{"id":4621,"date":"2016-05-03T03:40:03","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T17:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=4621"},"modified":"2025-11-12T02:47:49","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T02:47:49","slug":"unseasonably-soggy-sicily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2016\/05\/03\/unseasonably-soggy-sicily\/","title":{"rendered":"Unseasonably Soggy Sicily"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes the more you ponder, the more there is no real answer<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Mr
Mr Miller’s own Spanish olive oil with some local buffalo mozzarella and creamy balsamic from Modena. Yummy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 We ate breakfast, lunch\u00a0AND dinner outside and hoped that the winter clothes could now be relegated to the bottom of the suitcase.<\/p>\n

\"He's
He’s a happy chappy again<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

And on Sunday, the first day of May, it rained and it rained all day.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"How
How long do I have to stand here?\u00a0 \u00a0I’m getting wet !!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Everyone
Everyone is crossing the Straits of Messina<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

When we landed and drove out through Messina, the first thing that struck us was all the rubbish.\u00a0 All the streets were lined with huge bins, many of them empty, but all surrounded by massive piles of rubbish.\u00a0 All the kerbs and roadside weeds were tangled up with more random rubbish.\u00a0 We swung our eyeballs to left and to right, looking for something attractive. Anything? \u00a0But nothing.\u00a0 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\u2019t 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\u2019s hope the rest of the month here proves otherwise.<\/p>\n

\"Entering
Entering the land of the Mafia; there are bullet holes through the road signs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shall we stay, or shall we go? One more night here, or move on?\u00a0 When we arrived at Camping Villagio Marinello near Oliveri, the place looked sad and soggy.\u00a0 The few campers already there, were tucked up inside their vans and we did the same.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Near to the spit, 180 metres above us, the Santuario Maria del Tyndaris, perched precariously on the cliff edge.<\/p>\n

\"Santuario
Santuario Maria del Tyndaris<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Marinello
Marinello beach scene<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

By the time we got back to Eileen the grey clouds were building again, so we finally made the decision.\u00a0 Move on.<\/p>\n

The coast road took our fancy, but after an hour, when it got a bit too crazy, we joined the A20 autostrada.\u00a0 It was still very scenic, that is when you could see the scenery.\u00a0 Half the time we seemed to be inside tunnels.\u00a0 A 2 km tunnel, I feel like a mole), a 1.5 km viaduct (weehee, look at us we\u2019re flying), another 2.3km tunnel, 370m viaduct, 750m tunnel, 615m viaduct, 1.2km tunnel, 275m viaduct, 1.07km tunnel.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t start counting for quite a while, but Rodney reckons we must have travelled over 20kms inside tunnels and 15kms on spectacular viaducts.\u00a0 The whole 70kms cost us only \u20ac3.50; that\u2019s not a lot more than the Sydney Harbour Bridge and much better value for your Euro.<\/p>\n

\"Not
Not another tunnel; I want to see the scenery…..<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"One
One of the many, many ,many viaducts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The next campsite has a review that includes the sentence ‘Very comfortable toilets’.\u00a0 Comfortable? Can\u2019t wait to see if they have padded seats, or perhaps there\u2019s a sofa and a TV in there\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

\"That's
That’s not what I would call comfortable<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Skimming
I can’t finish on a toilet photo, so here’s me skimming pebbles back at Marinello<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 We ate breakfast, lunch\u00a0AND dinner outside and hoped that the winter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8100,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4621\/revisions\/8100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}