My Last Day in Sicily

We have new volunteers now, the Lithuanian girls have gone and german/italian Aischa and american/italian Tim have arrived, separately. Aischa has been her for a couple of days now and for my last day when we finished cleaning the apartments we decided to skip lunch at home (lucky, because later we found out from Tim that it wasn’t ready until 3) and go to the sandy beaches that begin after the port in Catania.

Putting Together an Opinion of Catania

I’m normally quite good at making quick opinions of cities, I either like them or I don’t, but Catania has been difficult.
Maybe its because I crippled myself on the second day (sea urchin) leading to much of the sight seeing being laced with pain or because I haven’t really been in a travelling state of mind – I feel very ready to head back to ‘normal’ life after nearly a year of living out of a 35L backpack.

Solo Trip to Siracusa

For my second day off I decided to go to Siracusa, a beautiful seaside town, down from Catania. It was a spur of the moment plan, I woke up in the morning, began cleaning and asked Daria if I could finish a bit earlier to get the 12.30 bus and she said Go now! Quick, there is a bus at 10.30. So I did.
It took about 2 hours on the bus, but about half of the time was in spent in traffic and cost 9.10€ return :) I’m going to miss cheap public transport!
I briefly thought about printing a map at home but decided I would be able to find one there for sure – its a big tourist destination after all.

Next time I will print one.

An 18th Birthday Party in Sicily with a Bang

I will begin with my first experience of 18th birthday celebrations in Catania: we were all sitting at the fountain in Plaza Teatro eating ice creams when three guys in nasty suits started posing at said fountain.
Just quickly back to the suits, when I say nasty, I mean really nasty. Picture light blue suits with dodgy starry shirts, badly fitting beige suit and those weird sailor shoes with red bows, last but not least my personal favourite, the one that looks like its been made out of somebodies grandma’s curtains, swirly foliage pattern galore.
Stunned by the suits it took us a moment to realise that there where serious photographers taking these horrendously cheesy photos with massive great cameras! And a video camera too. Luckily Luisa was there to enlighten us (surely they aren’t models!) explaining that it is most likely a photo shoot for one of their 18ths. Its standard here she says, everyone dresses up, has a big party and a photo shoot and or video. Watching them is a great way of procrastinating on youtube.

A couple of weeks later we got to witness the whole thing first hand.

Day Trip! Mount Etna, Isola Bella and Taormina

We had our first day off, yeeey!
Daria took us all up to Etna, the largest active volcano in Europe, currently 3,329 m tall. It is practically continuously active, but hasn’t destroyed any of the many surrounding villages since the 30s.

The Best Pizza In Catania

Maybe the world!

How to Get in the Sea for Free in Catania and a Foot Update

I haven’t actually paid to go in the sea.

I wont.

But the other volunteers have which os why I have named this post so.

Mediterranean Sea at Last with a Not So Nice Ending

So, this was written on July the 27th:
Yesterday we finally had the opportunity to go to the beach! I say ‘finally’ even though it was only our second full day because I had envisioned getting off the plane and jumping straight in the sea. I should have done more research than “Catania is a city by the sea, excellent!” Turns out its mostly a port, no Barcelona style beach on my door step after all. So much for swimming everyday before brealfast! Its not all bad though, there are ways of getting on the sea from here, only they all involve getting public transport from what I’ve heard.

Anyway, lets get back to the good news!

Our Sicilian Workaway

I cannot commend the website workaway enough, it has made our travels possible!
Since discovering it back in Septemberb or so we have been trying to get a workaway in Sicily.

It hasn’t been easy, but we finally sorted one and booked our tickets and here we are! I’m sure you want to know how we have been getting along…

First Day in Italy: Ancient Pomeii

After some wonderful sunny weather in Scotland, having lived in Portugal and not been in proper heat for a few years – we were very ready for arriving in 30 degrees.

Or so we thought.

We flew easyjet with only hand luggage so you know the deal, wear as much as you can, right? That was fine in Scotland at 5am. We stepped of the plane peeling clothes off and cursing our hiking boots pouring in sweat at 11am in Naples.

There were no direct flights from Edinburgh to Catania so we decided to stay one night in Naples and fly to Catania the next day.

Our first impression of the city wasn’t a great one, I wont lie, it looked a total dump. Everything run down, peeling paint the least of anyones worries, windows were caving in!