13 October to 15 October – Cefalu

We flew EasyJet (wish there was an alternative because believe it or not this airline would be a candidate for one of the world’s worst) from Rome to Catania. With this airline, if you have a carry-on bag you are not allowed to even have a handbag. The fee if you need both is 60 euros.  Luckily we were at the end of the line and they announced that the overhead lockers were full and that carry-ons would have to go in the hold, but at no cost. That left us free to have our backpacks. The crazy thing about this is that it makes no difference at all to the weight of the plane, and that there is plenty of room under the seat in front for a small backpack or handbag. It is just price gouging.

After landing in Catania then picked up a hire car for the 2-hour drive to Cefalu, which was interesting and pleasant. Note to the wise: they said the fuel tank was full and that we had to return it full, but when we checked it was less than half full. Got the staff to note it on the system and took a photo for evidence in case of trouble on return.

Cefalu is beautiful. Right on the north coast of Sicily, it is a charming village with and old town (antica) precinct and on top of “the rock” a 2,500 year old temple that apparently predates not only the Greeks but also the Phoenicians. The first night we shared a pizza and a litre of vino rosso de casa on the sea front, very nice and also inexpensive. At 12 euro for the litre, the wine was more expensive than the pizza.

Our AirBnB was very nice. Quite large and well set up, and only 50 metres from the shoreline. Plenty of really fresh bread, fruit and veg, meat and fish straight from the local waters daily.

We visited the amazing Duomo, walked through the old town, and saw the “laundromat” an ancient communal laundry.

The day before we were due to leave, we visited Cefalu hospital because Christine had a growth on her leg that had become very big very fast and wanted it checked. We were told that they couldn’t help as there was no dermatology department.

That’s when our lovely host Franca stepped in. She had a friend who was a visiting dermatologist at the hospital and thought she might be in Cefalu and perhaps she could get us an appointment. Not only did she make that happen, but she acted as interpreter at the hospital to get us through their incredibly complicated system and up to the right floor (there is no-one who speaks English who can help visitors).

The dermatologist was really lovely and moved heaven and earth to get a procedure done by the surgeon the next day, outside of his normal operating day.

Very grateful to everyone, and again amazed by a case of personal relationships being so important.

Straight after the procedure, a 3-hour drive to beautiful Ragusa. On the way we stopped at an ancient Roman hunting villa called Villa Romana del Casale and John saw some incredible mosaics while Christine flaked out in the car. The murals showed the hunting of animals in Africa in order to bring them back to kill people in the Coliseum.

One rather famous mural showed women in bikinis working out in a gym much like people do today, including barbells.

Thursday 17 October

OMG. Getting out of Ragusa was a nightmare on steroids. There was only one way out through ridiculously skinny streets with blind switchback after blind switchback. You’ll understand how tight it was when we tell you that we actually scraped both side mirrors in order to squeeze our way through, hemmed in on both sides by ancient stone buildings.

GPS isn’t great in this part of Italy so there were many times we were given directly conflicting instructions, showed as being off piste, and sent in wrong directions, including the wrong way up one-way streets.

We stopped at Noto to see some pretty amazing old buildings, about 40 minutes from our destination.

Anyway, we did eventually find our way to Siracusa (Syracuse) where we found our AirBnB had been changed to one more conveniently located, though without a washing machine. Our host kindly offered to do our washing for us. Bonus.

The apartment was in a building that is obviously very old, although completely renovated. There was a rather majestic stone arch that interspersed the renovated ceiling, and lovely old stonework remained exposed at the windows ad in various wall sections.

19 October

This was a drive to Catania to catch a plane to Malta, but the thing that was really memorable was a full-on view of Mount Etna erupting steam from the top and new craters on both sides. It had been code red but was now code orange. The photos don’t do it justice of course – it literally took up over half of the car’s front window. Massive.