Made it down to Sicily!

---

Hi there!

I've made it down to Sicily. Arrived last night, well got to Sicily at about 6ish, but didn't expect the train to Catania to be 2 hrs, so didn't get to the hostel here until 9ish. Luckily enough, happy hour lasts until 10 here, so no problems there!

I left the helpx place last Tuesday, (where are we now? oh yeah Friday today - amazing how you lose the days when you're away!) it was quite sad to go actually, and I have to admit, I felt a wee bit nervous about leaving the security of Villa Anna. Guess I'd only been travelling a few days before I got to Villa Anna so it was still relatively new. Mick n Angela looked after me really well there. The work was pretty hard, but the food was fab and it was nice to unpack you're things for a bit.

Anyhow, from there, I got the train down to Naples and then on to Sorrento. Only looked out the door of Naples station as the next helpx place is there so I can explore it properly then.
Sorrento is quite pretty, but expected it to be bigger, and dare I say it, better! Unfortunately it was chucking it down with rain when I got there - Brought back fond memories of England!! The rain only lasted an hour or so after I got there though so it was ok. Found a good little bar that sold a big bottle of Peroni (local lager) for about 2 euros! Got chatted up by an italian romeo on a moped! Quite funny really. Not sure if they think a moped and a silly helmet adds to the illusion, or more like delusion of hunkiness! he he. was quite funny. managed to get rid of him n then on to explore the town. Loads of English people in Sorrento, I even found a 2nd hand book shop which sold english books! Only stayed in Sorrento for 1 night. I think that was enough really. There weren't many travellers in the hostel there either, so I was quite happy moving on.

From there I caught the train down to the place where I'd booked a hostel for the next night. It was in a place called Sibari, near Cosenza. This place was in the middle of nowhere. There was absolutely nothing there. Finally got there about 7ish after waiting ages for a train out there. Asked a girl outside the station if she knew where the hostel was. She had come to see her boyfriend who lived in Sibari, so she said to hang on and when he got there he could give me a lift. Fab! To cut a long story short, basically the hostel had closed! Bugger! Stuck in the middle of nowhere with nowhere to stay! Luckily these guys (Francesca and Pepe) were absolutely fab and spent a good hour and a half of there evening trying to sort me out with a B&B and organising a taxi to take me to the bank then the station the next day. (There were virtually no ATMs and no-one takes cards here either! big lesson learnt - always carry plenty of spare cash! Luckily had just enough for the b&b n the taxi, so just prayed I didn't have any trouble with the ATM in the morning!). Alls well that ends well though, n a big lesson learned. Never trust hostelworld and always phone ahead to the hostel!
Got to the station the next day and had a 3 hour wait for the train out of there! This place really was the end of the earth! The countryside round this area is really nice though. Rolling hills for miles. Tried to get some photos out the train but they didn't really do it justice.

Talking of photos, mine are all on facebook. I tried loading to this site, but it took forever and then didn't actually work in the end, whereas facebook you can load a whole lot in one go. I think its pretty easy to join and then if you look for me on there (I think you just need my email address) you can see all my photos. When I went on today it automatically sent out invites to all the people in my address book, but not everyone is in there. It's not exclusive so please check them out!

Travelled down the coast to the bottom of Italy (the name escapes me right now, but will update when I have my guidebook with me) and caught the boat over to Sicily. Was beautiful ride down there. Miles upon miles of empty beaches on one side and then pretty steep mountains on the other. Really nice. The crossing was good. Sicily looked fab. Really looking forward to my stay here.

Thanks to everyone for your messages. Please keep them coming - Its really great to hear from all of you! Missing you all loads.

---