15 May 2008 Today we made a lot of progress north on our journey up Italy through Abruzzo and into Umbria. In the morning we drove 350K on the Autostrade following the east coast, mainly through fairly boring flat lands. At lunch we stopped at a small attractive hill top town called Atri whose famous cathedral was unfortunately closed for restoration. Later we went inland for 170k along increasingly impressive mountain roads to Spoleto which we plan to explore tomorrow. ... read more

13 May 2008 A leisurely start to the day and a wonderful hot shower. We wanted to see the sassi of Matera from the other side of the ravine and were given directions by the friendly campsite owner. We were not disappointed with the views but the weather could have been kinder. Thankfully there were no school parties but we could hear them touring the sassi. Over lunch we had a change of plan and decided to do a circular tour and return to the camper stop in order to sample the local cuisine. We headed across the limestone plateau to the Gravina di Laterza, a wild ravine with beautiful shrubs and flowers. We were fortunate to see the kites soaring overhead and Roger was able to pick out the nest site on the opposite side ... read more

12 May 2008 Not able to publish a full blog entry. We have now left Siciliy and worked our way up the toe of the mainland. Yesterday we saw some giant pine trees and today have been to Matera, a unique town based on cave dwellings which were only cleared in the 1950s.... read more

10 May 2008 It was time to leave Sicily today which made us sad. We’ve seen interesting and in some cases unique ancient buildings, lovely and vibrant towns and cities and beautiful coast and hills. We’ve had our adventure on Etna. But the abiding memory will probably be the friendliness and helpfulness of the people. We drove to Messina, had an uneventful ferry crossing, traversed around the uninteresting southern coast of Italy for about 150k and finally went inland to Stilo a small hillside town in a super location. The reason for coming here was to see the best preserved Byzantine temple there is and it didn’t disappoint. By this time it was getting fairly late and we were not looking forward to returning to the coast to find somewhere to stay. However Stilo had a ... read more

8 May 2008 The weather cleared and we enjoyed an unforgettable day on Etna with our guide Jean Baptiste. Our Italian Rough Guide suggested that it was not possible to go to the main crater of the mountain as it was too dangerous following major eruptions in 2001 and 2002, however things must have settled down because we were able to book a trip all the way up with Gruppo Guide Alpine Etna Sud. At €60 it was only €10 more than the normal ride up and short walk around the 2002 crater. After a short delay for a weather check we set off at 10 with fifteen very pleasant people led by Jean Baptiste, firstly to ascend to 2,500m by telecabine followed by a four wheel drive coach which took us through the lava flows ... read more