We're off to Sicily - Day 2

January 16th

This morning we drove down to Villa San Giovanni so we could take the ferry across to Messina and Sicily.  The ferry was only about a 20 minute ride.  We exited the ferry and started making our way to outside of Palermo for our agriturismo.

But first we stopped in Milazzo for lunch and ultimately a geocache.

Milazzo was pretty dead.  

We showed up during riposo, so everything may have been shut down because of that.  After lunch we went out to the tip of the peninsula that Milazzo is on to look for a geocache.

First we walked down a paved path.

And then it became gravel and puddles through an olive grove.  

Did I mention it was SUPER windy and also raining a bit?  Because it was.

A view towards the mainland (above) and down the hillside (below).

I guess we have to go down all these steps.....

The geocache was down among those rocks on the right.  This photo doesn't do a good job of determining scale.  Each of the biggish rocks down there is around knee to hip high on me.

We walked around a little more after finding the cache, but the rain really started coming down so we decided to call it and head back to the car.  Once we got back up the steps the rain let up.

The top of the ridge of the peninsula.  There's a little lighthouse block up here.

A little sun tried to break through the clouds, but it was not successful.  Over all, even with the wind and the rain, this little area was beautiful and a fun break from the car. 

This is more or less were our good luck ran out.  Following the GPS, I drove (it was getting dark) through a tiny town and up a very steep hill that had stairs in the middle of it.  This wasn't so bad because at least it was still paved.  The GPS then took us to an unpaved/sort of gravelly road, which then turned into a very poorly maintained gravel/dirt road, which then turned into a clay mire.  In which we got stuck.  The poor little Citroen wasn't going anywhere.

We tried a few times to get out of the clay before calling the agriturismo - luckily we have cellphone reception.  The agriturismo informed us that they were closed for the season and the website we booked through shouldn't have had them on it.  Great.  At least the speak some English.  Dan asks about a tow truck because we are really stuck.  The agriturismo says they will try to find someone if we can tell them where we are.  Luckily again we have reception and I figure out where were are with GPS coordinates.  A tow truck has been called and all we can do is wait.

The sun goes down and it is dark.  Really really dark.  We're on a mountainside in the middle of farmland.  There are no lights.  We try a few more times to get the car moving with no luck.  So we sit in the car and wait.  It starts snowing.  F*ing SNOWING.  We continue to wait.  It's been well over an hour and there is no sign of a tow truck - we had been told it would be here in about an hour.  We are seriously considering having to sleep in the car.

We decide to try again, because what can it hurt, and this time the car at least rocks.  Dan pushes and I alternate between rolling forward four inches and trying to back up.  We finally get going and I stop because I was afraid I was going to run over Dan's foot.  And the car gets stuck again.  I feel terrible.  We were sooooo close to being free and it's all my fault we aren't; however, a little more shoving from Dan gets us going again and we finally escape.  We're FREEEEE!   

We decide to just go to Palermo, as it's a big city, and find a hotel and call it a day.  Dan starts following the GPS which seems like it is continuing to take us through farm roads.  I do not like this, I do not want to get stuck again.  We end up going back the way we came, because we knew it would get us to at least a paved road.

While Dan is driving I am looking for a pet friendly hotel.  I find one and we head toward it.  I'm sure we look like hell when we arrive.  We're both covered in mud.  We get our key, take our stuff to our room, change clothes, and decide to go find something to eat.  We are both very hungry.  Only.....we can't get out of our hotel room.  In my hurry to get into the room and put clean clothes on, I left the key in the outside of the door and now we are locked into the room.  Of course there's no info on how to call the front desk or anything.  So I end up calling the desk from my cellphone and ask them to send someone to let us out of room.  

Free again!  We go searching for food, but everything is closed because it's almost midnight.  Everything EXCEPT Ristorante Chinese.  I have never been so happy to have mediocre general Asian food and alcohol as I was then.

These are Dan's shoes after we cleaned them a little at a gas station between the clay mire and Palermo.  The car was a mess.

This concludes our adventures for today.

We're off to Sicily - Day 1

January 15th

Dan has a work thing down in Sigonella on Sicily.  So he decided to take some extra days and we did a road trip.  Adventure begins!

Tantalum came along on our road trip.  

She started out in the front seat, but Dan found her distracting.

I convinced Dan to stop in Vietri so I could look for beach glass.

The water was a little rough today.

There were a few Italians walking along the beach as well.

They were very picturesquely spaced.

The sun came out a little bit right before we left and I got one more wave crash photo.

We left Vietri and drove down to Paestum to see the Greek ruins.  

Paestum was founded in 600 BC by the Greeks.

The city was originally named Poseidonia after the God of the Sea, Poseidon.
This is the Temple of Ceres, actually the Temple of Athena.  It was built in the 500s BC.
When it was first rediscovered, in the early 1700s, they attributed a lot of the structures to the wrong deities. 

In the 5th Century BC (400s BC) Poseidonia was taken over by the Lucanians.  

The Lucanians were people from what is now the Italian region of Basilicata.
They renamed the town Paistos.   

Ta found the remains of a well from a house.
Almost all of the residential areas are the West side of the park.

Artsy photo of the Temple of Ceres/Athena.

This is a haroon for an unknown hero.  A haroon is a building dedicated to a hero and contained their remains, real or idealized, or the remains of the city founder.  I think originally it would have been covered by a mound of earth. 

Columns!  Because what are Greek/Roman ruins without columns?

In 237 BC the Romans took over Paestum because the Lucanians chose the wrong side in King Pyrrhus' war with Rome.  The Romans renamed the town Paestum.

The Temple of Neptune is trying to hid behind those trees.  It is not doing a very good job.

These low ruins are all residential ruins.

This is the amphitheater.  Only the Western half is visible.  In 1930 the amphitheater was divided in half by the construction of the SS 18, which ultimately buried the other half.  Supposedly the civil engineer responsible for this was tried, convicted, and received a prison sentence for wanton destruction of a historical site. 

The amphitheater would have been used for circus shows and gladiatorial displays.  

The remaining tunnel would have been used for transporting animals and props for the shows.

Dan and I were both amused by the seemingly haphazard way the tunnel dome was constructed.

This is the pool or the Temple of Fortuna Virilis.  It was built in the third century BC (200s) and measures 21 x 47 meters.  It is believed it was used for fertility rites. 

The Cilento Mountains are back there, though they are hiding in the clouds a bit.

Here you can see the Temple of Neptune (actually Zeus, or Apollo, maybe Hera - scholars aren't sure, but it wasn't Neptune).   Farther along is the Basilica (actually the Temple of Hera, maybe Zeus).

And now, some artsy photos of columns!

The Temple of Neptune or whomever was built in the mid-fifth century BC and is one of the most well preserved Doric buildings in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy that long ago was Greek).  So I hope these columns are Doric, or I'm just going to be annoyed.

It's a cloud gate!

The internet assures me that these are, in fact, Doric columns.  Crisis averted.

The Temple of Neptune or whomever it all its current glory.

I apparently didn't take many photos of the Basilica.  It wasn't as interesting, to me, as the Temple of Neptune.  The Basilica was built in 530 BC and is odd because it has an uneven number of columns.  Because it is lacking pediments early scholars believed the structure was used for civic purposes.  

Basilica is the Roman term for a civic building.  It wasn't until the 300s that basilica started to also mean a Christian church.  Architecturally a basilica is a rectangular walled structure with an open hall extending from end to end, usually flanked by side aisles set off by colonnades and with a raised platform at one or both ends.

We finished up our visit to Paestum by walking along the southern part of the wall.  

The wall is trapezoidal in shape and is 4,750 meters long/around.

After Paestum, I had Dan take a detour so we could check out a new geocache.  

There were some weird remnants of two balloon swans near where we parked.

At first glance I thought they were condoms.  Thankfully they are not.

The geocache is in an old train tunnel.  So we all walked out (luckily there was a path) and tried to not get too wet.  It was a bit damp and the ground was flooded in areas.

The entrance to the tunnel.

And into the darkness.  We had to go at least 100 meters (if not more) into the darkness, but successfully found the cache.  It's the first time I've been the first finder of a new cache.

This is a drive-by scenery photo.  

With the grey skies and it being Winter, it was getting dark out quickly.

Italy really likes its tunnels.  

I was trying to take a picture of one of them and got wobbled, but though the light trails were fun. 

My second attempt was a little better for what I was trying achieve.  Italy loves tunnels.

We stayed in a hotel for the night and decided to try to get Sicily in the morning.

This concludes our adventures for today.

New Year's Eve

December 31st

For New Year's this year, we loaded up our car with snacks and headed to the roof of the parking structure at Capodichino.  A few friends joined us and we basically tailgated New Year's.  Have I mentioned that the Neapolitans LOVE fireworks?

More than an hour to go until midnight and there are already some fireworks being set off.

That orange thing on the left is the moon.

A few premature firings.

And then everyone broke loose.

It was crazy.  It lasted for more than an hour.  

A continuous barrage of fireworks for over an hour.  

Happy New Year from Napoli!