The Sicilian way!

After leaving Reggio and a quick stop at Riposto we made our way to Catania. Massimo spoke some English but not enough to give us any indication of where to go so we poked our nose in to a space and was helped by a young Englishman to berth against a walkway with little to tie to. Massimo turned out to be a nice guy who agreed a good price. I asked if we got a discount for staying three days and he said with a broad grin 'yes the fourth day is free.' I am finding that Sicilians are Italians with a sense of humour.

Catania is a bit of a mess but very busy. I slowly realised that I had been here before when I was about five or six some 35 ish years earlier when my family fled Libya after the Arab Israeli war in 1967. We had caught a ferry from Tripoli to Catania then another over to the mainland before we drove home to Blighty. I immediately felt a connection.

After some serious laundry-ing having walked through the Bronx of Catania (for those that have not been to the Bronx, a bit like Tovil in Maidstone.)

We were at Catania to collect our visitors Mr and Mrs Smith who were braving a week on Hermy.

 Mr and Mrs S duly arrived.

We had managed to find some good parts of Catania namely the meat and fish market together with the Cathedral of St Agatha and of course the smiling elephant in the Duomo Square.

We even found some Roman rubble which was actually spotted by Mrs K who didn't keep it to herself but pointed it out to me. Is she warming to history? No just a good wife.

The view from the roof of the Cathedral seems to hide any grottyness Especially with Mount Etna in the background.

Mr and Mrs S quickly settled in to boat life and because the weather was looking like it was going to change we decided to make a run for Riposto as the showers at Catania were frequented by trawlermen who, although very nice, were not your first choice for shower buddies.

Mr S is the current holder of the largest fish to be brought aboard Hermy and was intent on furthering his lead using his trusted big fish lure. We left Catania and made our way out of the no fishing zone carefully avoiding all the Sicilians fishing in it. Mr S launched his trusted lure and sat there expectantly as Joey and I have done for many an hour. Within ten minutes he has hooked a sword fish and begins hauling it in. Well it was a whopper by our standards so much so we couldn't get it in to our piddley little net. Unfortunately it fell off the hook after the sixth attempt to land it so Mr S was unable to declare a furtherance of his record. Very sad.

Following the loss of Zorro the fish we had to hunker down as it started to rain hard and Mrs K and Mrs S sought drier parts of the boat. We arrived at Riposto and were told to park up at the fuel berth as it was raining. After an hour we berthed up. We knew it was going to be rainy so we had planned a train ride to Syracuse and had hired a car from some online rental based in Manchester.

The trip to Syracuse worked well with little rain on arrival. We met Mr Archimedes on our way in.

At last a Greek wearing some clothes!

Now Syracuse is very old, these pillars in the church being some 2500 years old and still holding things up,

And its castle had seen quite a bit of action over the years.

A nice lunch and an easy train journey back all went according to plan despite the usual strange person on board.

The rain came as we arrived back at the Marina D'Etna but that was okay as we had hired a car for the next day and after some serious googling we had located the pickup point in readiness.

The next morning having been told that punctuality was important by the hire company we arrived at the nominated hotel. Of course I had forgotten my passport so had to hoof it back to the boat while Mrs K took a phone call from the company who despite knowing that Mrs K was wife of Mr K refused to speak to her as the booking was in my name. I duly arrive at the pickup point now knackered and a bit annoyed that no one had turned up with a car. After half an hour of waiting for their 10 minute call back I rang this company in Manchester who put me through to the idiot that had rung Mrs K. He explained that there was no car as they had rung up the local company this morning and one wasn't available but we could travel ten miles and collect another one and we could claim back the taxi fare. No apology. Well I was my usual calm and collected self and I explained how incomprehensible it was to me that a company having had a request for a car three days earlier had decided not to ring and check availability until the morning of the pickup and had allowed us to walk to the pickup point before ringing us with the news. Twice for me! I ensured that they had taken no money and stated I was pleased that the call was recorded for training purposes so that they could play it to their directors to bring home the learning point that they were complete morons.

We hired a car from the Marina office from Sicilians in ten minutes slightly more expensive but idiot free.

Taormina has to be on everyone's list to visit in this area. A virtually complete medieval town converted in to a shopping centre. It does have a Greek amphitheatre but it cost 10 Euros to see so we didn't.

Up until now we had only encountered the Sicilian driver from the point of view of the pedestrian. We had discovered that the only way of getting them to stop for you at a zebra crossing was to threaten to spill your blood all over their bonnet. Driving among them was something else.

We learned that the use of indicators was prohibited, as was slowing down or using mirrors. If, having inadvertently turned an indicator on, it was forbidden to then turn it off. Driving on the pavement was acceptable but only in built up areas, parking was only allowed at junctions if you needed to talk to someone otherwise you can park anywhere. Overtaking should not be carried out on straight roads but only on bends. Giving way was not permitted and no one should be driving unless engaged in a phone call and smoking. All driving situations could be resolved with the constant application of the horn.

We encountered these rules of the road on our windy drive up to Etna to take a look at yet another Italian bubbling crater.

The Etna girls!

Well the week had gone quickly and it was the last night so we went to Georgio's for our final meal and actually had rather a good one. A pasta dish that was really nice. Although the eagerly awaited chocolate fondue didn't quite make the grade. A cup of hot chocolate with two small cakes!

With Mr and Mrs S safely deposited back at Catania airport and the car returned unscathed despite the Sicilian driving experience we were back at the boat sitting out the weather before our final jaunt to Hermy's winter resting place. Licata.