own ricotta right in the trattoria and here is the owner dishing up a new batch into the moulds. BELOW:

 

Damian and Kris were complaining it was too hot so sat down on a seat on the main street but Louise and I soldiered on and climbed up to the main church in Modica where they were preparing for a wedding.

ABOVE: The organist had a little practice for the wedding while we were there, very impressive sound!

ABOVE: The little packets of rice for guests to throw on the newlyweds, laying a a pew.

ABOVE: The amazing ceiling of the church.

ABOVE: We walked back to the station at Modica and waited for our train back to Ragusa, this train was stabled in the yard near the impressive freeway bridge.

Back at Ragusa we went back to the stairs where we had seen the wine bar earlier in the day and got this photo of old Ragusa.

The wine bar had a unique way of serving. There were no tables, they gave you a cushion and a little box that served as a table and you are all set, it was amazing! 

ABOVE: Here is Kris with our drinks, cushions, table/boxes and apertivs on the stairs.

ABOVE: And here is the view from where we were sitting. It was quite simply the most lovely place to have a drink. Only in Italia! If you ever visit Ragusa you must go there!

Day 21

Enna to Ragusa

This blog will be quite short, we woke up, we drove to Ragusa and went to sleep under our air conditioner. The end.

 

ABOVE: After our heat induced siesta we ventured out and found an amazing trattoria, are there any bad food places in Italy? Here is the entree Bruschetta.

ABOVE: Kris had the lightly fried seafood.

ABOVE: Dessert was a pretty amazing Canoli.

ABOVE & BELOW: A good example of how, in photography, light is everything. Exact same scene, from our appartment balcony in Ragusa, taken well before sunset and well after sunset.

Day 20

Erice to Enna

 

We awoke in Erice, the town perched on top of a rock that has views, on a clear day, all the way to Africa. Amazing Kris went for an early morning walk and brought me back some of the amazing pastries that the local bakery is famous for, she also brought me a cup of coffee, how good is Kris? We the went for another walk around Erice.  

ABOVE: Kris in one of the tiny laneways in Erice.

BELOW: A typical laneway in the rabbit warren of Erice.

 

ABOVE: A view of the mountains from high atop Erice.

We ate lunch at a little cafe in Marsala, home of the famous wine. It was as close as Italians come to fast food but it was delicious. We then drove on towards Agrigento, home to some of the best preserved Greek ruins anywhere, it is somewhere Kris had wanted to go during our last two Sicily trips. BELOW: A view from the car of a long viaduct between Marsala nad Agrigento.

 

There are dozens of ruins in the huge area but the best preserved temple is the "Tempio Della Concordia" it was built around 450 BC. I patiently waited until I get get a snap of it without people.

We arrived at the hilltop town of Enna, it was much bigger and busier than we expected but it has amazing views. This shows the village of Calascibetta.

ABOVE: The main drag at Enna.

I went off on my own for dinner as the restaurant we picked didn't suit me. I went to a little fast food place that looked across the moutains and ordered a beer and panini. I then discovered that their card machine wasn't working. The owner spoke no English and with my tiny bit of Italian deduced that he was saying that it was his fault the card machine wasn't working and I could have the Panini free, I asked where an ATM was and he gave me vague directions. I got a bit lost and couldn't find my way back. I got some cash out of an ATM and then found another Italian fast food place and ordered a arancini, which was brilliant, and a slice of pizza which was ok. The bloke working there was in high school and is learning English so he wanted to talk with me. He told me that he had painted the murals in the cafe BELOW:  We talked about art and famous painters. His name was Thomas and he was a really nice bloke. He told me a friend had shown him Australian football and he asked how many people must die playing it each year because he thought it was so rough. The people of Sicily are so nice.