Week 14 and 15

when

6.01.2020 - 18.01.2020

where

Sicily, Italy

Palermo, Italy - Segestan thermal baths, Italy - San Vito Lo Capo, Italy - Marsala, Italy - Selinunte, Italy - Agrigento, Italy - Ragusa, Italy - Noto, Italy - Siracusa, Italy - Taormina, Italy - Passopisciaro, Italy - Cefalù, Italy - Palermo, Italy

what

What a fortnight! Starting with an overnight ferry, our first ferry journey with the van and first time experiencing ‘deck passage’ which you can read all about here. These past two weeks have been warm days and cool nights every day was sunny, blue clear skies and no wind, we could not have dreamt of better conditions. With that in mind here we go.

Palermo - the capital of the autonomous region of Sicily with a reputation for being the birthplace of the ‘mafia’ as it is known to outsiders. This reputation of bing an unsafe and violent city are totally unjustified. Palermo is rich in culture and history with stunning landmarks and a food scene to rival that of many of Italy’s more tourist bent cities. We spent our time here exploring the three street markets (which Pat wrote more about here) Walking the beautiful streets and of course eating and drinking which you can read more about here. Most importantly it felt very safe. After doing some reading and talking to locals, the mafia (which is not what they call it) and their hold on Sicily has been in steady decline since the 90’s and although protection money is still payed here and there, after years of economic uncertainty, even the Mafia understood that people could simply not afford to pay them off in some cases any more. Crazy. In terms of tourism, you would not need to be any more alert or alarmed here than in Paris, Rome or Barcelona, we felt a million times safer here than in Naples that’s for sure.

After feeling like we had successfully ‘done’ the city (Food, wine, church, plaza ect) we headed off to Segestan thermal baths for a little self care time bobbing around in the free natural thermal spring. It was an interesting vibe and we have written more about it here. We also made a big big mistake of driving the camper down a big ol’ hill that we nearly didn’t make it out of but did, live and learn. Heading into San Vito Lo Capo, a tiny seaside town in the northwest, it was clear to see by the desertion of the town that its popularity is due mainly to its stunning and sheltered beach which is overlooked by Mount Monaco. We walked around while we waited for our laundry to finish, Pat had some cannoli and we headed off to one of the most beautiful places we have seen on this trip so far to sleep for the night.

We visited lots of small towns like Marsala, known for its white wine, seafood and and adorable main street before heading to what is the tourist Mecca of Sicily, the Ancient Greek ruins at Selinunte and Vally of the Temples in Agrigento. We could not believe on arrival at Selinunte, one of the biggest archeological parks in Europe, that we were the only one’s in the car park because we were the only one’s there at all. The ruins were so far beyond our expectations in every way and visit was made so much more magical in the fact that we were wondering around these 2000+ year old temples and ruins in complete solitude. Pat had been reading up on the history and walked me around the park explaining all of the architecture and history that he could as I wandered around with my jaw gaping.

Valley of the temples was busier in the way that we maybe saw 20 or so people as opposed to none. This is the more popular and more ‘spectacular’ of the two sites and as dusk approached we could see why. We’ve written all about these two archeological site visits here. We parked in yet another seaside point of natural splendour (essentially the whole coast of Sicily is like this) and had a quick swim in the sea.

Leaving the coast and heading inland to see the amazingly beautiful hilltop mountain towns of Ragusa and Noto and discovering maybe the best granita in the world at Caffe Sicilia we headed back to the sea, this time on the east coast popping out at Syracuse (Siracusa). Aside from more impressive ruins, all the best parts of Syracuse are either on the island of Ortigia or on the mainland just across the bridge from it. We parked on the island overlooking the local fisherman wharf and bay. Syracuse is a must see in Sicily, we could have spent a week here in its slow pace eating its fresh produce and seafood and gawking at it’s beautiful ocean vistas but spent a couple of days in stead. We’ve written a couple of posts on food and drink here, a day itinerary here and a local food truck that we can not get out of our heads here.

Whilst in Syracuse we started looking seriously at what our plans will be for the next couple of months and even for the second half of our year. We realised that we have spent 6-7 weeks in Italy and Sicily alone and if we were to drive along the heel of the boot, all the way to Slovenia and back down to Croatia like we had initially planned, we will be cutting time off other countries like Croatia. So after a bit of googling we decided we will catch the ferry back to Naples, cut across Italy to Ancona and catch a ferry straight to Croatia, saving us a couple of weeks and thousands of kilometres of driving, putting us in Dubrovnik on January 18th instead of maybe the first week of February.

For Sicily, this meant that we would be able to see the north coast on our way back to Palermo instead of jumping off the island at Messina in the northeast.

So on we continued visiting the picture perfect village Taormina (on the suggestion of my uncle Phil) with breathtaking views of the smouldering Etna and heading up Etna ourselves to stay at a winery and have a look around ourselves. In the nights we could see the red glow of the volcano against the ash steadily puffing out of the mouth - it was mesmerising.

We got ourselves into a little pickle leaving Etna. It’s winter and so up on Etna there is snow, lots of it, its actually pretty snowy and icy on most of the hilled regions around Sicily and as we left to head back to the north coast, we made a very very bad decision to take a mountain road which google said would be faster than the freeway. It was not. What followed was 3 hours (instead of 45 minutes) of very steep, narrow, icy roads with low hanging branches and switchbacks which required some creative 10 point turns to get around. We popped out in a village and pulled over to breathe after some incredibly close calls and sat trying to figure out if the rest of the way was going to be as bad. As we sat, a man pulled in front of us, seeing our Australian stickers, and asked (via google translate) if we were lost. We were. We told him where we were trying to go and he said he was headed that way so he would lead us a way the van could make it. So we followed this stranger in his tiny Fiat Panda the back hills of nowhere in Sicily, praying that he would not lead us astray and after a half hour easy drive we arrived at the exit to the freeway. He hopped out, shook our hands, wished us well and sped off. Its nice to know there is good in the world.

We had a quick look at the picturesque Cefalu and headed back to Palermo for the ferry. Our two weeks wraps up with our second try of the overnight ferry (which you can read about more here), an uneventful drive across the country to the port city of Ancona and I write this as we wait to board our Ferry to Split. Tomorrow we will be in Croatia.