Southeastern Sicily

Start off this morning with an early walk back to the beach again, since we were in bed so early it was an early morning walk.  We walked for about 1.5 hours, started with jackets on as we were so cold in our room, these were off and just carried after about 10 minutes of walking, the sun is gorgeous. 

The path was a little bit rough but very manageable. Just had to keep an eye open so you did not trip on a stone

Lots of low lying shrubs and plants

No toys or games at the beach????

Back for breakfast, we can’t believe how much food they gave us.  A plate of salami, a plate of ham, a plate of fresh mozzarella cheese, a basket of breads,  2 croissants, a basket of that bread that never expires, juice and water.  We should be good for a couple of hours.  

Enough for 6

Orange Orchard

Almond trees in bloom

We start off further along Riserva Naturale di Vendicari to the main entrance.  This is a small road that we can’t believe is the main entrance, we are there by about 9:30, the little car park holds about 5 cars.  Another beautiful spot.  This is where you go to see birds.  There are 3 different blinds set up, the first 2 we can see there are flamingos off in the distance, we don’t stick around too long as we’re not sure how long the flamingos hang around.  We walk further along where the other blind is.  The birds are much closer here.

Tuna factory and the fort

Flamingos. 

Some of the other birds, only a few of them.

We then proceed to walk to the top of the hill to check out another pond and the views. Only a few birds in the second pond.

This was once also a tuna fishing village, the remains of the plant are still here and has been partly restored.  A beautiful area, that we couldn’t help but think of Shediac and how preserving the wetlands leads to some amazing bird life.  We could have sat in chairs here for hours, only thing missing were binoculars.

Ancient but thats all we know

These were all over the beach, we have seen them on all beaches here, some sort of seaweek?  I looks like hair balls

Leaving the reserve we couldn’t believe all the people coming in.  I am so glad we got an early start, but where did they all park.  We soon found out, the tiny road in is now lined with cars parked on one side, I probably could have sold my parking spot!

Next stop was at a little town called Marzamemi, which like we are discovering on Sundays is packed with people wandering the streets.  This was a really cute town, too expensive for eating, but never too expensive for an ice cream.  There was a really nice small town square here, but unfortunately both churches were closed so never got to visit. 

We missed one turn and ended up being on the right side of town instead of the left side. There was a marina but it was mostly used for sailboats with a few fishing boats.

A quick U-turn and we are back to the old part of town. When we first drove in, there was parking for about 500 cars but it was not open. I can't imagine what these places are like in the busy time of the year.

Must have been 30 restaurants in a very small area. Some busy some not but we were still early

From here we moved on to Portopalo which is pretty far south now in Sicily.  We tried one restaurant for lunch but they told us we needed to eat inside, so passed on that one, but right next door was their bar with tables outside, so perfect for lunch.  We have discovered that bars are the really super affordable way to eat lunches if you just want something not too big,  they always seem to have some Italian pizza or pastry ready behind the counter.  Lunch was water and spritz, pizza and pastry for under 10 Euro, all with a beautiful outside view of the water.

Our view at lunchtime

Our next stop was at the wharf on Portopalo, we found the Pointe du Chene wharf of Sicily.  So many people just driving down to the wharf, lots of people fishing from the wharf.  I am sure if it was warmer kids would have been jumping in.  This was a huge wharf, I felt a little like Andre's parents spending a Sunday afternoon driving around to different wharves today, forgot to mention that we visited one in Marzameni as well earlier.

Next adventure was to find the most southern spot in Sicily, the closest we could get to Africa from Sicily.  Capo Delle Corenti, really not much here.  When we parked an Italian guy came up to us and started talking, no idea what he said, when we told him we only spoke English he moved on.  Not sure if he was looking for money for parking, trying to sell us tomatoes, or exactly what, but our car was still there when we came back from exploring the beach.  There is a little island just off the main land here that we saw a couple of people go over to, not for us, we just walked to the end of the main land.

wendys shoes do not keep the sand out very well

Our final stop for the day was at Villa Romana del Tellaro.  This is a much smaller Villa than the one we saw a couple of weeks ago, but still the mosaics were very impressive, and the story equally as impressive.  A farmhouse was built over the mosaics and discovered in the stable area.  Price was right, no fee to enter, but they do have someone working at the entrance that gives you a ticket that says free entry.

This area is very big on farming

We are home a bit before 6PM, gas up the car and find a spot for free parking again that is about 1.5 km from our apartment.  This actually works out great as it is good to have a mission when we go for our morning walk, Mondays have been go get the car, return it to the car rental and go to the market for fresh fruit and vegetables to start the week.  Once again town it packed, it is still surprising every Sunday when we come back and see the main streets packed with people. 

The old Market building doors were open. On Sunday Local producers sometimes sell their stuff here. They were all gone but we did see the inside.

THe old market in Ortigia, only open on Sundays

Reheated the leftover curry from Friday and enjoyed a bottle of rose wine. We were both very tired from the weekend and probably gone for a walk if not so. Fun to see all the people in town but not this Sunday.

Funny car story. We could not manage to put the car in reverse even trying many ways when we picked it up on Saturday morning. One of the Avis people was coming outside, so we asked them. Simple, pull up on the disk under the knob.

We did about 250 KM and the gas cost us 20 euros. Considering that gas is 1.5 euro a litre or $2.25 Canadian, that is not too bad.  Did have fun trying to fill up, took a couple of tries to figure out how to unlock the gas tank with our car key.