Sicily

October 6th - Wake-up call on the overnight ferry from Sardinia was at 0400 - seemed earlier than necessary for docking just before 0600. A short bike ride in the pre-dawn dusk to the hotel where we had a decent breakfast...
...and then a free day to wander Palermo.
October 7th... a lovely start for 80 km along the coast - relatively short, no big climbs, should be a nice leisurely ride - this was how it looked on the bike path leaving the hotel.
Around the corner and less than a kilometer later, the bike path disappeared, so did the palm trees, and we were in the morning rush hour heading out through the suburbs of a big city and getting our introduction to the more aggressive driving in Sicily, but more disappointing, also to the garbage and broken glass that was never far away for the entirety of our time in Sicily. Things improved after about 10 km, here with Palermo in the background as we were now on a small coast road.
We passed one area with many apparently shut-down industrial plants, not sure what they'd been doing in the past, but huge parking lots, one with dozens of covered parking stalls nearer the office building, but not a car in sight. Thankfully there was also lots of nice coastal scenery, hilltop towns with elegant church squares...  
,,,Greek ruins from 400-600 BC...
...and farming...
...before first sight of Cefalu, our destination for the night...
,,,arriving with enough time to get down for a swim.
Next day was another tough riding day - 112 km with over 2800 metres of climbing - heading away from the coast up to the town of Enna. More great scenery...
...and our first glimpse of Mt Etna which is still and active volvano.
The last 15 km was a steep climb of almost 600 metres to get to the hotel into the middle of Enna 
The next morning of course we descended all those metres we had just climbed as we headed to the east coast to Catania, a fairly long 120+ km day, hot, not as much climbing as yesterday...
...but some rough roads through farming country... that's how you avoid traffic on main roads...
 ...and Etna was ever present, sometimes providing a nice backdrop as Ursula enjoys one of the descents.
October 10th was a rest day in Catania and a chance for a number of us to go to Mt. Etna, over an hour in a van from the hotel to the 1900 metre level, then cable car to about 2500 metres...
,,,then a 4x4 minibus up to about 2900 metres
With the volcano still being active, we couldn't go up to the rim, but they had a guided hike around one of the previous lava flows.
The volcano can produce small eruptions that may release gasses and ash or may toss visible molten material into the air. None of that while we were there. But the heat combined with wind around the volcano can produce some interesting cloud formations that can come and go quickly.
Speaking of wind, it was howling while we were up there.
Tomorrow, October 11, we continue up the west coast of Sicily to Messina and the next morning take a ferry to the toe of mainland Italy... that will be in next blog.

Comments

  1. Wayne15 October 2024 at 13:07

    Your comments reminded me of when you travel from Switzerland down into Italy it was like driving from a pristine park into a garbage dump. :)

    ReplyDelete

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