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Autostrade detour
This detour on the way to Villa San Giovanni gave us some nice views, but the traffic was far from nice.Only those who have worked for a long time in one of Charlie's buildings - and there may be only one reader of this blog who still does - will appreciate why I almost wanted to go to the town of Randazzo and have a look, just to see whether his origins suggest some answers for the way he operates. It is not just old Charlie. We have a town called Nicolosi, of Guiseppe fame; Sciacca, as in Con; and it goes on. There was even a garbage truck run by the Musumeci company. And there have been any number of companies with the famous Fazio name on them. It makes Sicily all nice and familiar.
We actually didn't intend to be in Sicily quite this quickly but when we left Metapunto not too far west of Taranto we thought we had spent almost enough time along the southern coast and it was time to move on a little. We popped up onto the autostrade and headed west. Autostrade here deserve a mention. I don't know who invented the use of viaducts but I do know that the Romans used them and were adept in their construction. There are autostrade
Eagle views
A street in Taormina, and there was a lot more of the town above us. - under their various titles - all over Europe but the Italians have faced some real challenges in the south. Some of the bridges over the valleys are spectacular feats of engineering. Seriously high bridges these, are with towns and villages spread out below as we skate through the sky. Not so bad in an aeroplane, just a little eerie in a Citroen C3.
Once you hit the west coast you run into the construction phase of a new autostrade. Generally, this involves continual slowing down, forming one lane and crawling along for kilometres until there is a break when you flatten in and then back down again. Gets tedious but is clearly still quicker than the roads that you can see down in the valleys.
We had decided to head for Villa San Giovanni, for no better reason than that it looked like it was the closest place on the mainland to Sicily. We had done some research on the net but not as much as we would have liked. TomTom took us directly to a ferry terminal. A quick check indicated that it would take 25 minutes and 32 Euros to get us to Sicily. Off
Pot of Gold
The end of this rainbow was in our campground, but the other end arches over Mt Etna (yes, that is the famous volcano under the cloud) we went.
The plan, to the extent that there was a plan, was to head south along the coast, but sticking to the autostrade and not going through the villages, down to Taormina which is supposed to be the major tourist hangout on Sicily. We didn't care that much about the other tourists but they are a canny lot and often congregate around places that are actually worth visiting. We also figured, also being canny, that where there are a few tourists, there might also be a few camp sites that are actually open for business this early in the season. It didn't sound like a bad plan as plans go. More detailed than some, less researched than others but with a good amount of judgement and experience in the mix.
TomTom has developed a personality all of its own. I know that it is a machine and does what it is told and so on but there is evidence of the growth of a personality, and a personality that is not so nice. We pissed TomTom off a bit on the run across the southerly part, going off the road for a bit of a look and
Etna after the rain
But with snow, and with wind, as the palm leaves show ignoring instructions, that sort of thing. We get to Messina. A very large industrial, port city. Not your average tourist mecca. TomTom duly takes us through Messina without too much drama - just one instruction to go down a one way street the wrong way. Then we are popped up onto the autostrade bound for Taormina. Just as quickly we are popped back off again. Why, you might ask. Why, we asked. How do we get back on again? How do you find a road that is not on the map and of which you only occasionally pick up glimpses? Not easy.
We travelled most of the way from Messina to Taormina on a road called the SS116. It picked up a number of other names along the way, most of which, I am sure, other drivers had given it in the past. This road takes you through all of the cute little villages that are strung out along the very narrow strip of land that is stretched out along the coastline between the mountains and the water. I should say that the first few villages were cute, the rest became decidely less so as we proceeded at a
Aperitif
of local produce very gentle pace along the road. The gentle pace was necessary. You don't really want to hit parked cars or curbs that are both high and sharp, too hard.
I didn't answer the mobile phone and talk for a while. I didn't have long and animated conversations with my passenger. I never even leant over and gave her a big kiss as we were driving along with only 2 inches to spare on either side of the vehicle. Other drivers were much less inhibited. How I didn't slam into a parked car, hit a truck, knock over a cyclist or clean up an aged pedestrian I don't really know but we lasted for kilometre after kilometre withoug sideswiping anyone or killing anyone - we think. There was a loud clunk at one stage. We were both sure there had been contact with something. No scraping metal mind you but a clunk all the same. No marks on the car at all though. Nothing. Only thing it could have been was a small child or a baby I guess.
After a very long time on this road I started to lose the plot a little. Those who know me
What are these blue things?
They were all over the beach at Punta Secca will understand what that means. I wanted an autostre. There was supposed to be one even though the dimwits at TomTom disagreed. I started to really search for those little green signs and, bugger me, I spotted one, and then another and another. We climbed up on to the autostrade that TomTom didn't think was there. 'Turn around when possible' indeed. We sailed along the autostrade for fully 10kms and then had to get off to go to Taormina.
With my newly developed skill of skating off the wing mirrors of parked cars and rubbing paint with others, Taormina was not going to hold any fears for me. I negotiated the early streets pretty well if I do say so myself, only starting to blubber occasionally. Then we started to climb. We were looking for a campsite on the side of a cliff for crying out loud. Up we went and then further up and further until I finally said no more. That didn't help at all. There was no other way to go so we continued going up. Finally, I was able to turn around and go back down. We did stop not far before the key tourist
site that you are actually supposed to walk to, but you get that.
Now we really are looking for a campsite. TomTom, still shitty, sends us up a road - well you and TomTom might call it a road. There was just room for the car. It wound upwards for about 435 metres and stopped. No campsite here. May have been once but no longer. Let's get out of here. Can't turn around. No driveways to back into, it will have to be reverse. Good fun that was but the person who put the large terracotta pots with geraniums in them on the roadway to reduce its width to precisely that of a Citroen C3 was really going well beyond the pale I reckon.
Daunted, certainly, but not yet destroyed, we told TomTom to find us another campground. The map had nothing and our book, in Italian, had a couple that were no longer there or were carparks for campers. Dutifully, and a little mollified I think by its last mean trick, TomTom took us to three separate addresses. That yielded one campground that was well and truly closed. At this stage I was starting to lobby for
Palozzolo
The street of the ten-point turn is in there somewhere 4 or 5 star accommodation with a bed we don't have to blow up but we are made of sterner stuff than that aren't we?
So that was that for Taormina. It looked like a lovely place actually. Nice mountain, well kept old town built into the side of the mountain, very nice bay with flash yachts bobbing, cobbled streets, a lot of nicely dressed people looking at other nicely dressed people. The castle didn't inspire terribly from the outside but obviously a lot of others find it interesting. Found that magic autostrade and headed south to Mascali. More skinny roads but I am used to them now and sometimes even find them just a tiny bit enjoyable.
We stopped at Mascali because it appeared to have campgrounds, wasn't as far south as Catania and was still in striking distance of Taormina. Three large campgrounds all open. How about that? I strongly suspect that this is because land around Mascali is not as valuable as that at Taormina. Not a great deal to recommend the place but it was in the right place and the campground we stayed at - the Mokambo - was a little tired but
Narrow streets of Palozzolo
The street of the ten-point turn was much narrower and steeper it said it had WiFi (it did but ...).
And that leads me nicely on to the internet. Italians obviously use it. My punt is that a lot of people have it connected in their homes. I suspect that, in the areas where there are more international tourists, there are internet cafes or more places that have WiFi. We have been told that, in Europe, most of the better campgrounds have WiFi. We have found a few but not so many as would make you believe the statement.
The net is handy obviously for communication but it is a lot more than that for us. Guide books tend to be heavy. You can download chapters of Lonely Planet for a price - and we do - but LP, as good as it is, doesn't always do the job for us. With the net we can access camping or other accomodation options, get better information about what is going on in the country we are travelling though - population statistics, average wages, school holidays, agricultural production techniques that are used and why - and find out what there is that people here would like us to see. With good
Litter on the beach
By no means the worst example access to information we tend to stay longer in a place. And it is not that we aren't prepared to pay.
One reason for the lack of publicly available WiFi is the possibly not peculiarly Italian phobia about terrorists using the net and one way they have worked out to stop this happening. To get on you need to have shown someone your 'document'. This could be a passport or a drivers licence with your photo on it. If you have a mobile phone you will have produced a document, thus, in some places - some shopping centres, bars or Maccas - you provide your mobile phone number and are sent the user name and password. There are similar systems in other countries but, having recently been in Africa where no one wants a 'document' it is a difference. You might also wonder at the effectiveness of a system that has obvious and easy means of avoiding identification by a user. Still, I guess it serves to make some people think that the government is doing something.
Mascali is the scene of what will become known as my great mistake. Patricia has lost a lot of stuff on
Agriculture
In southeastern Sicily this trip - and she assures me that she has a post nearly written on the subject. I haven't lost much at all, being a more careful individual, but this one mistake will offset all her losses. We were camped at this reasonable campground in reasonable weather. It rained in the morning and, being helpful neighbours, we took in some of a neighbour's washing that was dry. In the afternoon, bright sunshine, we set off for Catania. As we were walking into a shopping mall - much more interesting to some at some times than anything old - it started to rain quite heavily. This triggered a happy response. Good that we are inside and not walking around some old ruin, immediately followed by another, the computer! I have left the bloody computer sitting on a post, charging up, outside.
My first thought was, well that is that, let's get the shopping done and go back. But then Catania, where we were, is about 16 kms from Mascali along a good expressway with a bit of street winding after that. Far enough that it may not have rained there, yet. I am overtaken by a lot of Italian drivers
Farmhouse
Again in southeastern Sicily in our normal driving. No one overtook me this time. They did keep getting in my road. Even had to flash my lights like the Audi and BMW drivers. As we neared Mascali the rain backed off and stopped but, as we swung around the corners towards the camp, it bucketed down heavier than ever. I had entertained a mild little hope that our neighbour, who had been sitting in the sun next to the pole on which the coomputer was actually perched may have noticed said computer and said rain and taken the action we had taken earlier with her clothes. Not to be. The computer was wet. But being closed of course, not too wet.
A major exercise was then undertaken to ensure that it was as dry as it could possibly be. The foot pump was put into use to blow air through every possible orifice. It was left in the sun for a long period. It may have worked. The computer still goes but, while it will allow a battery in it to charge up and it recognises that the battery exists, it does not deign to use the battery itself. It requires that it
Hothouse country
The silvery bits are the greenhouses that cover so much of this area be plugged in to mains power to work perfectly. So Patricia now has two batteries and I am in charge of charging, so to speak. Inconvenient but not a total disaster.
The rain that had affected the computer kept going most of the night but had gone by the morning, to be replaced by very strong winds. Mt Etna - which I probably forgot to mention towered over us - was covered in thick white stuff. I did try to convince Patricia that it was sun bleached lava, and therefore it would still be possible to climb up in a Unimog, but she was having none of it. Too bloody cold and it is just a mountain and we have climbed bigger ones - Ethiopia 25 December 2009 - and let's get moving. We packed in very windy conditions and I was quite chuffed that I was able to get the tent down without in ending up in the Ionian Sea.
From Mascali we headed south once more. There are basically three directions you can go, around the north coast, around the south coast or straight through the middle from near Catania to Palermo. We opted for south
Old olive tree
at the Temple of Hera but will head up north - there is some place famous for ceramics or pottery that we need to visit - and then on to Palermo possibly for a few days.
Again TomTom had issues with the autorstrade. It kept trying to get us to wind through the scenic, or pretty scummy, villages like some advocate for tourism in southern Sicily so we switched her off and let the signs takes us down the new expressway. We had thoughts of dropping in on Siracuse but decided to camp first and look around later so headed for Ragusa - as in Paul who used to play football in the AFLI think. Ragusa was a no-go so down to the beaches where Italians love to camp. After a couple of failures we found an agritourism place on a farm that grows a great many tomatos, peppers and eggplants/aubergines etc. Nice spot called Capo Scalambri at Punta Secca. Stayed 3 nights.
I have bitched about the relative lack of internet. Now let me have one more go at something much more significant. Waste, rubbish and litter. I don't think that we are overly sensitive to litter and waste. We have travelled
in the recent past through India, Vietnam, Malaysia, the African continent from north to south as well as much of Europe. A bit of rubbish about is not enough to really upset us too much. But what are the Italians playing at? Every beach we have come to, bar one - and that was graded every second day, yes, graded with a tractor and blade to remove the rubbish that built up - has crap all over it. People just dump their rubbish wherever they are. There are bins about and they always seem to be full so perhaps it is a local management issue. It is not just the beaches of course. The roadways, footpaths and public places generally have more rubbish about than is comfortable.
We wandered around the general Ragusa area and had a look at a number of the smaller towns in the area - Caltagirone, Palazzo Aceirede, Modica, Vizzione and a few others. They are reasonable little towns often with the people accommodated in large apartment blocks, with a few still in the remnants of the 'old town' that has generally been, or is being, gentrified to some extent. TomTom excelled herself in Palazzo,
taking us down a steep hill on a very tight and winding street complete with parked cars at its only wide spots, to deposit us at the top of a set of stairs leading to the roadway below. A place to turn around? Not likely. Reverse back to the top? Possible but highly unlikely that we would do it without damage to something. So we turned around. At times I had less than 2 inches in which to maneouvre. Pat reckons it was a 10 point turn. I just think that I deserve the points for having done it without (a) falling down the stairs or (b) destroying the front of the car on the large stone building. (Editor's note: the fine job of directing each of the 10 point turns, to within a centimetre of the top of the step, also deserves points.)
Palazzo, I am told has a rather nice cathedral or church. Baroque I think. We have given up baroque.
On the way around the district and then, the next day - after having again packed a wet tent - we drove through the place where many of those canned tomatoes that we buy in
Concordia Temple again
with pieces from the modern art exhibition scattered through it Australia come from. Mile after mile of greenhouses covered with plastic, covering hundreds of acres. Some had already grown a crop of tomatoes that had been picked. Others had another crop going or were into capsicums, eggplant or sundry other such vegetables. I suspect that this is where some of those people in those blocks of flats in the surrounding villages work. This is very intensive agriculture.
Agrigento is not a town that either of us had heard much about. We, therefore, visited the Valley of the Temples without high expectations. These temples and the accompanying diggings were very much worth our time. We spent most of the day wandering around the Temples of Hera/Juno, Concordia, Heracles/Hercules and Zeus. Had a lovely time. Even if you aren't into ancient history, I think you would still be impressed at what these ancient Greeks did to show their gods how much they thought of them. Or, perhaps it was really all about showing everyone around how well they could build a temple. Unfortunately, over the years, the temples have been much reduced. The Temple of Concordia is more or less intact only because Bishop Gregorius turfed out the pagan gods and
consecrated it as a Christian church. The largest of the lot, the Temple of Zeus is really just a pile of rubble. Some of it has been used as building material - apparently used to be called the Giants Quarry - some of it was knocked down in earthquakes and some was destroyed by various conquering armies. Pity. It would have been an impressive building.
We even enjoyed ourselves in the Archaelogical Museum which, for once, was well set up and well presented. Spent a good few hours wandering around marvelling at how talented and capable the ancient Greeks had been.
Our camp here is not bad but it is not one of the best campgrounds we have been in. It is called the Nettune Internazionale and is on San Leona at the beach. There is another Internazionale camping ground up the road and closer to Agrigento. Unfortunately, we drove past. This one was in the Michelin guide, the other was recommended by Lonely Planet. How about that?
We are now camped about 10 kms outside Palermo at a place called Sferracavallo. A relatively straightforward drive. We plan to spend a few days here and then go
What is this all about?
David in contemplation mode back to Messina to see if we can get a ferry to Salerno which is on the Amalfi Coast. If there are no ferries to Salerno we will catch one to Villa San Giovanni and drive. Or if we change our mind we may just catch a ferry for Sardinia and Corsica. No problem for we flexible, easy going people.
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Sarah
non-member comment
Yay!
Nice boat.