Acireale

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Thursday, 20th November, 2008.

Plan for today, drive to Villa S. Giovanni, go across on the ferry to Messina, Sicily, then drive to Acireale.

Neither of us slept well, not really sure why, I had come down with some kind of sniffles and I think the air conditioning in the Hotel didn't help.

We had breakfast at the Hotel as part of the deal. I surfed and caught up with the world a little bit.

After settling the bill, we left the hotel just before ten o'clock. We decided to take the local coast road, as it was only about twenty kilometers to Villa San Giovanni.

The coast road provided some wonderful scenery and most of the time we were doing between fifteen to twenty mph, as it was up and down and in and out. It took over an hour to do the twenty kilometers.

We got to Villa S. Giovanni and by common sense found our way to the port area. Signposting for the port and ferries was non existent. We drove to the ticket office on the quay side, just missed one ferry, but a few minutes later we were loaded on another.

The ferry cost €32.00 and for information, included in that is an €8.00 fuel surcharge at the moment.

We sailed not long after embarking, it really is like a bus service. It was about eleven thirty and we bought some sandwiches and cappuccino's for our lunch from the cafeteria. We watched the world going by and were over to Sicily by twelve, off the ferry and into the Pelee that was Messina.

We didn't want to mess around so headed straight for the Autostrada. This meant driving through Messina for a short way, and the Sicilians are worse still at driving than the mainland Italians. So the town is total chaos.

We got through okay and on to the motorway. The journey was about fifty miles and took all told about an hour and a half. The motorway was very light traffic.

Mount Etna was visible to us, and at 3350 metres, it's peak was covered in snow and clouds. Don't think I'll get Pat up this one.

The satnav had the Hotel and we used it to get us there. No farm tracks or anything daft today, thank goodness.

The Hotel Aloha D'Oro, is like one would imagine a Spanish Hacienda, in it's style. Lots of interesting tiles and such. Nice enough though. The room has a shower / bath, so I'm happy.

The Hotel is on the coast, although you have to remember that the coast here are cliff's a lot of the time.

I forgot to tell you by the way, that the bar in the Hotel Arcobaleno, didn't have any Gin! So Pat had a glass of wine instead. Also for information, we found out that Arcobaleno means rainbow in Italian and Pat loves rainbows.

We settled into the room and went for a little exploratory walk around the area. Because of the geography, we only managed to look down on the sea.

The Hotel says it has a beach, so after looking around the area, we went down from the back of the Hotel following a path we found. It was a steady downhill walk and we ambled for a while, until we reached some metal girders that neither of us liked the look of, as they were full of holes and rusting away. The “beach” further down was some wooden decking on the rocky shoreline, so we decided to play on the safe side and give it a miss.

After a slow climb back up, we went back to the room and chilled for a while.

The weather was again wonderful and the car said 20°C, for a while. The sun shone and only slight cloud cover. Trousers and T-Shirt day. I love this being south business.

Around six we went to reception, we booked a second night here, to give us time to do something tomorrow. We used the free internet, available on the Hotel computer and surfed for a while, looking up and investigating hotels and possible accommodation options, over the next few days.

The Hotel restaurant is closed until December, and we were given a recommendation of a place in town, “about five hundred metres walk”.

I have to admit to being sceptical about these sort of recommendations, as they could be a relative or something, but we followed directions, and we were pleasantly surprised to find a bustling town centre much more up to date than any of our recent Italian experiences.

The town and buildings are old, but there were a couple of very smart wine bar type places. An up to date modern supermarket and so on. Several large churches.

We found the restaurant - The All'Antica Osteria - and again, we were nicely surprised. We were made very welcome, a good level of English was spoken. A place used by locals, who's pictures were all over the walls.

We had a bruschetta and prosciutto, with pineapple. then a house special pasta with a sauce of mixed vegetable and anchovies, and an Americana Pizza. This with drinks and sparkling water came to €30.00. A good meal and good value.

We then ambled back through the town to the Hotel and got back about nine thirty. A late night for us.

Friday, 21st November, 2008.

Plan for today, to do some touring around and probably get a little closer to Mt. Etna.
We have a superior sea view room, which of course means you pay more, but you only live once. This morning it was definitely worth the extra money as the balcony catches the sun first thing, because we are on the east coast of Sicily and it was absolutely gorgeous. The temperature on our little clock thermometer went up to 55°C. The plastic chairs on the balcony had got hot in the sun and you had to be careful as we sat down on them. I suspect the weather isn't quite the same at home, ha ha ha, he says with great delight.

Pat went down to breakfast and when she returned, we sorted ourselves out and headed off around ten o'clock.

We followed our noses and the three thousand metre volcano in front of us initially and then found brown signs, showing the road up the volcano. Mt Etna is still active and the area around has been made into a national park, so lots of open spaces, and areas of countryside.

The road was far better than we both thought it was going to be, and obviously went up and up, in a very snakey fashion, but there was lots of parking spots and lay bys. We stopped fairly often and enjoyed the fantastic scenery. It isn't very often us people from flat country get to look down on so much of a view.

The road crosses some of the vast lava flows that have come down the mountain over the years and the newer stuff, leaves the area bereft of vegetation.

I remembered that the satnav told you elevation, if you asked it for current location, and we were able to know that the highest point that we reached was 1901 metres. The volcano is about 3300 metres, at it's highest point.

At the highest point by road, there is a large area of parking, with shops, restaurants and souvenir places.

At this time of year it is reasonably quiet. The temperature on the car which had been 19°C down below, was down to 7°C and the wind was blowing a strong cool breeze. So we didn't get out of the car and took pictures, with the window down.

There seemed to be some sort of cable car operation, that took you higher, but it didn't seem to be working.

Mt Etna had made our day, and although both of us have had enough of Italy, and are not overly impressed with Sicily, this alone had made the trip to this part of the world worthwhile.

The snow capped vista, surrounded by a cloudless clear deep blue sky, with the flows of lava, and views we had of the countryside and coastline of east Sicily, were the stuff of great memories.

As it happens, this was our second volcano within a week as we had only just done Vesuvius on Sunday.

After the top area, the road goes a different way down, which was fine by us, and we drove slowly downwards, stopping now and again at interesting points and having a good look around.

We gradually went through greater areas of habitation and the number of houses increased. As we went through a place called Balpesso, Pat noticed a Supermarket, and we stopped at a very up to date, what we would consider nothing out of the ordinary supermarket, but far exceeding any of the quality of places in Italy. Sicily had surprised us again.

We picked up some ham, cheese and soft rolls and ate this as our lunch in the car park.

Our plan was to do a circuit of the area, and this was now about one o'clock. As we were heading back, Pat spotted some signs for something called “Etnapolis”, which seemed to have lots of shops. Time was very much on our side, so we went exploring, and again for another surprise, it turned out to be a modern shopping mall, with cinema complex, diy shops etc. Sicily does it again.

We wandered around the place for while and had one or two things which we had been getting low on and need replacing, so were able to replenish them.

As we were going into one shop a young lad ran past, heavily pursued by a number of store security men, who caught up with him and dragged him back the way they had come. No doubt an attempted shop theft of some sort.

The shopping centre was a pleasant diversion and finished the afternoon well for us.

It was now getting on for four o'clock and we went back to the Hotel.

We chilled for a while and came up with a rough plan for the next few days.

The overall plan now is to move on to Greece, and initially we are thinking of going to Kefalonia.

We will need to get to Bari, on the east coast of Italy. Then cross to Patras, Greece, by ferry, which is a fifteen and half hour crossing and then catch a ferry from there to Sami, Kefalonia, which is about three and a half hours.

Tomorrow we will drive from Acireale back up to Messina, which is a good hour's drive, then back over on the ferry to mainland Italy.

From either Reggio di Calabria or Villa San Giovanni, depending on which ferry we catch, to Bari is quite a distance and because we don't know what time we will have, we have decided to split that part of the journey and found a rough half way point at a place called Cosenza.

Then we will go from Cosenza to Bari on Sunday.

There is a ferry daily to Patras at 1230 hours and we hope to be on the one on Monday, to arrive Patras on Tuesday.

We are still searching for the ferry times Patras to Sami, so don't know if / when we can actually do that, but If not then we will simply go wherever we can.

We know that in the summer you can go all over the place, but we are not sure of some of the winter services.

So we surfed for a while, booked accommodation for Saturday in Cosenza, and Sunday in Bari and added to our knowledge about Greek ferries and their timetables, although we still have some gaps to fill.

After, this we got washed and changed and headed for the same restaurant as last night.

We were again greeted warmly. We had a pizza and a house spaghetti, followed by a pastry filled with cream, for both of us. Again a nice meal and good value.

Then back to the Hotel, with a very windy walk.

Saturday, 22nd November, 2008

Plan for today, get from Acireale to Cosenza.

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