Unseasonably Soggy Sicily

Sometimes the more you ponder, the more there is no real answer

 

And on the last day of April on the coast of Calabria, we pulled out our swimmers and sat on the beach for a couple of hours soaking up the sun.  We ate breakfast, lunch AND dinner outside and hoped that the winter clothes could now be relegated to the bottom of the suitcase.

 

And on Sunday, the first day of May, it rained and it rained all day.

Farewell to Camping Mimosa, farewell to mainland Italy. Eileen drove us on to the ferry to take us from Villa San Giovanni to Messina, and thankfully, crossing the Straits of Messina was quite smooth and quite quick; only 25 minutes.

 

 

When we landed and drove out through Messina, the first thing that struck us was all the rubbish.  All the streets were lined with huge bins, many of them empty, but all surrounded by massive piles of rubbish.  All the kerbs and roadside weeds were tangled up with more random rubbish.  We swung our eyeballs to left and to right, looking for something attractive. Anything?  But nothing.  We found our way out onto the A20 and headed for the north coast in the drizzling grey rain. There could have been some nice scenery, but we couldn’t see it for the low heavy clouds hanging all around us. Our first hour in Sicily has not been inviting, or appealing, or enticing; let’s hope the rest of the month here proves otherwise.

 

Shall we stay, or shall we go? One more night here, or move on?  When we arrived at Camping Villagio Marinello near Oliveri, the place looked sad and soggy.  The few campers already there, were tucked up inside their vans and we did the same.  But after a night of continuing rain dripping through the eucalyptus trees, we woke up to see specks of blue through the skylight. So we spent the morning dawdling along the gravelly beach, past two lagoons and out to a huge spit.  Near to the spit, 180 metres above us, the Santuario Maria del Tyndaris, perched precariously on the cliff edge.

 

 

By the time we got back to Eileen the grey clouds were building again, so we finally made the decision.  Move on.

The coast road took our fancy, but after an hour, when it got a bit too crazy, we joined the A20 autostrada.  It was still very scenic, that is when you could see the scenery.  Half the time we seemed to be inside tunnels.  A 2 km tunnel, I feel like a mole), a 1.5 km viaduct (weehee, look at us we’re flying), another 2.3km tunnel, 370m viaduct, 750m tunnel, 615m viaduct, 1.2km tunnel, 275m viaduct, 1.07km tunnel.  We didn’t start counting for quite a while, but Rodney reckons we must have travelled over 20kms inside tunnels and 15kms on spectacular viaducts.  The whole 70kms cost us only €3.50; that’s not a lot more than the Sydney Harbour Bridge and much better value for your Euro.

 

 

The next campsite has a review that includes the sentence ‘Very comfortable toilets’.  Comfortable? Can’t wait to see if they have padded seats, or perhaps there’s a sofa and a TV in there……

 

Nope. Camping Rais Gerbi near Finale did not excel in the toilet facilities, they just got my hopes up. And it rained again, on and off all afternoon, all evening and all night.