Suitcase & Sandshoes: Sicily and Positano.

We flew into Catania and picked up a car at the airport, on ordeal in itself. It appears that the voucher we have is only for the booking agent and the actual company could be anyone of around 15 rental agents. We got lucky on our 5th attempt, but in the process lost about an hour and a half.

We are driving around in a Mercedes Benz a. Class. It's very nice.

So we leave the chaos of Catania and head south to Syracuse and the little island of Ortigia. Ortigia is connected to Syracuse by 3 bridges and is about 1 kilometer square, we pull up to get our bearings on the main st reet and inadvertently stop outside a building with 3 different b&bs so on the first try we secured 1 night at the.globetrotter.

The postmans car!

We wandered down the lane and found a local restaurant to eat and then hit the sack, the next morning as we had decided to stay another night, we were moved up a floor because the globetrotter was booked out into a different b&bs and went off to explore.

We thought we'd start with the notable sites on the Syracuse side, and set off walking across the bridge and around the coast, rather than take the direct route to any one of the sites, Greg wanted to see what was down this lane then that lane and it's ok we are headed in sort of the right direction.

After about an hour and a half, we find ourselves at a WWII memorial covered in graffiti and clearly the popular hangout for 15 y old boys and girls exploring the wonders of each other! Now any self respecting mother can pick this a mile off, not Greg though, he wants to look at the entire memorial, all 4 sides, all the statues (which couples were behind to get out of the sun) once he worked it out we're off in search of something else.

We wanted to do a tour of the catacombes, so eventually we literally stumbled upon it and got on the last tour before siesta. This place is quite incredible it has 20,000 bodies buried in 10,000 sq feet. Around 8 chapels with frescos still visible, many bishops a pope and 7 virgins all had been buried here. The place was ransacked and the bodies moved to a mass grave just after the 2nd world war.

On the tour we met 2 new Zealand women, Hilary and Fiona and ended up meeting them for dinner on ortigia later that night. We left the catacombs and continued our exploring, heading back towards ortigia as we needed to extend the car parking hours. Now if you remember I said that we didn't take a direct route to the catacombs, so after walking for another hour turning corners etc, we were hopelessly lost AGAIN! It's becoming a habit and I will get Greg's directional navigation checked when we get home!

We finally found our way and decided to head back for showers and thought we would find a bar and have a drink, before meeting the girls at the museo de pupi for the marionette show that was on at 6.

Our view

Because our room is in the middle of ortigia we walk past all the sites on our way to anywhere. We wandered around and found a bar to sit and wait. Next we got a MSG from the girls they were here but the pupi show had been on at 4.45! Crap.

We went and got them and sat down for another beer, it was too early for dinner.

We left the next day and started our drive around Sicily. Or tried, we went south to Noto and then placed to go to the palace that is in the middle and quite famous for its mosaics. Alas, the Italians are great cooks but lousy when it come to driving and road signs. We drove around and around looking for the road that was on our map but apparently doesn't exist.

Check the shirt he's wearing, this place is in the middle of nowhere and full!

So onto Taormina.

Our view.And the steam coming out of etna.

Looking around town the day Luke rickets on married Kate Waterhouse (our invite must still be in the mail)

From the roman amphitheater

For rent! This is at Messina waiting for the car ferry to take us to the mainland, after missing the exit for the ferry, we paid to get off the autostrada then had to pay to get back on to find the right exit.

Positano. Wow what a road trip. We got off the ferry and made our way to the autostrada and drove as far as we could. Cosenza. Not a great town is not a great area, on our 4th attempt we found a hotel with a room to spare. What could possibly be going on in this place.......a water polo competition. We find ourselves in the hotel Europa with the Australian, Greek and Montenegrin Olympic water polo teams. Out for dinner that night we wind up at the same restaurant/bar and they have been joined by the Italian team. No we are not stalking them. But we will cheer them on in September with a bit more enthusiasm now.

So we leave Cosenza and all those beautiful bodies and head to Positano. The autostradas are fabulous, 130 speed limit that seems like 200. When there is no roadworks that is! We struck a few but finally made it to Salerno and turned off towards our goal. 36 kilometers, and frazzled nerves later we bound out of the car. Whoa what a road!