Sunday 30 September 2012

Under Etna's Shadow

We spent the last few days of our long summer on the Mediterranean's biggest island, Sicily. Driving further south than Africa's northernmost point, we reached the historic city of Syracuse.

We arrived at night and wandered the same streets that once witnessed a naked and joyful Archimedes running around shouting "Eureka".


Syracuse by day.

The people of Sicily just love the new bike share program. We never saw a single bike in the stands.

Noto by night.  We still aren't quite sure why there are so many grand buildings in an otherwise unremarkable town, but I guess that's just Noto.

The Greek Theatre at Taormina. What once was a beautifully placed, peaceful town, visited by Goethe, Nietzsche and Wilde, it is today a place for hordes of cruise-ship-day-trippers to empty their wallets.

We then stayed in a splendid little town with lots of local character and 0 cruise-ship-day-trippers, Castiglione di Sicilia. Perched upon the foot of Mt. Etna, we were told by locals that actually the town has more Castiglionians living in Sydney than in Sicily.

So the next day we climbed the tallest active volcano in Europe.


It felt as though we were on another planet, Mercury perhaps. Or possibly a dwarf planet, like Ceres or Pluto.


Mt Etna is Itlay's largest ash tray.


Sicily was awesome and we wish we could have spent a bit more time there, but alas, we only have a year to see Europe.


No comments:

Post a Comment