Sicily, Part 3

29th May, 2000

It was still pretty wet when we got up and everything was splattered with mud from the previous day's downpour.  As we planned only a short hop, we were in no great hurry and took our time cleaning up and packing.   We took the minor road to Menfi intending to join the S115, but missed our turn and continued on the minor road to Sciacca.   We stopped for lunch in the shade of a large pine tree soon after Menfi, where the picture below left was taken.   A little further on, we took the picture below centre of one of the well-tended shrines we came across quite often.    From here we climbed substantially and as we approached Sciacca we could look across the rugged countryside, shown below right.

As so often has been the case, we were to pay a high price for a small mistake.   On the map, a long straight road should take us past Sciacca and on to the main S115, but when we got to it, for no obvious reason, it was closed and we had to turn in to Sciacca up the steepest hill we have had to tow so far.    The hill was so steep we had real concerns as to whether we would grind to a halt.  For some reason, the gearbox seemed unwilling to go down to first gear, but struggled in second.

There was nothing of particular interest to delay us in the town, but in any case after such an ascent we dare not switch off the engine, as it certainly not have restarted.   As we left the town, we looked back at the ruined Spanish castle that towers above it.   We drove on without stopping to Agrigento, famed for its Greek Temples.   Here again we were to pay a heavy price for a minor navigational error, dragging the caravan up the steep viaduct that climbs the valley to the new town high above the Temples.   By 3 p.m. we found the site at San Leone next to the beach.   To reach it, we passed through the resort of San Leone with dozens of road humps - each one forcing us to a crawl and still jolting the rig and causing great irritation to the following Sicilians, many of whom ignored the humps and the speed limit.   After San Leone town we had to drive some three kilometres down a very wide road alongside the beach, which also had countless humps.

Our views on humps generally are well known, but in Sicily they fit into the anarchic way of life.  We went up and down this road several times during our stay and the humps, if anything, made it more dangerous as the locals, including the Carabinieri, overtook anyone with the temerity to slow down.   In addition to the usual double parking, drifting sand at places narrowed the road, but this and on-coming traffic did not stop the locals tearing by.   Elsewhere, we have found humps on roads that were so rutted and pot-holed that they were totally redundant.    Here, as elsewhere in Europe, they are a favourite with the trendy environmentalists, who bolster their belief in them with faked statistics.    Thank heavens we are now beginning to see their removal in the more sensible parts of Europe.

The actual camp site was up a steep hill from the beach and was terraced down to the sea, with its own beach.   The beach, though a little untidy, was gently sloped and ideal for bathing.   It was quite busy but we found a suitable pitch and set up camp.   Opposite us were a British couple from the West Country, whose names we did not get round to.  The man, however, was actually Dutch, which confused the large contingent of Dutchmen as they came and went.   They told us where the supermarket was and later we went for supplies.

The supermarket was an odd sort of place, being an old industrial building of some sort, adapted to the purpose.   The Sicilians, and Italians generally, are not fully converted to the self-service idea.   We have noticed, in many supermarkets, as well as in street stalls, that we are told not to touch the vegetables.    This is so that they can maintain their inefficient and wasteful ways.   Despite being in one of the best locations in the world for growing fresh vegetables, the quality is barely better than in Portugal and as much as 10% of the produce is really unsaleable and, if self-service were practised, would be left.    Whenever we are sold produce by an assistant, we have rotten and over-ripe produce to throw away.   Later in the trip, we were to see part of the problem.    Following an open truck, piled high with melons, we watched them bouncing about and indeed falling out onto the road.   At several of the vegetable shops we saw the assistants tossing produce into baskets, guaranteeing that it would be bruised.    Overall on our travels, with the exception of France, we have been amazed at the poor quality of fresh fruit and vegetables in countries that are supposedly famed for their healthy diet.

30th May, 2000

The Greek ruins at Agrigento are in two adjacent areas and we decided to start with the free one and, after the customary bung to the vigilante in the car park, walked along the high ridge to the well preserved Tempio della Concordia, shown right, and then on to the Tempio di Giunone.   On the way back we walked past the old catacombs, which had been originally used for worship by early Christians before the religion became accepted.

The heat was searing and we returned to the shade of our campsite.    After cooling off, we headed back north-west to the ruins at Eraclea Minoa, shown below.   The site is famed in part for its spectacular beach, shown left, but primarily for its Greek theatre, shown centre.   We were disappointed on two counts - our guide book (1999 edition) said entrance was free, but it is not, and the theatre is covered with scaffolding and looks not at all like the promotional shots that had persuaded us to see it.   The adjacent ruins were, however, quite interesting and visitors appear to be allowed into the excavations, where one can get a real feel for life in those times.   A couple of things struck us.    Internal walls seem mostly to be of rendered mud, which means they must be protected once excavated.   The walls were built with mud bricks and a white cement.   Several of the floors had been mosaic covered.

It occurred to us that in all our visits to Greek ruins (with the possible exception of the Acropolis in Athens) we had seen no Greek writing.   In the site museum we saw our first examples on fragments of pottery.   These were all on the bases and were obviously makers or batch marks.   Though well decorated, those complete pottery finds had no writing visible.   From this we concluded that literacy was not very high and its use was limited to management and government rather than everyday life.

On our return to camp, we tried to find the spectacular stepped cliff at Realmonte, which we had seen in a guide book at the camp but, after getting tangled up in the narrow streets of Realmonte, we abandoned the hunt and returned late and dined in the camp restaurant.

31st May, 2000

We returned to the ruins in the Valley of the Temples to see the enclosed section with the huge Temple of Jupiter and its reclining Telimone.    We could find no space in the official car park, as there seemed to be a Carabinieri convention going on and their cars and vans filled about a third of it.    We had to park about a quarter of a mile away, but at least we had shade and were not fleeced by the "vigilantes". The ruins are fascinating, but we have to say that by now we are beginning to get a little blasé when it comes to Greek remains.    The Tempio di Giove was the largest ever built and we felt we should at least look at it, ruin or not.   We were puzzled by a few features such as the hoop-shaped grooves in many of the large stones, such as those shown below left, and the deeply rutted roads.    We thought of various reasons for the grooves in the stones, which had a uniformity about them.   Some stones had multiple grooves and, in the one pictured below left, they were at different angles.   They are unlikely to be for slings as there is nothing to retain a rope.   Possibly in the completed building they had ropes in them that would support other structures.

The Temple is famous for the huge reclining telamone, shown above centre, which in the diagram, above right, would have been supporting the top of the Temple.    The view below left is from this area, looking across the ruins towards the few columns of the Tempio di Ercole that had been re-erected.  

Beyond the Temple is the old town which is partly excavated and we wandered around it to an area of further temples against which we posed, above centre.   This remaining corner of a Temple, shown in close-up, above right, still has considerable detail.   Though the Greeks had no marble here, the temples had been covered with a white paint or rendering, of which traces still remain.   Nearby were some Sanctuaries with circular structures, as shown on the right.

A photographic shop had told us where we could connect to the Internet in Agrigento and, after a lazy lunch and a bit more sun-bathing on the beach, we made for the town, finding almost by accident the main street Via Atenea.   We noticed that a policeman put a barrier across the road after we had passed and were slightly puzzled.    We also noticed that there seemed to be a few police standing around.    We found a parking space with ease on the street, where many cars and bikes were parked.  We tried to read the parking regulations, but they made no sense to us and, as we didn't plan to stay long, went to find the Internet just up the street.    This was another single terminal and was occupied.   After hanging around a while, the guy told us he would be using it for an hour so we returned to the car to find it almost alone in the street and ticketed, along with the others. 

A bit like Saint Tropez, this is a trap for the unwary tourist, becoming pedestrianised in the late afternoon.    Obviously, this is a daily routine for the police, walking the length of the street, ticketing those non-locals who failed to notice or understand the signs.   In Saint Tropez, however, they have a fleet of tow-trucks.   We were not that unlucky and decided to move the car before we were towed and dived down a side street.   It had a 'Road Narrows' warning, but we could see Carabinieri cars parked a little way down.   It then narrowed to about the width which might just allow an old Fiesta through with its mirrors tucked in.    The Carabinieri, who had doubtless seen it all before, helped us reverse out back onto the main street.    We moved on to a "30 minute" spot, only to find, when we had parked, that after 4 p.m. it was reserved for the police.

It was nearly 7 p.m., full of ordinary cars and not a police car in sight, so we left it and went back to the Internet shop.   Not for the first time, after great inconvenience and 60,000 lire fine, there was no mail of great import and we paid only 1500 lire for the time.   As we walked up the street, we noticed some cars had returned and seemed not to have got tickets.   We took a picture, shown right, looking over one of the street cafes to the sea, which shows what a fabulous outlook the place has and why it is so popular for promenaders.

Here it's worth saying again how big a drag the Internet has become for us.    It really is the only practical way to deal with our affairs, but it is not yet fully developed.   Mobile Internet seems to be the much talked-about next wave and we very much look forward to its arrival.   The cost of mobile communications, however, will for long greatly exceed those of fixed links.    What we would like is an SMS message no more than once a day to our mobile to tell us when we have e-mail.   It would also be great to be able to interrogate our mail box from a mobile without necessarily downloading mail.

1st June, 2000

We had a quiet day doing shopping in the morning, lounging around on the beach and writing our journal.   We videoed our encampment, shown below left, and the Sicilian approach to camp electrics, shown centre.   There is a strange mixture here of apparent attention to safety, mixed equal proportions of rank stupidity.    The supply to the camp had, at some stage, been upgraded to CEE17 sockets, from what may well have been a two-wire system.   On our outlet only one of the four self-tapping screws still held the box to its post, the others having pulled through the plastic.   The earth from the sockets, as can be seen below centre, hangs in the air.   Coming out of the ground is a stout earth wire which can also be seen.   No-one however bothered to join the two.   This sort of thing emphasises the need for great care on camp sites as they may appear to be to a good standard, but installations may still be defective and downright dangerous.

Below right, we can be seen in the evening sun taking our last dip at this site.   The Aussies were away before we were up for their grand tour of the south-east, returning late to tell us of the fantastic mosaics at the Roman villa.   They were planning to leave the next day and were not bothering with Syracuse, but going straight to Taormina.   Paul had seen enough of Sicily and was keen to get to Greece.   They came over to our patch for cocktails before dinner and we dined a little late and bleary.

2nd June, 2000

Since we were not going so far, we thought we would lie in but a couple of magpies had different ideas, making a racket that not even David could sleep through.    Eventually they cleared off and we had a lie-in.  The Aussies, were well advanced in their packing up to go and left while we were having breakfast.   We packed away leisurely as we were not planning to go as far as the Aussies, and left before noon, taking the minor road south-east until we found the main road.   The scenery en route to Licata was impressive, but by now we have seen many impressive views in Sicily so we pressed on, arriving in less than an hour at the campsite marked on the map just before Falconara.   We turned down a narrow lane towards the sea, not being sure what to expect of the Eurocamping Due Rocche, as it is not in our guide book.   They were in the middle of major maintenance, installing new pipes in the ground, with jack-hammers, diggers and concrete mixers all going.   They were, however, welcoming and showed us to a pitch where we set up camp.

We had arrived at almost the hottest part of the day and setting up was a bit of a struggle, so we stopped for lunch.   The site has not much shade in the area set aside for touring caravans, so we struggled in the heat to set up our awning.    The site was amazingly busy, full of mostly Dutch, some of whom spoke good English and explained that they were all one group on a bridge playing tour of the island.    They were  leaving the next day and said that the place would be deserted again.   By now we were super-heated and decided it was time for our first dip in the Mediterranean.   The campsite runs down to a near-deserted beach of golden sand, which slopes gently into the sea, which was warm and ideal for bathing.  The beach was a little littered, but otherwise idyllic.   We next showered and were delighted to find that the showers have hot water and cold, controlled by taps rather than push-buttons or complicated and unreliable slot machines.    The cubicles are big enough for group showers, should one wish, and equipped with proper hooks.   Overall, these were the best facilities, apart from Montecatini, that we had found in Italy and compared favourably with the best of French ones.   In typical Italian style, there is no hot water in the sinks but everyone uses the hot water from the showers.

3rd June, 2000

After retiring, thinking what a wonderful, quiet campsite we had found, we were in for a rude awakening at 5:30 by an energetic dawn chorus that seemed to go on for ages.    We managed, however, to get back to sleep and had a bit of a lie in.    The Dutch Bridge school were packing up quite noisily and, by 10 o'clock were streaming out of the site.   For the next few hours it was like a ghost town, but then - bit by bit - the site came alive with local weekenders, who own the many static vans.

We were now some ten days since the last laundry session and we were obliged to break a golden rule of our travels not to do hand washing, as this site - like the last - had no machines.   We got it on the line just in time to watch the qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix and in the hot sun and a friendly breeze, it was soon dry.   The qualifying was a bit of a yawn to start with and only livened up in the last ten minutes, as has become the norm.   While we still follow F1, it is a shadow of its former self.  

On our return, the campsite was even busier.   In the next pitch four ladies were engaged in conversation that could be heard clearly 100 yards away and kids were riding bikes and yelling all over the place.   The neighbours' whining Pekinese had done his business on the corner of our pitch, which we moved and buried.   In the circumstances, we did the only thing possible - opened a bottle of beer and turned the radio up.   We cooked our fish dinner, washed it down with ample wine and the world seemed OK again.

Later, when it was a little less hot, we went into Licata to get enough supplies to survive the weekend.  This was like drawing teeth as we didn't find a supermarket until we had got bits and pieces at four different shops.   Nowhere could we find fresh milk.   The town did not present us with much interest, but has a castle perched above it.

4th June, 2000

When we rose, many of the Sicilian campers were well into their weekend routines with youngsters biking up and down and elders engaged in preparations for their Sunday lunch.   Having enjoyed family hospitality in Alessandria, we did not begrudge them their noisy family meal.   Our neighbours had a big pitch and put up a canopy to cover their over-sized plastic picnic table, around which they had at least ten chairs.   The Pekinese decided our pitch was much nicer and burrowed under the plastic fence and went as far as his lead would let him.   He got put back several times, before they decided to keep him away from the fence.

We had done a bit more washing and hung it out and were just having our lunch when the smell of wood burning alerted us to the fact that our neighbours were planning to barbecue near our washing.  The Grandmother insisted by sign language that the washing would be safe enough and we got on with preparing to watch the Monaco Grand Prix.    We had set up and tested the aerials on arrival and had perfect reception.    Now, however, we had pulsing interference which we could not shift by repositioning the aerial.   Strangely, however, it stopped just before the Grand Prix started.   Obviously someone who had arrived at the camp for the weekend and had turned on some gadget.   Fortunately, there were enough Ferrari fanatics determined to watch that the source had been hunted down.

It was an awfully dull race for most of the time.   The only real attempts at overtaking resulting in crashes, the first of which caused a red flag.    If we had not been watching, we would have known that Ferrari's luck ran out three quarters of the way through, because the quiet that had come over the camp ended and the men-folk all came out of nowhere and began chattering again.   We dread to think what happens when they win.   We are still not sure who came third because, when they first reported the race the BBC World named someone else.  

After the race we went for a walk up and down the beach which was still crowded with weekenders.  As we ate our dinner, our neighbours packed their bits and bobs, including four generations, into their Fiat Panda and left.  By evening, many had drifted away and we had a more quiet night.

5th June, 2000

The plan for the day was to do a big tour out through Gela to the Villa Romana d. Casale and then on to Syracuse so that we could skip camping there and move on up to Taormina.   Though warned by the Aussies, we were caught out by the roadworks.    The main road through the town is dug up, but from behind a truck, Kate could see on one side and David on the other signs to Catania straight ahead and no sign of any roadworks.   The truck turned left and we went straight ahead into the roadworks and had to reverse out.   Had we been towing, this would have been a real problem.   There were absolutely no warnings of the road closure and not a single diversion sign.   Sicilian road management has to be experienced to be believed.   More by luck than good judgement, we found our way onto the right road and eventually found the Roman villa.   To get to it, we and the umpteen coaches have to traverse the narrow streets of Piazza Armerina, including at one point a hair-pin turn in the middle of the town.   The turn is prohibited for heavy goods vehicles and barely manageable for the Scorpio.   On our return we had to back up to complete the turn as the lights had just changed, allowing the ever-eager Sicilians to drive into our path.

At the villa the customary 'vigilante' was collecting his 2000 Lire fee from every motorist, then directing them and us into the coach park, much to the annoyance of the coach drivers.   It was not long after 11 in the morning, but already the heat was oppressive.

The villa is indeed dramatic and we have never seen such quantity or quality of mosaics.  The quality of the draughting of the mosaics and their detail is startling.   To protect the mosaics, transparent roofs and walls, shown right, have been erected over the site at what the archaeologists believe would have been the original roof heights.   So much survives because a mud slide 1000 years ago covered the site and it lay abandoned until comparatively recently.

Sadly, the experience is ruined by coach parties.   A series of narrow walkways, shown below left, are suspended above the mosaics and visitors are expected to move along looking at them.   However, no doubt anxious to justify their fees, the tour guides block these walkways whilst giving lectures to their charges in various languages.    In the stifling heat of what are in effect green-houses, being held captive between coach parties greatly devalued the experience for us.   Clearly, to see them at your leisure you should visit at opening time or well out of season.   Pictures of some of the mosaics are shown in the two rows below.

We headed for Caltagirone, getting on the minor road by mistake and rejoining the main road behind a queue of slow traffic.   It was extremely hot and the winding hill up to the town took its toll.   We parked briefly to get our bearings, and photographed the Church below left.  It was not the famous one we were looking for and on our return to the car the starter stubbornly refused to work, despite repeated hits with the jack handle.   Eventually, it did start but now we were too frightened to switch the engine off again.   When eventually we found the Scala Santa Maria del Monte, shown below centre, we took it in turns to admire the steps while the other kept the engine running in the car.   Each of the 142 steps has different ceramic tiles covering its riser, as shown below right, with no two the same.

Having found the famous staircase, we got well lost in the narrow streets and were relieved to find the main square.   As we left the town, we photographed the baroque Church, shown right.    The heat, the starter and the lateness of the hour persuaded us that we had no hope of reaching Syracuse and we decided to return via Comiso to Gela.    The route west did not seem at all bad but, as we were to find out, the route east out of Comiso to Ragusa is a real bitch.

Just outside Comiso we saw only the second supermarket that looked worthy of the name since we had arrived in Sicily.   Though we desperately needed provisions, we were still frightened of stopping the engine and skipped it in favour of one we had seen in Gela that also looked OK.    When we arrived, however, it was closed so for half an hour we toured the town, seeing that it did indeed have a few redeeming features.   The supermarket, however, once opened, we realised was not one of them.   We are amazed that Sicilians put up with the poor quality of retailers and feel sure that, if we had a genuine common market, the English, French or German supermarkets would show them how it is done.   We had to find a street vendor for vegetables and a butcher.    To our surprise and relief, the car restarted immediately and we returned to camp in time for a swift dip in the sea.   Whilst Kate cooked dinner, David groped under the car to look at the starter and loosened and re-tightened the main battery feed.

With the mission aborted, we decided that - like it or not - we would drag the caravan to Syracuse the next day.

6th June, 2000

We rose early and struck camp.   We were glad of the morning shade and got under way without working up too much of a sweat by 10:30.   We were greatly concerned by the previous day's starter problem and were expecting trouble.   We drove gingerly to Gela and pulled into the first petrol station as we had not dared to stop on our way back the previous day.   A tanker was refuelling the station and it was total chaos and difficult to get out because of thoughtless customers competing for the one side of the station accessible.   We were most relieved when the car restarted first pull.

We knew from the previous day - and also from the Aussies - that Gela was being dug up.   Hoping to find a better diversion, we followed a yellow sign, only to find we were getting nowhere and returned to struggle through the roadworks.    Not only was the main road closed, but they were resurfacing the diversion road - inexplicably mad planning.

Gela, as we had seen the previous day, is not all pretty and has a huge Agip refinery.   Surprisingly it also has lots of 'Nodding Donkeys' extracting oil (if there's any left).   The guide book says Gela was the first town liberated (though as we recall it was actually an invasion, since the Italians were at that time fighting us).   On the road either side of Gela, we saw many 'pill-box' defence positions, something we had not seen much evidence of previously.

Since our arrival in Italy, we had been amazed at the idiocy of the scooter drivers who seem as numerous as the mosquitoes that make our life so miserable.    In particular, they pull out without warning, or looking, and overtake even when oncoming traffic forces us to a halt.   We were amazed that we did not see any accidents.   Just outside Gela, this changed and we crept by a scooter rider at the side of the road with a crowd attending.   We don't know that he was at fault, but assumed it based on what we had seen.   It looked very serious and greatly upset us.   With our car anxieties and the soaring temperature, this was to be our least pleasant journey so far.   We continued on to Comiso where we had rejoined the main road on the previous day.  

Not far from the town we hit a pot-hole that nearly took our teeth out.    We should have stopped to check the van, but didn't.   Getting through Comiso was a nightmare with signs to Syracuse pointing in opposite directions at one point.   Before going into the town, we debated whether to take the main road over what was obviously a steep hill or take the minor road down to the coast and follow round all the tiny seaside towns.   We thought it would be quicker over the top.   We are careful to the point of paranoia to avoid accidents in the crowded and chaotic Sicilian streets, but now we had an entirely unpredictable incident.    At a set of traffic lights, a girl on a scooter came along our off-side (left) although there was scarcely space.   When the lights changed we moved off and assumed the scooter did also.   What we didn't notice was that, after she had passed the caravan, she had pulled in close to the car and, as we moved off, the caravan touched her as she was waiting to turn left.   Only the merest touch, but after what we had seen earlier we were horrified.   She appeared to drive off as if nothing had happened.   Sicilian streets are a bit narrow, but overwhelmingly the difficulty in negotiating them is caused by reckless parking and double and treble parking.

The climb out of Comiso was every bit as awful as we thought.   On a hairpin with a lay-by, we stopped to take pictures looking back.   Inside the van we found, to our horror, that the pot-hole had taken our fridge door off.

Miraculously, two eggs were sitting on the awning and had not broken and only the tiniest drop of milk had been spilt.    The door seemed to fit back OK and we returned to our ascent.   The temperature gauge was registering 32 degrees ambient, and as we neared the summit the coolant temperature began to move towards the red.   We turned off the air conditioning and hoped for the best.   The gauge dropped back noticeably and we reached the summit in a sweat.   We coasted down the other side, looking desperately for shade, but found none and, not expecting to be able to restart, did not dare stop.   The pot-hole had had another effect - or so it appeared.    Being a bit depressed at our expanding range of problems, we turned on the CD to cheer us up but it was bust.  

We were passing through spectacular scenery with high bridges spanning sheer-sided gorges.   The cultivated land looked parched.   Much of the harvest was completed as we could have guessed by the combines that we had met on the road.    At Ispica we reached what we thought would be the most southerly point of our travels, after which the road turned north-west towards Syracuse.   This was a psychological point because now we really were heading home.

We passed by Noto, through Avola and, after first missing our turn, found the camp site at Fontane Bianche soon after 2 o'clock.   The site is not too bad, but slopes considerably and has its fair share of mosquitoes and ants.   It does have hot showers and proper loos.   Because of our anxieties over stopping, we chose a less than ideal pitch and decided, after lunch, to move to the better shaded one shown to the right.

After dinner, which we now cook outside, it was still very hot and, as we wrote this at 10:30 p.m., it was 29 degrees in the van.   We had bought a two-ring burner for about £15 in the supermarket in Palermo.   David had agonised for about half an hour over this huge financial outlay.   Now, however, we do not know how we would survive if we had to cook inside the van at night.    It was so hot we took cold showers before retiring.

7th June, 2000

We were awake early and planned to go into Syracuse.   As we readied after breakfast, we realised that the pot-hole had had yet another adverse effect.    This time causing David's brain to malfunction.   He realised that, in the tom-foolery with the fridge door on the steep climb out of Comiso, he must have put down his video bag, probably on the boot but at any rate it was gone.   The camera, mercifully, was not in the bag so the loss amounted to the bag, the remote control, a small clip-on microphone, a spare tape, but - worst of all - two batteries.    One was the original battery and still the best of our three.   We are therefore limited to one battery which will greatly hamper us.

We decided to go back and see if the bag was in the lay-by where we had stopped, instead of doing Syracuse.  We had in mind the near miraculous recovery of Jayne's bag which she had left in the motorway services near Berlin and the more recent return of Kate's handbag, so we thought it was worth a try.   We would in any case take in the coast road on the return.   We retraced our route to Avola and on to Noto, which our guide book speaks highly of.   This time we went through the town and stopped to look at one particularly fine Church shown left.

Eventually we got back onto the S115 main road heading for Modica.   Part way along, we took to a minor road, also signed to Modica, which took us into the lower town, which we skirted.  To get onto the Ragusa road we had to climb and above the town from where the picture, right, was taken.  We continued to Ragusa, taking the northerly route.   We got pretty well lost in Ragusa but managed to take more pictures before leaving the town, heading towards the Marina di Ragusa in error.

We turned round and got onto the Comiso road and soon were on the horrendous hair-pin descent where we believed the bag was lost.   Despite stopping and searching - to the great displeasure and horn-blowing of the Sicilian motorists, clearly unused to mad dogs and Englishmen in the mid-day sun - no sign was found of the bag.    We even ascended and descended the evil hill a further time, without sighting it.  Though we drove by the police station in Comiso, it looked shut, we don't speak the lingo and we could not tell them where we would be even if the bag turned up.

We stopped on the far side of Comiso for lunch before heading south to the Marina di Ragusa.   The road was very easy and not particularly busy, and we saw nothing that would have impeded us with the caravan.   In hindsight, the coast road is much easier and at least as pretty, though possibly slower.

We turned east at Marina di Ragusa to follow the coast to Marina di Modica, at which we posed for a self-timed photo at what we now thought would be our most southerly excursion.  At many places there are beautiful sandy beaches and in others we came across lava fields like the one shown right. We then continued around the coast, passing through Pozzallo and round Punta Ciriga, then on to Portopalo di Capo Passero, which would be our actual southern-most point.

We then followed the east coast north to Marzamemi, where we found a near idyllic beach with a house on a small island that we dreamed of being our hide-away.    We continued along the minor roads north, avoiding Noto by going near Calabernardo and the Marina di Avola, arriving back at camp at about 5 p.m.   We had a quick look around Fontane Bianche, hoping to find a useful shop, before returning to camp for a slightly earlier dinner.

David, still depressed by the loss of his camera bag, decided to even the score slightly by attacking the CD player in the car.   This required tipping all the luggage out of the boot and stripping half of the boot trim.   At last, some of the half-ton of tools we have dragged around Europe began to earn their keep.    With the covers off the CD, it could be seen that it was swapping CD's properly, but they were not spinning.   A judicious flick with a plastic-coated wire got a CD rotating and, by pure good fortune, it continued.   Possibly the severe jolt of the pot-hole had caused the spindle motor to jam on its bearings and, once released, it played all evening.   It took a further hour, of course, to get the CD back together, re-fit it and re-fit the boot trim before loading all the luggage.    Needless to say,  part way through this exercise, with bits of CD and luggage scattered around the pitch, it began to rain for the first time in ages.    As soon as we had packed everything away, it stopped.

We dined like royalty on some beef on the bone we had acquired from a butcher in Gela, then settled to write our journal.   We had resolved for the last few days to write our journal nightly, though at some time we would have to find time to write up the missing days after Palermo and before we left Agregento.

8th June, 2000

The rain woke us in the middle of the night, but it was of little consequence and still over 25º C when we woke again at 6:30.   We decided to 'do' Syracuse and set off at about 10:30 with our packed lunch.   Just inside Syracuse we spotted the Ford Dealer and David went to make enquiries of a new starter.   It would cost nearly ½M Lire, but they didn't have one and couldn't get one for three or four days.   If we were to be messed about, we might as well be messed about when it finally fails to start.  With luck, we should be back in England, with English temperatures.   We had clearly broken another rule we had set by not getting out of the place when it got hot.   Now, 11 a.m., the sun was so intense we prefer to keep the engine running and the aircon on if we have to stop for a while.    We are not so environmentally friendly at all.

We followed our noses and soon crossed the bridge into the historic island of Ortigia on a bridge not shown on our Michelin map.   We decided, after our 60,000 Lire fine, not to chance it and parked in the Marina car park as the island is only a few football pitches in size.   We headed for the tourist office and fetched up in the Largo XXV Luglio, with its fine ruins of the Temple of Opollo.   Here we accosted an English couple and engaged them in conversation outside the Church on the square.   They were easy to identify as their rucksack sported the British holiday company tag.

We had in our minds the 'Local Heroes' programme and were looking for the locations.   We went on to the Piazza Archimede with its fountains, where we are pretty sure one scene was shot.   We went on to the tourist office, where the lady seemed a little put off to be disturbed from her work to answer our questions, but did tell us where the Internet Cafe was.   After trying a place that said 'Internet Point' on its door, we eventually found the book shop on Corso Matteotti that sells time on the Net, and dealt with our e-mail.

Our next stop was the Duomo.   On our trip we have seen countless Churches.   In a way we are making up for all our absences from Sunday services in one year.   As a result, we think or thought that we had seen all the variations on the theme, but in Syracuse the incorporation of the Doric columns (shown left) of the original Greek Temple of Athene is quite unique.   Other views of the interior are shown below.

Above left is the dome above the altar, centre a relic kept in one of the chapels and right the right-hand panel of three stained glass windows depicting the Last Supper.    No prizes for guessing who the guy on the right is.

Having entered through a side door, we left through the front door with its ornate carving, shown to the right.  The front of the Duomo is shown far right.s

The Piazza del Duomo is quite impressive, but emerging from the darkness of the Duomo without sunglasses just as the bell was striking noon, David felt the light - not to mention the heat - quite uncomfortable and we headed for shade.

The Archaeological Zone on the mainland was our next planned port of call.    We stopped briefly in the Rica N. Sauro before crossing the outbound bridge.    The main bridge on the Corso Umberto, like half of the Europe we have travelled, is closed for repairs.   We took a circuitous route, having failed to notice that the railway limits one's choice, and arrived to find that not only was parking quite easy and good shade available, but no 'vigilantes' in sight.

We wandered up the path between the two sites before deciding to fork out 2 x 8000 Lire for the privilege of seeing the Greek Theatre ( provided that we got out by 4:30p.m., because they were staging Antigone) and the Quarry where we couldn't see the Ropemakers' Grotto because they were trying to make it safe.

The Greek Theatre, shown above left, is very impressive and we learned a little more about it by eavesdropping the tourist guides that were speaking English.    We had noticed rectangular cut-outs in the rock here, and at several other sites and the guide was saying that originally marble plaques would be placed in them to extol the virtues of particular deceased citizens.   It did seem to be 'English Day' with hoards of Brits and Americans.   Unfortunately, all the paraphernalia of duck-boarding and lights, as well as the stage set for Antigone, left the reality a bit short of its promotional pictures.  Above centre are shown the remarkable grooves, above the theatre, that disappear into a fenced-off area, perhaps to the quarry.    It looks as though they used twin wheels on their carts.

The highlight of the Quarry, in the absence of the Ropemakers' Grotto, is the "Ear of Dionysius", shown above right, which is a remarkable cave that snakes into the mountain-side and has amazing acoustic qualities.    Also amazing are the tool marks and the lines left when the stone was removed from this artificial cave to build old Syracuse.   Wilting more than a little, we indulged in some more ice cream, but in the intense heat it was a race against time to eat it before it dripped all over us.

The heat had got the better of us and we made for the supposedly big supermarket not far away.   Not only could we stick the car back in the shade, but the shop was fully air-conditioned.   Sadly, it was not particularly well stocked, nor well used.   We got what we could and went straight to the only checkout to be served immediately.   The economic rules in Sicily must be different from those in Northampton, notwithstanding the Single Market.

This was only the second Polish car we had seen in a year, but the Polish man later said that he'd seen another that day in Syracuse and another on the mainland a week ago.   He spoke perfect English - which is as well, as our Polish is a little rusty.

We ate, typed this and retired having decided that Taormina and Etna would be our last targets in Sicily before beating a retreat.

Last updated:  18/03/01