Topping out in third gear and looking for the end of year 2022

 So now it is time to see how we adjust to having this place in our lives.  Due to ongoing covid concerns, we think that it is unlikely that we will resume overseas travel until 2024.  That leaves the whole of 2023 to see how we change our ways.

We have managed a couple of shorter visits over 2022 and will be there for a month over Christmas. 

Leaving some rubbish behind

 Well, that is it. All over Rover. We have tried our best in the limited time to enjoy Sardinia and Sicily. 12 stops over the last month or so and travel by train, boat, plane and car. So what?

Humans have been in these parts for thousands of years and often trampling over one another to dominate the land and the people. The levels of rubbish, creativity, objects said to be beautiful now but long past their use by date and the also itinerant flora and fauna have varied over the years and we have tried to understand some of it and to enjoy it.

And no matter what has happened here, the people seem happy enough, food and drink is plentiful for most whilst the roads and yes systems do need more work. In Sicily in particular, there is too much rubbish strewn around in most places. The sea around Sardinia is still magnificent and the best on the planet for us two for sure. We loved our flop swimming opportunities. The heat has surprised us a bit and we had to modify our daily programs to suit the conditions. As the locals have done here for centuries. The planet and the humans that run it adapt.

 And as with all of our systems and processes, it is the political classes that set the standards and what happens. It Italy, it will always be difficult to pull the whole country along as they are clearly different peoples with different ideas on how things should work. For me the Sardinians seem more relaxed and at ease with themselves and their lives. Sicily seems to have had a more complex story to date and it shows via just a tad more aggression from time to time. But for sure we have met a lot of very friendly and helpful people at all levels. And 99% of them were great.

Whilst on the run over the last few days we visited a number of hilltop towns that have had earthquakes in the past and either rebuilt of reconstructed elsewhere. They all look good in pictures with a golden colour especially late in the day but some also look to be dead or dying with plenty of empty or for sale homes, a plethora of death notices around places and quite a few oldies passing their last days chatting in some shady spots. Noto was an exception to this. It has a well preserved old centre and a desire to making the most of their history. Lots of visitors like us enjoying the story.

Agrigento on the other hand has the Valley of the Temples and a strong Greek and Roman heritage but they could do a lot better from us tourists. They seem to be taking some things for granted when they should be making more of what they have. Even if in reality what is left of the old temples is hardly functional for these times and so might just be labelled 'some rubbish”, If you get my drift.

We are now back in Palermo and will fly out in the morning to Rome and then fly out of Rome for home Sunday. So it is time to close off the blog and to begin preparing for hopefully another travel experience. One member of the tour group is struggling just a tad to recall what we did where, at times, and is saying time to rest up and reflect, again.

So of course that is what this Tour Director will do. Soon. But as I post this last note, I will be expected to produce somewhere to go and something to eat until we get to the airport and head for home. As a Tour Director should do. We have had quite a few team meetings along the way but the potential for more remains.

Pilgrims on the run

We hit Sicily again about 9 am Monday morning but it took until 2 pm before we arrived at Ortigia island in Syracusa. Here we are unfortunately preparing for the run back down under.

How are we going to cope with this latest trauma?

Two nights means just one full day at Ortigia. An early morning breakfast on the nearby Duomo square at about 8.45 am. A couple of hours swimming and relief from the heat at the very small beach about 4 minutes from home. A fruity lunch at base before a team meeting until about 5 pm. Yet another aperol spritz as the afternoon cools down from 38 degrees heat and just as the whiff of a breeze wafts its way through the city alleyways. And then a seafood dinner just off the main tourist run to bring the day to a close. So we have finished our tapering and ready for the final run to Rome.

It takes me just about 35 minutes in the morning to senior power walk around this island of Ortigia. The island has practically all a tourist/traveller needs. A beautiful central piazza dominated by a grand church and surrounded by cafes where we can enjoy a drink, some eats and gelato of course. Kids playing footy, adults strolling, artists entertaining and no cars. Perfect. The whole island is scrupulously kept clean and cars/scooters are minimised so we enjoy exploring the alleyways full of shops, cafes and eating places tucked away in the many corners here. The parking bays for super boats co-located with yet more bars and cafes invite the locals and others to enjoy a late night stroll along the promenade after dinner. And the local fishing boats are housed nearby and close to the well known former resident of Archimedes. Four minutes from home and we can flop swim to our heart's content. Can it get any better? 

Today we pick up a car and head off for four one nighters. So you may not hear from us again and at best I will be trying to complete a farewell Italy post around the weekend.

Numbers of mega boats line the area just outside our window. Some of which we know are for sale. Could this idea find a home within the family?

No. Just GD dreaming again.

Valetta is under attack again

For 2018 Valetta, Malta is the European capital of culture. On Monday, and yes just as we leave, there is a four day Jazz festival here. There is at least one cruise boat here daily it seems. So as we glided into the harbour on board the Austal built Jean de la Valette flying the Maltese flag, we joined what could be described as as yet another invasion.

But what a fantastic visual impression on entry by sea the place has and what a grand, if difficult history, this place also has. The Russians have found it as have the same sex brigades and so the city is alive with loud alcohol driven voices at times and Yvonne was competing for attention with young men in the Body Shop vying for lotions and perfumes. As I have previously said Malta is a deviation from the general thrust of this trip but Yvonne was certainly correct to push for its inclusion.

We are perched in our eyrie up several stories of ancient and worn stars (much to Yvonne's initial horror) in a very small B&B, right in the centre of Valetta and just metres from the Presidential offices and St John's cathedral. There are fairly constant religious events going on it seems and fireworks (and/or cannon) are heard at various times day and night.

The weather remains constantly hot and we are yet to conquer that, which means beating a retreat at some point in the afternoon into our air conditioning. Yesterday just in time to watch Angelique Kerber do the right thing and win Wimbledon whilst thankfully Belgium executed England, in the football.

 We enjoyed an excellent walking tour of the city (http://www.colourmytravel.com/) to give us a chance to understand some of the Maltese history before spending quite a bit of time in the cathedral with the Order of St John story. Viewpoints around the walled city are excellent and we will only scratch the surface of place whilst here. It is a good city to wander around and it is clear that a lot of effort of late has gone into renovating and rejuvenating the place. Lots of newish eating places in the lanes and alleyways and in the evenings the foot traffic eases off which makes the experience a lot more pleasant. That all means we like it a lot.

We also took the local ferry over to The Three Cities to enjoy a waterside lunch and a short local walk. Today Sunday we took a local bus to the nearby fishing village of Marsaxlokk looking for a few fishing boat pictures and some fish for lunch. Another success even though the place had a rather crowded market going and us tourists were a bit too plentiful. From there we also managed to fit in a late afternoon visit to the old inland capital of Mdina. This is a city in beautiful condition with ancient quiet streets and relatively few visitors. Someone here certainly knows how to make a difference with spending on these places.

There are business attempts underway to more closely link Sicily with Malta and one of the tangible pieces is the high speed ferry run between Valetta and Pozzallo which we hope to be on tomorrow. It leaves a bit early for us at 0630 and check in is almost an hour in front of that. So I am posting this blog a little earlier than usual and hopefully the next time I report we will have something to say about another ancient city Syracusa back in Sicily.

Rather unsettling for us quasi Europeans, Malta drives on the wrong (left) hand side of the road so we have had to be careful with which way we look crossing streets here. But tomorrow we will be back to more normal events. And thankfully Les Bleus managed to make an almost completely fine sporting weekend great in the football and the Joker is back again in the tennis. All good stuff.

So was Catania a dud?

And just like practically everything else in life, the answer to the question above is 'It depends'.

Yes we could have easily cut out a day here as there really is not that much of direct interest for most tourists here. A most interesting fish market which took about 10-15 minutes, a city piazza where we have spent about 30 minutes walking around, a few interesting churches and to fill in time we spent about 90 minutes on the obligatory red hop on hop off bus going around the city and 10 kms along the coast.

The city has been inundated with volcanic rocks from Mt Etna over the centuries so the beaches we saw have huge black rocks to sunbake on or to dive off and the sand is also quite black. So now in full summer these surfaces have built up a head of internal heat which must help to cook any citizens keen enough to want a swim. We declined the opportunity this time, despite the water looking as inviting as ever.

 

Being a bit slower these days with some things I have visited the port area several times and I am finally understanding how the bus/ferry system from here to Malta actually works. The bus leaves at 0645 tomorrow (Friday) to go to the Sicilian port of south of here. And I now know how I can convert my piece of paper into an actual boarding pass for this bus/boat as I finally fixed it all this morning. During my early morning walk I also checked out how to get out of here on Monday (after Malta) when we head to our next Sicilian stop of Siracusa.

But at another level, we are looking beyond the back streets full of rubbish, the mostly broken roads and footpaths and the chaotic traffic that surrounds us here. Graffiti is endless and often annoying and we are feeling sorry for the also endless and often African people who are trying their best to earn a living peddling trinkets or whatever.

Our B&B is well located and a modern renovation. It is inside a huge building from maybe the late 1800s that has a sizeable inner courtyard of great potential. And there are a lot of buildings in this city of clear renovation potential. But will renovation ever happen? The big streets are huge and powerful often dominating us people. And there are plenty of tourists, Italian, and French in particular wandering around just like us.

As with everywhere else we have been, the people are great, friendly and helpful. We are continuing to learn a lot in particular Italian history, food and culture. And ourselves of course.

But now we are on the move again early tomorrow morning. This is definitely an add on just because we think we are close to Malta. And yes we are tiring a little as expected when you are planning and executing the whole process yourselves. So the rest here has been appreciated and we managed to catch up with our sporting interests too. Glad for Croatia in the football, sad for Roger in the tennis and appreciating watching 'Le Tour' during our afternoon break in the airconditioning and not at 1 am as per usual back home.

Wow - Taormina was something else

 Very occasionally I get it right. Where were we going to be for her birthday?  This year it was Taormina which is very well known it seems.  But it has never yet been on our radar.   So I read a little and punted a little that we could spend a few days there. Within that decision was a need to decide whether to stay in town or down the bottom of the hill nearer to the water. It was a correct call for us to stay in top town.

So now I know that the place was virtually put back onto the map over a hundred years ago when the travelling English in particular discovered it and put in on their educational/finishing grand tour of Europe maps. A lady in waiting to Queen Victoria, D H Lawrence, Winston Churchill, two honeymoon stops for Liz and Richard Burton and now Yvonne; all have spent time here. The latest kick up the touring scale occurred in the 1950s when some bright sparks started annual music festivals in the fantastic Greco ampitheatre, a place set on the edge of town with a huge backdrop of Mt Etna. And apparently now there is new Russian money around the sumptuous villas hanging onto the views here. A small armada of huge boats dot the nearby waters. It is a tortuous slog for vehicles to climb up into a town now catering for a lot of tourists. And the views along the drop dead to look at coastline are quite sensational.

 So Randall scores 1 and Yvonne is happy, for the moment.

Just a quiet meal in a family run restaurant well off the main tourist spots completed the birthday.

And in between times we took one of the many well run local buses up even more tortuous roads to Castelmola which is even deeper and higher into the hills. It took the bus half an hour to climb 5 kms along very windy road and horse shoe bends with jaw dropping views along the way.

We spent a few hours with others strolling along the seen and to be seen main pedestrian street and of course we dropped down to the coast to have the obligatory time on the pebble beach and flopping into the sea. And twice Randall ventured out early in the morning to to cover the 695 steps down to be beach below and then the 695 steps back up again.

At this time we are hearing that would be mate George Clooney has had a prang on his motor bike in Sardinia and so is paying the price for not consulting me about safe driving there gained from our recent experience.

But now we may have moved just a tad too far down the scale of exciting places. We have just had our first of three nights in Catania, the second city of Sicily. We will give it the usual 24 hours before making judgements about the place but at the moment we may well run out of things to do and see. A city that seems to be doing okay but has plenty of downside/struggle sights on show.

Where are we now pilgrim

Apparently I can be annoying at times. So as I travel around, I have been known to say somewhat regularly 'Where are we now pilgrim?'  Response is usually 'no reaction, just ignore'. Or 'Not that rubbish again Randall'.  Occasionally, I get a great big smile.

Lipari was 'A great big smile'.

After bumping along in the hydrofoil from Palermo for almost four hours during which we saw not much and stopped at a couple of forsaken islands with yet to be completed jetties and houses trying to cling to rocks, we were starting to wonder what we had done. I had cut a day out of the trip here thinking that we could spend the time better elsewhere but in the end we could have used the extra day for sure.

Lipari town is a gem. Stylish, well patronised with more classy visitors than we have seen to date. It has a relaxed atmosphere and is confident about itself. Of course in holiday mode with various promises for glorious trips out to volcanic islands, particularly Stromboli, along with dips into the Mediterranean, it is probably at its best just now. Not too busy and not much wind.

Climbing Stromboli at dusk was not for us. So we spent our day there mostly on local buses checking out the coastal places where we might get a swim. We ended up next to a pumice mine where the dust turns the water even more blue and where there were just enough people like us looking for a dip. A couple of water flopping swims were enough before we headed back into town for a relax, a spot of football and people watching along the way. Not that it is about food, but we also had excellent dining experiences in Lipari in places tucked up small laneways. The place has a citadel, a good museum (too many old pots for us) and a couple of good port areas that had a Greek look and feel about them.

But now we are in another world. Taormina, apparently with too many Russian crooks and popular with gay people. A long day to get here with another four hours on the at times, not too smooth, hydrofoil and then a local train along the coast from Messina. This was followed by a steep bus ride up the side of the cliff. My fellow pilgrim has had enough boat travel for now so I am not mentioning the now rapidly approaching drop down to Malta just yet. I am keeping her focussed on thinking about her birthday lunch/dinner tomorrow.

Will it be up to scratch?