Mt Etna from Catania – lots of snow

I slept well and woke at 6:30, knowing that I had to have breakfast at 7:30. That’s really early for me! An elderly gentleman joined us at breakfast. Ian, the only other person on the tour from England, was dressed in a linen suit and looked as if he’d come straight out of a Merchant Ivory film.

We took a van to the bus station and I chatted to Ian for a few minutes as we waited for the public bus that would take us all the way to Palermo. I stepped aside to take a photo only to find that Ian had collapsed. Alicia called the paramedics who arrived in six minutes, but it didn’t look good for Ian. We boarded the bus, on Alicia’s instructions as she ran around on her phone trying to contact various people.

The bus picked up people at various stops in Catania and then found the freeway and headed through a landscape that I could easily have mistaken for the Napa Valley, filled with vineyards, orange groves and olive trees. I found myself thinking about my 2003 trip to Southern Italy. That was in November, at the height of the olive harvest. I was sitting across from an Italian guy in his 20s who cried his eyes out throughout the journey. We passed a couple of hilltop towns reminding me of out trip to  Tuscany.

We arrived in Palermo at 12:30 and checked into Hotel Alessandria. We had been warned that the hotel is on the second floor and that there is no lift. What I’d forgotten, however, is that each floor had 20 foot high ceilings, making it a long, long way up those stairs. I was so glad that I could turn my roly bag into a backpack. I asked the concierge about the history of the building. He believed it had been built by a wealthy family around 1885 and had served as a soldiers’ barracks during the war. It has been a hotel for about 25 years.

My bedroom and view from my balcony

After checking in we were escorted to a place for lunch of salad, pasta and beer. This wasn’t heavy, stodgy pasta but light and fluffy and I had seconds of the salad and the pasta. Then our group wandered around the capital city for an hour or so before meeting

Our group on a city tour

up with our Sicilian guide for a two hour walking tour of the old city. As usual the focus was on duomos, fountains and statues, while trying not to be run over by vespas. Other things to avoid in Palermo are dog pooh and rubbish from overflowing rubbish bins, which obviously haven’t been emptied in months. I don’t think our group as a whole was particularly interested in the details that the guide gave us: it was more of following someone around who knew the best spots for photos. I gleaned from her talk that Sicily had been severely bombed during the Second World War. We saw buildings that had

Bombed during the war

been bombed that are still held up by scaffolding. During the Spanish occupation, much earlier, the Spanish didn’t really have any use for the island and left it to go to rack and ruin. Only one Spanish King ever visited the island and his only visit is commemorated by a statue – what else?

Lunch beneath a photo of the market

The Americans funded the rebuilding of much of Europe after

the Second World War but the Americans didn’t put any money into Sicily whose strategically placed port of Palermo was a major target for the bombing. But it’s this lack of funding for the rebuilding that has left Sicily so poor, and it remains so today. Only licensed guides can give tours. Alicia was recently fined 50 Euros for pointing something out to a member of one of her groups.

After the tour the group opted to meet again at 8 p.m. for dinner together, and we hoped we would have word from Alicia about Ian. 8 p.m. came and went. 15 minutes later we were still waiting for a few of the group to appear. Meanwhile everyone seemed to have their own idea where to eat. It was like something from a Woody Allen movie. I didn’t mind where we ate, so I just sat back and watched the antics. The couple from Colorado had checked out a few possible places during the afternoon. We passed an inviting outdoor restaurant with accordion player but the Colorado people said, “You can go there. We’re not,” so we all ended up at Antica Trattoria which was just fine.  I opted for the pizza Napoli (with anchovies) which was lovely. Everyone was very sociable as people shared their travel stories. I ended up relaying my journey to Kashmir.

I went straight to sleep after my nightly journal and Facebook report and for once the street outside my balcony was quiet. I tried for a few minutes to turn on the TV using the 3 remote controls, but the only thing I managed to turn on was the air conditioning!

My alarm went off at 8 a.m. I was sleepy but far too excited to go back to sleep. My friendly concierge suggested a place on the square for breakfast: brioche and gelato. He said it would be the only place open. No wonder! The whole town was still sleeping it off from last night’s escapades. He explained that weekends here begin on Wednesday afternoons. When I inquired about tea, cereal and toast he told me that I would never find these – and his words were so true for the rest of the trip. He told me that the hotel was once an aristocrat’s home and it was probably built in the mid 1600s. The marble floor tiles and stairs are not reproductions! I took a look from my balcony. WOW!

View from my balcony

Apart from a couple of elderly gentlemen walking their dogs at this ‘early’ hour the square and the adjoining streets were deserted. I wandered around for a couple of hours and managed to find a coffee (50p) and a pastry on the waterfront. There was graffiti everywhere. If this was the U.S the graffiti would imply that this was an unsafe area, but not here. Here it’s accepted. Lines of washing hung from balconies high above me as I watched the town slowly come to life. It was fun watching the men erecting the

Graffiti galore

enormous umbrellas that cover the outdoor restaurants. A man was standing at the opera house door looking very official. I indicated that I’d like to go in. He told me that there was a rehearsal in progress but I could come back at 11. I did. Then he told me that the rehearsal was still in progress and I should come back at 3. As I spoke to him I peeked inside and sure enough I could see and entire orchestra in rehearsal. I wonder if I could go to a performance this evening. I meet with the tour group at 6 p.m. but that’s only for an hour. I’ll check.

Plants arriving at the opera hose

By the waterfront I found a monk standing by the road. He was in the same spot a week later. Perhaps he’s collecting alms.

My morning coffee – and a monk

By mid-morning it was already getting warm for my liking so I found an outdoor café, Comis, with a view of the Bellini opera house, and sat in the shade of one of the umbrellas and watched the world go by.

View of the opera house from my mid morning coffee cafe

Statue to Bellini outside the opera house

Next stop was a huge church, St Nicholas, adjacent to a monastery. It’s  one of the largest Catholic church buildings in Sicily and it’s construction began after the eruption of Etna in 1669 replacing an older Renaissance temple. Then the earthquake in1693 destroyed it completely. Construction resumed in the eighteenth century, first by the architect Amato, then by Francesco Battaglia, and at the end by Stefano Ittar who in 1780 completed the great dome, while the facade remained incomplete until today. The church was confiscated by the United Government in 1866 and then it returned to the Benedictines and rededicated.  During the Second World War was badly bombed. There was an amazing Baroque organ built in the 1700s and, for a couple of Euros, I was able to take the stairs to the dome high above the nave. I found myself the only one on the roof of the building – and I don’t really like heights. I could see a block of apartments whose rear wall was the

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outside wall of a Roman amphitheatre. Such a hodge podge of buildings. If a wall, of whatever age or design, is still standing it is incorporated into the newer building regardless of ‘design.’ It’s so practical, and so unique.

It’s 2:15 now and I’m just finishing lunch at Etoile d’or. It’s an outdoor patio opposite the park and I have a view of little stalls are set up in the railway arches, mainly peopled by

stall owners from Africa. I’m trying an arancini, a Sicilian speciality of rice and  ragu in the shape of a pear. It reminded me of the Eric Satie’s ‘Three pieces in the form of a pear” which title he gave to a group of piano pieces after people criticised him for his lack of form! When I went to the bathroom I came back to my table and found the waiter doing and amazing impression of Basil Fawlty. He was strutting around, flapping his arms and saying “Pig-e-on.” Apparently while I’d been in the bathroom the pigeons had come and eaten my arancini! He quickly brought me another. I had a beer, then a mini strawberry tart, then another beer. After lunch I explored the odd sight of the elephant in the square. This is a carved chunk of lava, reminding me of Bolton, my home town, whose symbol is also an elephant. I went to see a bar below which there’s a lava tube and you can see the original town walls on top of which is lava from the 1693 eruption of Etna.

In the background is the strange unfinished facade of the church of St Nicholas

It was time to get my bag from Hotel Trieste and move to Hotel Gresi where I would meet the G Adventures group. Lots of vespas tried to run me over but most of the passengers now wear helmets unlike when I last came to Italy in 2003. There was rubbish everywhere, even strewn around the historical sites. I arrived at the hotel, got stuck in

the lift, and then locked in the bathroom in the lobby but eventually figured it all out! I headed for the G adventures meeting room at 6 p.m. The place was deserted but a banner suspended from a table indicated that I was in the right place at least. I stayed put, sifted through my photos and wrote up my journal as a few fellow travelers drifted in. We met Alicia, our 30 year old tour guide and 11 travellers. Three were missing. Apart from a German couple we were all English speaking: a newly retired couple who had moved to Colorado Springs after working in Texas for 20 something years, two women who were friends from Winnipeg, Canada, two women from Australia, and a mother and adult son also from Australia. I was the only Brit which surprised me, though one of the ‘missing’ travellers who would be joining the group tomorrow was a Brit. I found it interesting that the only men in the group were travelling with a woman, whereas 5 women were travelling alone. What does this say? That single men are more comfortable travelling without the security of a group, or that single men don’t travel. I’d love to see some statistics on this. Maybe Rachel can give me some information.

So the hour meeting began thirty minutes late, ran til 7:30 and then it was suggested that we all went out for dinner together. That was fine with me, though it meant that I wouldn’t get to the opera. We had dinner at ‘Be Quiet’ which nobody was, fortunately. It took 3 hours for dinner – a pace  that I became acquainted with over the next seven days. I enjoyed both the meal and the conversations. This is Alicia’s second season with G adventures. I asked her what her background was. She has a master’s degree in economics but before this job she worked in the hospitality field in a lot of different service jobs. I shared a fish platter and a bottle of Chardonnay with the couple from Colorado, and then had a delicious seafood linguine.

Our group at dinner in Be Quiet

I was back in my room by 11 to write my journal and sift through today’s photos and post a few onto Facebook.

View from my room

During my wanderings I had found a street named D’Agostino. I have Denton ancestors who married a D’Agostino who was, by profession, an ice-cream maker, in Lancashire!

I particularly like this Baroque face. It looks like a real portrait of a child.

What drew me to Sicily? Pure and simply: Montalbano! In general I watch very little TV but over the last few years two detective series have fascinated me – not for their plot, or for their characters, though I have to admit I think  Luca Zingaretti is very cute, but for their settings. One of these was Shetland,  and so in the summer of 2017 off I went for a week on the Shetland Isles. So next on my list was the Sicily of Andrea Camilleri’s Montalbano books. I knew that most of it was filmed in the area of Ragusa, the fictional Vigata, so any trip had to include Ragusa. The towns built on the steep hills are another take on Hebden Bridge, I guess, just 2000 years older. There have been 12 series which have done much to popularize the region and there are many ‘Montalbano tours’ but I wanted something less touristy, so a small group tour that travelled mainly by public transport seemed just the ticket. I found what I wanted online, with a group called G Adventures. it seemed to have the right mix of free time and group time, something that’s always important to me since I’m someone who  needs ‘alone time.’

This was to be my first trip to a non-English speaking country since 2006 when I went to Japan to visit Rachel for her 21st birthday. When I realised that that was 12 years ago I was amazed. I spent the week before my trip in a state of anxiety mixed with eagerness – what a strange combination! I cancelled some regular weekly events because I was so anxious, yet I couldn’t wait to pack my bag (a new one purchased for the trip – a backpack with wheels) and get going. Go figure!

2:40 p.m. Dublin airport, April 21st

A ‘dear diary’ moment: It already feels that I’m getting to know Dublin airport – and it’s not a bad airport to get to know. It’s small enough to be manageable and quiet enough not to be in a state of complete sensory overload. When i emigrated to England last September (can you emigrate to somewhere where you were born and lived for 30 years?) I had had a layover in Dublin, my first visit to that fair city (‘where the boys are so pretty’ quoth Anna). On that occasion I was cocooned in the business class lounge enjoying a pot of Irish breakfast tea – well it was breakfast time and I was in Ireland for the first time.) Then  my first vacation last month was to Ireland, and now, a month later, I’m on a stopover to Catania. The man at the passport control asked me why I was going to Sicily. “To see the architecture,” I replied. “Oh, really?” was his response. “And drink the vino?” he suggested. “Maybe. I’ll see.”

Yesterday a watched a two hour documentary about Sicily on YouTube, pretty well the only forward planning I’d done about what I’d be seeing. I’d no idea the island has so many connections with North Africa and Syria. I saw new vines springing from recent lava flows and 2000 year old stone cisterns where grapes were treaded under foot. The catacombs of Palermo were also featured. Unlike those of rome these bodies are not skeletal. The bodies were mummified, dressed in clothing, and in some instance, posed in family groups, sitting at a table. 8000 bodies lie there. At first it was only monks who were buried there but eventually the aristocracy joined them. I’m not sure if I’ll be brave enough to go there.

It’s a very warm day. On the spur of the moment I’ve decided not to take a jacket on this trip, just a fuzzy blue cardigan I bought earlier this week in the market in Blackburn for a £5 bargain.  Also  at the last minute I added my turquoise ‘evening’ top for the evening passeggiata. I do hope the weather’s not too hot. Looking at the weather forecast I had realised that I couldn’t go to Sicily any later in the Spring because it would be too hot for me to enjoy wandering around the towns and cities. The daytime temperatures are expected to be in the upper 70’sF.

Before the plane could take off from Dublin a man had to be ejected for singing on the plane. OK, he was drunk too. Five security people boarded the plane just as we were about to leave the gate. They handled the situation in a very low key way. When the man insisted that they remove him by force they refused, so there was a stand-off for a while, but in the end he went peaceably enough.

Ejection from the plane before take off

I had a window seat and at one point I could see both the white cliffs of Dover and the French coast at the same time. We had a good view of Paris

Flying over Paris

and the winding Seine before crossing the Alps just as the light was beginning to fade. ‘Pink time’ we used to call this back  in Walnut Creek. 

One of my biggest sources of anxiety was the fact that it would already be dark when I arrived in Catania and the thought of trying to negotiate a bus from the airport to my hotel was overwhelming, so the day before I contacted the concierge at Hotel Trieste and he arranged for a taxi to be waiting at the airport – complete with man with sign with my name on it in Arrivals. And, sure enough, it all came to pass just as planned.

We passed the docks and the long train bridge before getting to the centre of Catania, about 7 kilometres. My first impression as we drove through the town was that I was back in San Francisco. All the vegitation was the same: prickly pear cacti, eucalyptus trees. We passed a McDonalds, and, of course, we were driving on the right. But everything was covered in graffiti. One sign read ‘refugees welcome.’ I asked my driver about that very issue. He was very anti refugee. Sicily doesn’t have the infrastructure, the hospitals, the schools, to deal with such large numbers of refugees. But, of course, that’s what all the countries are saying.  I asked my taxi driver if there would still be eateries open for a quick dinner since it was now after 10 p.m. He laughed,  “The restaurants are just opening. It’s Saturday. ” Indeed. The streets were absolutely full of people, just walking around. I’d landed just as the passeggiata was beginning. We stopped at the end of a tiny alley – just wide enough for one pedestrian and one vespa to pass. He pointed down the alley. “Your hotel is down there.” Should I believe him? Is this is scam to get my money? OMG! A sign, about 9″ wide, announced Hotel Trieste, but huge iron  gates 10ft high were firmly closed. A group of a dozen young teenage boys were gathered around the gate. “How do I get in?” They gave me blank looks. There was a shop next door, and the shopkeeper was standing outside smoking. I asked him the same question – in my best English, of course. He took me by the arm, guided me back to the gate and pointed to  a bell with a sign adjacent the size of a business card. He pressed the buzzer. Magic! The gate opened and found myself in an unlit courtyard. I peered into the gloom, saw some steps, went up, carting my case uncertainly, opened a door and suddenly “Morris” came to my ears. Was I ever so  thankful to hear that word? “Your plane was late.” The owner showed me to my room. “There are 7 rooms. You are in number 7.” OMG. I have shutters. I raced to open them and found my very own verandah overlooking the hustle and bustle of the street below. I asked him where I could get something quick and easy to eat. He explained carefully that when you come to Sicily you have to adopt the time frame of the locals. “Forget quick. Here everything is slow.” He produced a map and pointed out that the hotel is next to the Opera House. Literally the next building. OMG. This is amazing. He gave me a business card of an eatery and 5 minutes after arriving I was off into the street.

The nightly passeggiata (midnight)

There were thousands of people milling to and fro. I remembered this from a night in Naples back in 2003. Remembering the first rule of the tourist in a city at night which is not to look like a tourist I put my map out of sight and headed to the main door of the opera house and the square. I found the place he’d recommended but I just couldn’t get any service at the take-away counter. Groups of people just kept getting in front of me, and I began to wonder if you had to have a ticket first, or even order somewhere else. Besides I didn’t recognise any of the food! I wandered away, across the buzzing square lined with big outdoor TVs showing football on this Saturday night. I found a quieter sit down outdoors restaurant serving pizza. There was no way I could eat a whole pizza so I managed to ask to waitress through sign language if I could order a slice. No, but at Ceres, just past the next TV I could order a mini pizza! So here I am, at 11:20  eating a

Journal writing at Ceres

Dinner at midnight!

whole mini pizza and watching the world go by. It’s a very pleasant temperature for sitting outdoors. I’m the only person sitting alone, or walking through the square alone. Dead giveaway that I’m a tourist! I think I must be the oldest too. I can see the crumbling walls of the opera house, the ubiquitous graffiti, elaborate wrought iron grills on windows, lighted balconies with terracotta plantpots. Everyone seems in good spirits too. I haven’t seen one drunk, and though there’s a little car with a couple of polizia standing by it they are just observing the crowd, mainly in their 20’s and 30’s. I’m being constantly bombarded by flower sellers and trinket sellers, but nothing too aggressive.

When I finally got back to my room the street noise below was LOUD. I tried closing the shutters but it didn’t make any different –  niente. The floors of the hotel are marble. The rooms must be 20 feet high and the whole building acts as an echo chamber. When I re-watched a Montalbano episode on the evening I got back to England that echo sound effect was what I noticed the most. By the time I’d posted some photos onto Facebook and Instagram to assure friends and family that I had arrived safely, it was 1 a.m. before I got into bed and in spite of the noise I went to sleep immediately. I woke up at 3:30 and peaking through the shutters I could see that the street below was still busy.

View from my room 3:30 a.m.

I’m back in Hebden bridge now and I’ve just looked out of my window. It’s blowing a gale, it’s snowing like crazy and the weather forecast is for -10C overnight. That’s on a par with Ely and Truckee in the South West desert of America for goodness sake. I feel so incredibly fortunate with the weather I had in Ireland. The week before I travelled Hebden Bridge and Dublin were snow-bound. In fact, I should have been going on my trip a week earlier but the band I’m in, the Halifax Concert Band, were recording a CD over the weekend and I wanted to participate. As it turned out the CD recording had to been postponed anyway because the recording engineer was stuck on the West of the Pennines and couldn’t get to Brighouse where we were going to be doing the recording. A couple of days before I left for Ireland the weather got a bit calmer and the snow finally cleared from both the streets in the valley and t’tops. But on the morning I left for Dublin I woke to yet another white landscape and I was only too glad that I’d booked a taxi to Hebden Bridge station even though it’s only about 6 minutes’ walk away from my apartment. Landing at Dublin airport dirty grey snow piles as high as an airplane lined the sides of the runways showing how recently the airport had reopened for business. I’d packed my warmest clothes and didn’t feel cold on the trip despite the coastal winds that were in danger of blowing me over in several locations. The good news is that they were always on-shore winds, or the group wouldn’t have been able to do our hikes. Having arrived in Dublin mid afternoon I found my way to the hostel and realized that the hop-on hop-off bus was just about to finish for the night. If I hurried I could just catch the last bus leaving at 5, but I wouldn’t be able to hop off since there wouldn’t be another one to hop on! So I checked in to the hostel and 5 minutes later I was off to find the bus.

Now I haven’t done any hostelling for a long, long time. The last time I stayed in a Youth Hostel was when we travelled as a family and hiked some of the long distance coastal footpaths around Britain. Possibly the last time was when we hiked the Pembrokeshire coastal path. The hostels I stayed in in Ireland are not YHA hostels, they are just hostels for travellers and though most people staying in them are under the age of 30 since you

Each bunk had a light, sockets and phone charger.

can now book private rooms some families use them. In fact, on this trip I stayed in 4 different hostels, each in a private room with its own bathroom – pretty good, eh! I sat on the open upper deck for the 90 minute bus ride around the town. The downtown area of Dublin has major traffic congestion at the rush hour. I could have walked faster, but then, I didn’t actually have a destination. I was treated to a glorious sunset and ended up

bobbing up and down out of my seat to take tons of photos, trying to capture the right moment for that great ‘sunset over the city’ photo. The next day I awoke to low clouds and drizzle, that sort of murky day when all you want to do is curl up on the sofa with a

Housing built for the Guiness employees in 1901

friendly kitty cat, but our destination, Killarney on the other side of the country, beckoned. Three brave souls opted for the afternoon’s kayaking excursion from which they returned shaking and shivering with cold despite their wetsuits. The rest of us

explored Ross castle that has been lovingly restored to its former glory with fully furnished rooms. The rain hadn’t stopped and low mist was swirling around the hilltops and it looked as though our planned hike tomorrow was going to be cancelled. The next morning the rain was only scattered showers but the clouds and mist were very low and there wouldn’t be any point in hiking to the top of the hill since the whole point was to get a view of the coastal cliffs and the islands. But just as we arrived at our destination one big black cloud suddenly cleared away from the sun and we found ourselves in bright sunshine – and my sunglasses were packed in my suitcase, dammit. The Bray

Head Loop hike was only a couple of hours, a gentle incline which ended abruptly in sheer cliffs. I felt I was back on St Kilda. It was stunning. Parts of the path had become streams but wet feet didn’t deter us. In fact, the weather had become so clear that we were able to see the Skellig islands now a major set location in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Just below and west of a tower, built by the English during the Napoleonic Wars but subsequently used in World War ll as a look out station, are the remains of the word EIRE written using stones in large letters to allow pilots during war times to identify the Irish coastline, a form of early GPS. J.B had each of us stand on one of the still visible stones.

By the time we were back in the bus the clouds had gathered but there was enough light for some good photos with dark foreboding skies above, especially at Muckross, where Queen Victoria stayed for a couple of nights as a guest of the local MP Henry Herbert, who wanted to make a grandiose impression on the queen. Meanwhile the queen’s ladies-in-waiting were taken to a viewing point that overlooks the lakes of Killarney. As a result, it has henceforth been known as Ladies’ View, and though I saw it in the mist it was lovely. It was the queen’s visit that put Killarney on the tourist map for the first time and over 10,000 people attended a firework display in her honour and it was reported that there were 800 boats on the lake. But the poor MP bankrupted himself with his extravagance and was forced to sell Muckross House.

Cliffs of Moher