There she blows!
Back row seats, Catania Amphitheatre Not as good as the real deal… Our Etna wheels… Always smoking… Crater hike.. Farewell Catania.. Etna foothills Stoker’s view!!! Coastal lunch stop Goodnight and Goodbye Etna. Catania is a UNESCO city, obviously not the rubbish filled ghettos, but the gorgeous majestic city centre. The buildings are magnificent and the place is filled with monasteries and tourists and there’s a Dutch chippy! We did the tourist trail taking in the Cathedral, two Roman Amphitheatres, one of which had been converted to housing then reclaimed, the...
Read MoreThe Good, the Bad and the Ugly…
Our first Etna view As far as the eye can see.. Enjoying the coastal cycle path Getting closer.. View from our B&B ???? The usual roadside accompanymemt… ???? Backstreet Catania… Normal parking! Parking like the locals! Central Catania Wow, we left Syracuse on a beautiful coastal cycle path and got our first glimpse of Etna as we rounded our first corner. It’s enormous and slightly smoking at the top….or is that the cloud? The cycle path led us straight into our road through the largest chemical works in Italy handily placed next to the most active volcano in...
Read MoreAvoiding the madness…
Marzamemi Original Roman mosaic insitu Noto Town Hall Noto theatre Ancient caves where stone for Amphitheatres mined, Syracuse Syracuse Greek Amphitheatre Syracuse Cathedral Aperitivo… ???? From Pozzallo we headed to the south east corner of Sicily and had some of the nicest cycling we’ve had, lots of quiet roads interspersed with the usual poop you pants moments, but all in all very nice. Our northward leg from here took in the Roman Villa Tellari with some wonderful mosaic floors where we had our picnic lunch – cheddar cheese (from Malta) rolls! One of these mosaics was...
Read MoreFruit, switches and the BBC
Farewell Malta.. Plenty of full greenhouses bursting at the seams… Lemons line the back roads everywhere… Countries often become associated with objects, so a beret or baguette and you think French, bowler hat – British, Bicycle and cheese – Dutch, enormous gun toting, pickup truck driving religious evangelical nutter and you think American… Well, I’m now going to associate Sicilians with light switches….. They just love them! In fact they love them so much that you can often turn the hall light off whilst sitting on the loo! In our apartment last...
Read MoreSickacca
Sciacca Ceramics Sciacca Town Hall Sciacca…. Valley of the Temples Birthday Bubbles… ???? Great start to a day…. Our washed away cycle route boardwalk.. Next stop… Malta This trip we’re being extra careful with Linda’s knee and trying to make cycles shorter and have more days off for rest. The trouble is when we plan a day off it’s usually accompanied by a walking tour of the city and 24,000 steps, which I’m not sure constitutes a day off! So we planned to stop in Sciacca as there’s not a lot to see, we’d found a nice hotel and just...
Read MoreMuddy Sicily…
When the Greeks colonised Sicily they obviously has us in mind when planning the locations of their towns. They always seem to be about 40km apart which is a nice cycle, means you don’t have to get up ealry and gets you to your destination mid afternoon so you can have a brief look around. It’s also great for getting our fitness back and protecting Linda’s knee early on. So we’ve town hopped nicely down the coast. We’ve avoided the main roads as far as possible, cycled on a few dedicated cycle paths which in true Italian style, were new a few years ago and have...
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