Well the last 2 weeks have gone by so fast! The time i’ve had to write a blog just hasnt been enough.
So I left you in Italy…
After Palermo, Sicily, with their amazing outdoor food markets, we caught the train to Sicily’s east coast, to Catania, which is situated at the base of Mt Etna. Unfortunately, due to it being Sicily’s 2nd largest city, Catania does not have much to offer.
We arrived by trian, after travelling through some amazing countryside (Sicily is beautiful, forget the mafia, it’s easy to travel around without fearing you might have to "swim with the fishies!"). We found our awesome hostel, which was more like a home, literally hung out with our hostel buddies, watched TV on our couch, surfed the free net and used our free washing machine….!!! We even had a full kitchen, 2 bathrooms, and a dining table – I went domestic-nutty! All I wanted to do was literally relax on the couch and do nothing – really relaxing.
Over the next couple of days, we did up going out to see the catherdral, the cute elephant staute, some old ruins of an amphetheatre, a castle, the lovely gardens with the date of the day written in flowers – they change it everyday! – went to a beach that wasn’t really a beach at all AND we ate LOTS of great gelato!
However, the highlight of our stay in Catania was going out on a day excursion in 4 wheel drives to visit Mt Etna! WAH WAH WEE WAH! Was soooo kewl! Check out the photos.
We walked around craters, across hardened lava and also went caving in a lava tunnel! – that was very kewl! We also visited a honey factory/shop and tasted some of the most delicious honey! Bought some to eat in London, of course ;)
Up on Mt Etna, we were shown the lava flow from the 2001 eruption and also the impact of what was left of the ski resort after the 2002 eruption – it was completely wiped out.
That night, Spides and I cooked a pasta dsh in the kitchen! – yeah I know I dont usually cook, but having a homemade dish was so great!
Afterwards, we caught the sleeper train to Rome – which has to cross the strait between Sicily and Italy: the train is disconnected and neatly gets pushed onto a ferry, with train tracks (how kewl!). Then caught the Eurostar to Ancona where we were to connect with our ferry (big big LARGE ship!) to Croatia.
In Ancona, Spides and I wandered around for a few hours and found a little church on top of a hill, where you could see how crystal clear the sea was, with an amazing turquoise colour.
That night, we caught the ferry across to Split and had a cabin that felt like the ones in the 3rd class of the Titanic! – are cabin was so povo, that it was situated BENEATH the decks where the cars, buses and trucks were!
Thoughtless!