Richard writes:
After an absolutely fantastic time in and around Naples, we set off for our ferry to Palermo for three days in Sicily. Our whirlwind tour of the island, has exceeded our expectations on almost every level, leaving with us with a desire to visit the island again in the future.
Our Sicilian adventure started very well. Unlike our ferry to Italy, where the scenes were reminiscent of a refugee camp coupled with being herded like animals on disembarkation, we had a cabin! It was with great excitement that we boarded, knowing we could escape the great unwashed whenever we liked. This ferry was however completely different, with a very agreeable and calm clientele. We ate our evening meal at the cafe, and watched the ferry leave the port of Naples over drinks before settling in for a good night's sleep to ensure our batteries were fully charged for our day in Palermo.
Almost everything we did during in our time in Sicily was brilliant, with so many interesting natural and historical sites to visit. The most bizarre visit was to the Palermo catacombs. There was a short paragraph in our Lonely Planet about a museum that housed 8,000 mummies and skeletons of Palermo's deceased from the 16th to 19th centuries. There was no other information however, so we decided to take a look, not knowing quite what we were going to find. After a walk into Palermo's suburbs in blistering heat, we arrived. We paid our three Euro entry and descended the steps into a giant cellar to be immediately greeted by walls lined with skeletons, all wearing, what looked their finest outfits. It was very strange and eerie. There was a clergy section, as well as corridors for men, women, children and virgins. We walked the corridors examining the facial expressions on every skeleton, which when you have so many to compare it is actually possible to see differences in expression. As we walked, the question that I could not escape was; why? Why are they on display like this? I googled this later that evening to find a monk had being "buried" like this as a cemetery had become full in the 16th century, and it became a status symbol to receive this after death treatment. As macabre as it sounds we both absolutely loved the place and it represents one of the weirder sites visited on the whole trip. If anybody finds themselves in Palermo, with a few hours spare, I recommend a visit!
No trip to Sicily would be complete without a tour of Mount Etna. The mountain dominates the island's skyline and is simply beautiful. It is still very much active with the last eruption of lava as recently as August of this year. The landscape surrounding the mountain is made up of grains of sandlike black volcanic rock, which makes for dramatic views and spectacular backdrops for photos. To get to the craters, you can either walk or get a combination of cable car and 4x4 bus. We chose the latter due to time constraints, but one day we would love to climb up ourselves. Once at the top we were taken on a tour, where all the recent eruptions were shown to us, with one crater still billowing steam.
Sicily's main tourist sites are the Greek empire cities of Syracusa and Agragento. Both very different, but equally as spectacular. Syracusa was the birthplace and home of Archimedes (of bathtub and water displacement fame). The ancient city houses his tomb as well as an Greek theatre and numerous other ruins. Syracusa also has a gorgeous more modern area that is housed on a small island accessible by a small bridge. The town has heaps of character and a jaw droppingly beautiful cathedral. We were also lucky enough to witness a highly competitive game of canoe polo as we walked to the town.
Syracusa Greek Theatre
Archimedes Tomb
Syracusa Cathedral
Canoe Polo
Agrigento, on Sicily's south coast was also a Greek settlement and it houses some of the most well preserved Greek temples in the world. We paid for a short tour around the site and absolutely loved it, with the Temple of Concordia the highlight due to its well preserved state.
Temple of Concordia
After over indulging on the food front in Naples, we looked looked forward to our Sicilian culinary experience. It certainly didn't disappoint, it in fact exceeded the food we ate in Naples. We did have plenty of pizza and ice cream, but also some Sicilian specialities including Arancini balls and Cannoli. Arancini, are deep fried bread crumbed rice balls, filled with a variety of fillings including ham, mushrooms, spinach and pistachios. We tried several combination of fillings and absolutely loved them. Cannoli on the other hand, is a dessert made from sweetened ricotta cheese housed in a pastry like roll. God knows how many calories they contain, but they taste amazing! Our final Italian food indulgence before our jaunt to Africa was a dessert of a Nutella pizza. Again hugely calorific, but a taste sensation! At risk of stating the obvious, Italian food is simply amazing. After eight days in Italy in total we have eaten so much pizza, pasta, ice cream, cappuccino and other delights. I don't think I could ever get bored of the food here, it is amazing!
The only problem we had in Sicily was navigation. Due to the short time we were there, we didn't bother buying an island map, figuring the combination of my iPad maps and roadsigns would be enough. What I didn't take into account, is that Sicilian signage is terrible and that even when I as navigator give perfect instructions, they are not always acted upon. The signs are horrifically bad. They either don't exist, or when they do, they provide more confusion than if they hadn't been there in the first place. The main area of confusion is that Sicily hasn't discovered that an upwards arrow means straight on. Instead, to indicate straight on, the sign points an arrow towards the road you are on, making you think you about to have to make a sudden turn to to the right or left. Eventually of course you work this out, but then you are not entirely sure if the arrow you are seeing is to indicate straight on, or if there is a genuine turning. Many fraught discussions later we arrived at our destination more often than not. The main exception to this was Catania. We thought whilst driving between Mount Etna and Syracusa we would pop into Catania for a look round. Despite following the centre signs for an eternity, we never made it. At one point we thought we had, and Casey was reading out street names for me to find on the map of Catania we had taken from the hostel we had stayed at the night before. I couldn't find any of them, only to find we weren't in Catania at all!
The navigator is completely powerless, if the driver ignores him. I had perfectly planned our route to our hostel in Giardina Naxos (near Mount Etna) and the plan was going perfectly, until I said to Casey; "don't take the Taormina exit". Casey made sounds suggesting she had understood. A few minutes later, I raise my head out of my iPad map to see that Casey is turning off to Taormina. It seems Casey just hears a key word, and doesn't bother to listen to what one might consider some of the other key words in the sentence (like "don't") and just does what she thinks is best! Forty-five minutes later (when it should have only been five minutes), after a beautiful drive through the quaint city of Taormina, we arrived at our hostel.
The only problem with our drive through Taormina was that it began to rain. This wouldn't normally provide any problems, but we couldn't work out out how to keep the windscreen wipers on, all we could manage was a single wipe. So Casey could concentrate on the driving the narrow winding roads, I assumed the job of windscreen wiper operator (whilst map reading... who said men can't multi task??). The car had provided many problem solving exercises since we had collected it. The car, a BMW, was too clever for us on so may levels. Every operation seemed difficult. The first challenge was starting the bloody thing. There was no ignition key slot, just a button that said "start engine". This sometimes seemed to start the engine, sometimes not. After some trial and error Casey discovered that it worked when the brake pedal was down. The lack of the need for a key to start the engine startled us as we were told by the car hire company that car theft was common, and even though we had purchased "full insurance", in the event of the car being stolen we would still have to pay 750 euros. We were also worried as we had a bloody BMW, and therefore probably quite an attractive car to a car thief! We therefore conducted an experiment where we tried to start the car without the key anywhere near it, to assure ourselves that someone couldn't drive the thing off if we left the car unlocked. Low and behold the security system was actually very good, and the thing wouldn't start (to our relief).
We both are feeling a very real sensation that this trip is drawing to a close, with only a few weeks before arriving in London. It has been an absolutely amazing experience however, travelling over 60,000km (so far) over land and sea across Eurasia. We are both excited about the prospect of getting to the UK and living in London, though the world of the work place will take some adjusting to! Before that however, we look forward to what will be our 27th country of the trip on the fourth continent; Tunisia. Africa here we come!
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