This morning we met our new tour group and once again it's a full load. The maximum number for a Back Roads tour is 18. Everyone seems lovely plus there are 6 of us from the previous tour. This time we have a couple of New Zealanders as well as two ladies from Canada. Otherwise, the rest of us are Aussies. We left our beautiful hotel at 8:30am and met our new bus driver, Andre. We only needed to drive a short distance for the first part of our tour, as were about to explore the historic centre of Naples. We met our local guide Marco and were kitted up with Whisperers (allowing us to listen to Marco without having to crowd around him). We commenced our walk through the old town as Marco informed us ... read more

This morning we met our local guide, Salvatore and he is quite the character! He is just over 80 years of age and as fit as a fiddle - very knowledgeable about the area and Sicily as a whole and quite the comedian. He has also written a book and produced a CD! Salvatore joined us in Catania and would be our guide for the entire day. Our first destination this morning would be Mt Etna, which I was pretty excited about. To give you an idea of what our day with Salvatore was like, as we were driving on the main highway out of Catania he told us that he needed us to wave to his sister, and he would tell us when we needed to do it. So we are driving along and he ... read more

Happy birthday David! 8:30 departure this morning as we had quite a bit of driving today. Our first section, as he headed to the UNESCO World Heritage listed site of Villa Romana del Casale, took around 2 hours. Michele used this opportunity, when he has us as a captured audience, to give us really interesting facts and stories about Sicily or the next site we are heading to. Villa Romana del Casale is located in Piazza Armenia and is a large and elaborate Roman villa that was constructed in the first quarter of the 4th century AD on the remains of an older villa. The whole structure was covered by a landslide and floods and was abandoned in the 12th century AD, and remained this way for the next 700 years. Excavations have revealed one of ... read more

Today we didn't need to leave our accommodation until 10am, which meant a more relaxing start to the day. The reason for this was to avoid being at our tour destination this afternoon, in the heat of the day. So off we headed for our drive to our next destination - Agrigento. Along the way we stopped to take photos of the Turkish Steps (Scala dei Turchi). The steps are sparkling white rocks, juttimg out into the Mediterranean Sea and from where we stopped to take photos they looks like steps. It has a similar look to it like Pamakule in Turkey although the story goes that it was named the Turkish steps as it prevented the Turks from invading this area. Anyway, it is a stunning sight! It is illegal to walk along them as ... read more

What a beautiful hotel I am staying in. It was originally three different buildings that have been merged into one, the oldest part dating back to 500 AD. It was certainly grandiose! It is located in the historic part of the town and is called Grand Hotel Piazza Borsa. I met up with my tour group at 8:30 after having a quick breakfast. There are 18 people, which is on the larger size for one of these Back Roads tours. Our tour managers name is Michele (he is a guy and the name is pronounced Mick-el-ay). Everyone are couples except another lady named Jackie - and 16 are from Australia! There only two people not from Oz are Catrina and a Derek from Scotland. We then met our local guide, Nino and loaded onto our mini-bus ... read more