We picked up the pace when we left the Amalfi coast. A week spent pottering around Naples, Pompei and the Amalfi was very pleasant but we still had a lot of Italy to see. We took the coast road south. At Agopoli, the main road cuts inland so following the coast more closely involves several small roads. Highly recommended for a bike ride. Remote, quiet and scenic. One of several places we stumbled across in Italy that were just a complete joy to ride through.
Two days later we were getting close to Villa San Giovanni where we could take the ferry to Messina and Sicily. I thought I would be clever and buy the ferry ticket online the night before – save some time when we got to the port. This proved to be very easy. I also thought, since we had plenty of time in the morning that we would follow the scenic coast road into Villa San Giovanni, avoiding the motorway. So, mid-morning, we rocked up at the ferry queue feeling like the day was already going quite well. The ferry arrived and the man inspected my ticket, which I showed him on my phone. No – this is not a ticket. It may say it is a ticket, but it is not. We have to go to the office and get our real ticket. We were ejected from the queue and rode back to the office at the entrance of the queuing area. There the man said we needed to go to another office and waved vaguely in the direction of town. We rode around town for a while hoping to spot a ticket office and eventually stumbled across the motorway exit – where we spotted a ticket office. Hooray. Because this was set up to catch vehicles coming off the motorway we needed to do an unorthodox manoeuvre to get us onto the other side of the road. My riding instructor would not have approved, but we made it to the office. No – this is the office for another company – you need the other office on the far side of the motorway junction. Fortunately there was not much traffic around so another slightly tricky bit of riding and we were there. The alternative, the correct and legal way would have been to ride about 6km along the motorway to the first junction and then back. But it was hot and I was getting more than a little annoyed at the amount of chasing around we were doing. Anyhow, we made it, we were finally at a ticket selling office whose name matched my downloaded document and the ferry. No – we cannot give you a ticket at the office, you need to use the machine. Yet another U-turn in the road and we were at a row of machines, each with a little barrier, next to which was a screen and keypad. There was no English language option and my Italian is almost non-existent. I could work out how to buy a ticket but not how to use the document I had been sent. Fortunately I could wriggle the bike past the barrier to get back to the office where we once again tried to explain our predicament to an uninterest official who spoke no English. Then a fixer appeared. I think he had been dozing by the wall of the office. He offered to help us and suddenly I started to feel like we were travelling in a third world country. We all went back to the machine. Our new fixer showed me what to do, I thanked him and paid him for his time. Ticket in hand we rode back to the ferry terminal where we had just missed a ship so we needed to queue for another half hour. Five hours after arriving at the terminal we actually got on the ferry and 20 minutes later we were in Sicily. Between the cost of the online service and the fixer (a fixer in Europe for goodness sake) we had doubled the cost of the ticket. On the way back we stopped at the machine at the motorway exit, bought a ticket and hopped on the ferry. Easy when you do things the right way.
Shortly after leaving Messina we could see the smoke from Mount Etna. At first we were not sure if we were looking at cloud or smoke. As we got closer the smoke clearly resolved itself. Etna, at over 3,000m, is the highest volcano in Europe. It is also one of the most active and has erupted 80 times in the 20th century. We had booked a room in a hotel at 1,700m on the side of one of the world’s more dangerous volcanoes. The road up the volcano cuts through lava fields and a strangely desolate landscape. Occasionally lava flows down the hillside and destroys parts of the road. The result is a winding, patchwork road bordered by black ash that has been brushed to the side by the traffic. We stopped to have a look at this ash. It was mostly little balls of pumice type material. Very slippery stuff. I took great care to keep the bike well away from it at corners.
The Hotel Villa Dorata turned out to be lovely. It is a hundred years old and owes its longevity to luck – according to the owner. We sat outside on the terrace with a beer, contemplating volcanoes as the sun settled into the distance. Each side of the hotel are lava flows. The large flows from 1992 were pointed out to us. On this occasion, the town of Zafferana was only saved when explosives were used to divert the flow. Our ruminations were interrupted when we spotted a fox. A lovely little silver grey fox sat outside the kitchen door. Occasionally it would duck inside and pop back a moment later licking its lips. I suspect someone was feeding it.
Next day we headed a little further up the volcano to a ski resort. Yep, there is a ski resort on the side of Europe’s highest and most active volcano. No snow at this time of year but the Sapienza Refuge, the main tourist hub, is one of Sicily’s biggest tourist attractions. After a long queue for a ticket, we got to ride up the cableway in a gondola and then joined a small group of tourist in a small guided tour. A truck took us up a little higher to where we were herded into a small roped enclosure and given a moderately interesting talk. On the way back down we stopped to walk up the side of a small cone with fumaroles. I was plodding up a steep, narrow and somewhat insubstantial path when an indignant and piercingly Teutonic woman’s voice above me demanded “You are in my way. How can I come down when you are on the wrong side of the path?” I was somewhat taken aback and dutifully stood aside while considering just how a rough and tiny trail up recent volcanic debris could possibly have right and wrong sides. Cultural differences was my eventual conclusion.
All the way down the South West flank of Etna and we could pick up the motorway to Palermo. We stayed a couple of nights in Palermo. Had a walk round, checked out a few old buildings, rode on a horse drawn carriage and ate at the tables outside the restaurants. The weather was warm and sunny. We relaxed and enjoyed the change of pace for a day. Sipping Aperol Spritz outside a café we reflected on reached the halfway point of our Italian odyssey.
