We were at reception at
08:00 sharp, we needed to know how to get wi-fi, that was easy - pay €5 in
exchange for a password that would connect two devices for as long as we
stayed. Secondly, there was the shower mystery to solve. As previously, Jane
was perplexed by the ‘select a vacant shower cubicle and then press some
buttons’ approach. I had gone to look with her and the machine seemed to
require some sort of chip to purchase a shower. It didn’t, reception told us
there was a slot that took 50 cent coins.
We set to work in the
wi-fi zone close to the camping ground’s restaurant and bar. I clicked on the
DHL tracking link that Adam had forwarded. The package had arrived in Rome at
7:41 this morning and the estimated time for collection in Catania was the end
of the day on Tuesday. That’s quite amazing given that Adam only dropped it off
in London yesterday morning – German
efficiency for you!
Jane was still fretting
over the unreliability of Mabel’s satnav and wanted a backup means of navigating
until the TomTom arrived. In particular, she foresaw a chicken and egg problem
in finding the place in Catania to pick up the satnav. I therefore decided to
download the TomTom app for Western Europe onto Jane’s iPad. After half an
hour, the app icon still showed it was ‘Waiting’. I began to wonder whether we
were going to have the same problem I had experienced in trying to download the
TomTom Europe Camper map.
Not wanting to waste any
more of our trip on satnav problems we gave up on the download temporarily,
packed up a lunch and headed off in Smarty bound for Noto. We had just reached
the outskirts of Avola near to the camping ground when I spotted an unusual sight
in a compound by the roadside. There was an ex-Italian Air Force Lockheed
Starfighter mounted as if it was a gate guard and next to it was a very crude
model of the Eifel Tower, about 10 metres high. I’m sure there must have been a
rational explanation, but I struggled to think what it was.
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| I'm Sure There's A Logical Explanation For This! |
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| Lockheed Starfighter |
Coming to a roundabout we
saw a sign to Noto and took the road northwards. We passed an off ramp just as
we dived down into a long tunnel. Jane thought she spotted a sign to Cava
Grande on the ramp, but it was too late to take the turn. The tunnel had very
bright lights mounted in the road and shining upwards. I’ve no idea what they
were for and they were dangerous because of the strobe effect each time we
passed a light. We were able to do a U-turn shortly after we left the tunnel
and this time we stayed on the surface. There was a turn signed Noto, we
followed the signs passing an enormous and typically Italian cemetery with its above
ground vaults. The roads got progressively narrower and climbed into the hills,
it stopped at the gates of a restaurant with Noto in its name. We backtracked
passing the cemetery again and then taking the road that continued from the
tunnel. This time we got it right and reached Noto without any more problems.
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| Noto Fruit Stall |
We spotted a fruit stall
and parked to buy kilos of oranges, peaches and grapes, the bill came to €5.
When we got back to Smarty someone had parked right up against her boot in
spite of there being room to park a bus behind her. The car was so close we
couldn’t open Smarty’s drop down boot lid. Continuing, we found a park, shaded
by trees alongside a park. There were market stalls nearby. Sun-dried tomatoes
were on offer at all the stalls. At one the stallholder offered Jane a large
and a small bag of tomatoes for €5. Jane asked how much just for the large
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| Did They really Need To Park So Close? |
bag,
that was €5 – obviously a carefully thought out sales strategy and we left with
two bags of tomatoes.
The main purpose in
visiting Noto was not to buy tomatoes, we wanted to visit the town, described
in our guide book as ‘the apotheosis of Baroque town planning with palazzo and
soaring church facades’ and ‘the apogee of wholesale renovation that took place
following an earthquake in 1693’. The original town of Noto was completely
destroyed in 1693 and a week later rebuilding was started on a site 16 km to
the south by Giuseppe Lanza, a Sicilian- Spanish aristocrat aided by Carlos de
Grunemburg, a Flemish military engineer. They employed the best architects to
create a new town in golden Iblean limestone. They did a fine job with
magnificent churches and municipal buildings flanking the main street. We
walked its length visiting the church of a monastery. There is no doubt the
Italians do a fine church. Later we visited the church of San Carlo with its
painted ceilings. We climbed a very tight spiral staircase to the top of its
bell tower to take in the view over the town.
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| Church |
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Monastery Church
|
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| View From Bell Tower |
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| Scary Sight Seen While Descending Bell Tower's Spiral Staircase |
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San Carlo Church
|
The street was lined with
shops selling souvenirs, Jane had to buy a tea towel with a map of Sicily.
Waiters outside the many restaurants were touting for business. We settled for
one of the pavement tables at Trattoria
al Buco. Jane couldn’t get past Spaghetti con Sarde on the menu which she found
much better than that at Brendon McCullum’s place in Palermo (but he won’t have
been in the Italian food business very long). I had tagliatelle with a rich
brown sauce containing almonds and pistachio. That was very good too.
 |
| Lunch Stop |
Jane had been fretting
how we were going to find the DHL collection point in Catania to pick up the
replacement satnav next week. We couldn’t take Mabel into a congested city and,
in any case, Jane had lost faith in Mabel’s satnav after yesterday’s excursion
into the bowels of Comiso. We would have to take Smarty, but how were we going
to find the place? I thought it opportune to float my cunning plans to Jane.
Firstly, I could take a screen print from Google Maps of the area we needed to
get to, but much better would be to park Smarty at say the railway station and
take a taxi. Jane was still wearing her black hat and came up with lots of reasons
why my plans wouldn’t work. She has become a real worrier in terms of
navigation.
On returning to Smarty we
found a donkey had seemingly crapped on the windscreen. If it was a bird, then
it must have been something the size of an ostrich. It took the wipers quite a
while to restore normal vision.
We headed northwards from
Noto to Noto Antica, the ruins of the old town. The sky became very dark. As we
neared the old town we could see catacombs cut in a cliff face below the town
walls. We parked Smarty by the remains of the castle gate and could hear the
rumble of thunder in the distance. We started to walk through a strange area
comprised of dozens of stone benches, tables and wood fired barbeques (with
signs nearby saying no fires) in the shade of trees. Jane thought they must be
what remained of the old town, I doubted very much that in the 17th
century a fortified town would have set aside a very large area for its
citizens to enjoy barbeques. Also, there was no sign of any buildings, ruined
or not. We walked back to the castle gates and beyond them was what was left of
the town. There wasn’t much, part of a circular tower had been renovated, there
were some of the walls that had once been a palace, a church and a hospital.
There were also a couple of caves carved in the rock that looked as though they
had been lived in. That was about it.
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| Noto Antica Catacombs |
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| Noto Antica 17th Century Picnic Area? |
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| Noto Antica Renovated Tower |
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| Noto Antica Cave Dwelling |
Next stop was to be the
Cava Grande just a few kilometres beyond Noto Antica according to our guide
book. It wasn’t and we must have driven 20km reaching the town of Palazzo
Acreide where the thunderstorm had dumped its load. According to the sketchy
map in our guide book that was well north of where we should have been. We
backtracked and still there was no sign of the Cava Grande. It was gone 16:00,
we decided to call it a day and take a minor road back to Avola and our camping
ground.
Not far along the road we
spotted a sign to Cava Grande which we followed. Our guide book was incorrect,
our intended destination was off the minor road. The Cava Grande is described
as Grand Canyonesque with shear rock walls of the gorge rising above the
Cassibile river. We parked by the edge of the gorge and gazed down. It was
quite a spectacle but not a patch on its American counterpart. Way below we
could see the tiny figures of walkers who had made the descent down a steep
path. We thought about doing it and had come prepared with our tramping boots.
However, the walk was a three hour return trip and we decided we might come
back another day (or might not). Instead, we lingered taking in the view before
heading for home via a road with a whole series of hairpin bends that took us
down to Avola. There we stopped at a supermarket for supplies.
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| Cava Grande |
Back at the camping
ground I returned to the wi-fi zone, I found our satnav had left Rome at 10:35
am but hadn’t arrived anywhere. I surmised it must be on a truck heading south.
I had another go at downloading the TomTom app onto Jane’s iPad. This time it
began to load, but painfully slowly. Jane brought over the cheese and salami
rolls we had taken with us for lunch and a very welcome G and T. Two hours
later we had downloaded about 30% of the app. We paused it planning to continue
in the morning.
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