Lord and Lady Snooty's European Wanders in a MB SLK
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While Alla and Alena are chatting on the Cathedral steps I go for a wander. Many of the building have information boards on them with English translation. The town hall is a converted convent, I wander in and find an open courtyard with an information board telling me that just below over the railing is the remains of a stretch of road dating back to 3BC, I go down the steps and take a photo, just extraordinary. Many of the buildings originate back to the 12th century and have Roman and Greek elements to them and have generations of architectural stylistic changes. One building was the home of King Roger II of Normandy - who knew?
While Alla and Alena are chatting on the Cathedral steps I go for a wander. Many of the building have information boards on them with English translation. The town hall is a converted convent, I wander in and find an open courtyard with an information board telling me that just below over the railing is the remains of a stretch of road dating back to 3BC, I go down the steps and take a photo, just extraordinary. Many of the buildings originate back to the 12th century and have Roman and Greek elements to them and have generations of architectural stylistic changes. One building was the home of King Roger II of Normandy - who knew?
A very well preserved 49 year old!!! 
Whoa! Steady boy!
Btw, did you take out extra insurance for the car or just rely on the minimum cover for EU travel?
Sent from my moto e30 using Tapatalk
Whoa! Steady boy!
Btw, did you take out extra insurance for the car or just rely on the minimum cover for EU travel?
Sent from my moto e30 using Tapatalk
A very well preserved 49 year old!!!
Whoa! Steady boy!
Btw, did you take out extra insurance for the car or just rely on the minimum cover for EU travel?
Sent from my moto e30 using Tapatalk
Easy tiger!
Just took out European breakdown cover on top of my standard insurance Pete.
Just back from a walk up the large rock to an ancient temple, more of that later.
Here's a couple more pics of the town including one of Her Ladyship down by the beach and remember that narrow road I told you about, the one that the satnav wanted us to go up, here's a couple of pics, one from the other side of the road and a close up so you can see how narrow it is.
Here's a couple more pics of the town including one of Her Ladyship down by the beach and remember that narrow road I told you about, the one that the satnav wanted us to go up, here's a couple of pics, one from the other side of the road and a close up so you can see how narrow it is.
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Temple of Dians
Alena went for an early'ish walk around the city and after she returned we had brekkie and decided what to do with the day. I'd noticed signs for Tempo di Diana and suggested we go there. Now you may have noticed in the background of some of the shots that there is humungous rock behind the Cathedral, the temple is up there. We start walking up incredibly steep streets until we are out of the city we come to a pathway on the left with a sign Parca de Rocca, the Park of the Rock. It is a national park and is significant for historical, archaeological, scientific and geological reasons. It was first inhabited going back to neolithic times. There is a 5 euro per person fee, handily there is a bar next to the ticket office and I purchase a bottle of water as I suspect this could be a few hours of hiking. The weather is pleasantly warm at 15C but not too hot, thankfully. The girl at the ticket office writes the number 32 on our tickets and enters it into a ledger and we are told we must hand the ticket back on return so they know we are back safely.
Off we go, the higher we get the more spectacular the views back over the city, sea and background mountains become. We ascent up the path slowly, stopping regularly to take photos. A lot of the path has been properly developed into steps but there are some areas over rocks where clearly this was not possible, we just took our time as the thought of slipping and turning an ankle over was always on my mind, that would not be good. All of this steep ascent was a good work out for strengthening my left knee which was damaged in our bike accident last September and I can feel that the leg is slowly getting back to full fitness around the quads where I had quite a lot of muscle wastage.
The rock was also heavily fortified in the early middle ages and built upon over the years. When the Saracens invaded the town the inhabitants abandoned it and lived high on the rock behind the protection of the walls and crenelations. There were plenty of info boards explaining what we were looking at. We arrived at an area that directly overlooked the Cathedral right by a large cross which is illuminated at night. Just a little further up a rise there was the temple, there was also a church that was established in the 9th and 10th century.
There were picnic benches to rest upon for a little while, We spent an hour or so exploring around, there were ancient ovens and signs of megalithic inhabitation. We started the descent, again we took care and time, we arrived back at the bar and sat down for a cold freshly squeezed fruit drink. At the next table were a family of three from Hull, we started chatting and it transpires they are bikers but since their daughter was born they no longer bike tour but he does track days on a ZX10 at Cadwell. They are staying in Palermo and had come to Cefalu for the day, we talked biking bollocks as you do and we departed.
The walk up the rock was well worth it for the incredible views and the historical context, it took us probably about four hours of our day, as it is not to be rushed.
Alena went for an early'ish walk around the city and after she returned we had brekkie and decided what to do with the day. I'd noticed signs for Tempo di Diana and suggested we go there. Now you may have noticed in the background of some of the shots that there is humungous rock behind the Cathedral, the temple is up there. We start walking up incredibly steep streets until we are out of the city we come to a pathway on the left with a sign Parca de Rocca, the Park of the Rock. It is a national park and is significant for historical, archaeological, scientific and geological reasons. It was first inhabited going back to neolithic times. There is a 5 euro per person fee, handily there is a bar next to the ticket office and I purchase a bottle of water as I suspect this could be a few hours of hiking. The weather is pleasantly warm at 15C but not too hot, thankfully. The girl at the ticket office writes the number 32 on our tickets and enters it into a ledger and we are told we must hand the ticket back on return so they know we are back safely.
Off we go, the higher we get the more spectacular the views back over the city, sea and background mountains become. We ascent up the path slowly, stopping regularly to take photos. A lot of the path has been properly developed into steps but there are some areas over rocks where clearly this was not possible, we just took our time as the thought of slipping and turning an ankle over was always on my mind, that would not be good. All of this steep ascent was a good work out for strengthening my left knee which was damaged in our bike accident last September and I can feel that the leg is slowly getting back to full fitness around the quads where I had quite a lot of muscle wastage.
The rock was also heavily fortified in the early middle ages and built upon over the years. When the Saracens invaded the town the inhabitants abandoned it and lived high on the rock behind the protection of the walls and crenelations. There were plenty of info boards explaining what we were looking at. We arrived at an area that directly overlooked the Cathedral right by a large cross which is illuminated at night. Just a little further up a rise there was the temple, there was also a church that was established in the 9th and 10th century.
There were picnic benches to rest upon for a little while, We spent an hour or so exploring around, there were ancient ovens and signs of megalithic inhabitation. We started the descent, again we took care and time, we arrived back at the bar and sat down for a cold freshly squeezed fruit drink. At the next table were a family of three from Hull, we started chatting and it transpires they are bikers but since their daughter was born they no longer bike tour but he does track days on a ZX10 at Cadwell. They are staying in Palermo and had come to Cefalu for the day, we talked biking bollocks as you do and we departed.
The walk up the rock was well worth it for the incredible views and the historical context, it took us probably about four hours of our day, as it is not to be rushed.
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Superb
Valley of the Teemples
What a fabulous day!
We decided last night to go further afield today so we headed to the southern coast to Agrigento, about 90 miles away, to visit the Valley of the Temples. I'd seen this place on a couple of travel programmes and had it down as a must see. We set the alarm for 7am as I expected possibly a two hour journey. After brekkie we headed off for the 500 metre walk to the car and were on the road about 9.3o'ish. We used the autostrada for some of the way which provided some lovely scenery across the mountainous spine of the island, the sun was out and there was some mist across the mountains which we drove through as we got higher. Traffic was light but there were a few contraflows. As we approached Agrigento there were plenty of signs for the Valley of the Temples making it a pretty routine job of finding the car park and ticket office. It was warming nicely and I suspected we would be doing a lot of walking again today so I took a bottle of water with me from the car.
As we approached the ticket office a lady introduced herself to us, there were a few other people standing with her, she said she was our tour guide - eh what! Was she expecting us? She explained that she would take us on a guided tour, I thought that sounds good, it must be included in the entrance price - naivety alert!
She then said that entrance was 10 euros per head (I'd already checked that out on the website) and her guided tour would cost 20 euros per head, phew, so that would be 60 euros then. We thanked her for her kind offer 
and declined, I have no idea if she is an official guide or whether she just doorsteps likely looking victims as they approach the ticket booth, I would imagine she makes a nice little earner out of it.
We bought tickets for the Valley of the Temples and also for the museum which is not at the site but we would have to drive to later, cost of 32 euros plus her ladyship had the booklet about the site. Of we went.
It was to prove a photo frenzy day as there was just so much to take in. I'll let the photos speak for themselves. The site was a wall surrounded city established about 450 BC with temples to Juno, Hera, Zeus, Hercules, Castor and Pollux and others. You will see holes carved into some of the city walls, these were used as tombs and you will also see obvious tombs carved into the bedrock, believed to be early Christian burials from about the 6th C AD.
Calling it the Valley of Temples is a bit misleading because it is set on high ground and has a commanding view of the surrounding countryside. There are plenty of info boards explaining when excavations and archaeological digs have taken place plus photographs or artist's impressions on how each particular site would have looked and details of the feasts, rituals and sacrifices that were common for that particular deity. All brilliant, educational stuff, just the sort of stuff I love as I have a strong interest in the ancient world and civilisations. I love to read everything on the info boards and take my time to absorb it and then try and imagine how it looked 2,500 years ago.
As ever I am utterly amazed and have huge admiration at the scope, engineering, construction, mathematical exactitude and sheer ambition of these ancient people who built these places with nothing more than muscle, their own ingenuity and hand tools. We wandered, wondered, strolled, absorbed, mused and drifted away with all of this history around us. I am glad that we did not take the guided tour as we much preferred to take our own time.
The sun was warming and I was in shirt sleeves, what a great feeling, it was probably 16-17C and I pondered what it would be like walking around here in high Summer with temps in the high 20s or even 30C with lots of crowds, we were both so glad we had chosen this time of year to visit.
This was not just a place of temples, it was a large residential area also and there was lots of evidence of other buildings, water cisterns, roads, water channels and other essentials systems to support a population. At one of the temples there is the remains of a bronze statue on the ground in his naked glory, this young mummy gets her young son of about 6 or 7 to stand by the statue for a photo and he only stands right next to the rather large cock which is at his head height, his mum was sniggering and I burst out laughing aloud, aaah the innocence of youth.
We noticed that a lot of the bedrock had fossils in them, mostly of clam and shellfish type organisms, a clue that millions of years ago Sicily was underwater.
The largest temple by far was that of Zeus, the head divinity, it was 6000 sq meters, so a huge complex. We reached the far extent and started the walk back, this was now approaching four hours since we got here. Luckily there is a cafe on site so we sat outside in the sunshine in a beautiful, fragrant garden with cappuccino, snacks followed by delicious ice-cream, Pineapple and cherry for me, pistachio and vanilla for Alena.
We got back to the car (5 euros for the parking) and both of us had aching feet and felt pretty knackered, we'd walked over 10ks again, We decided to give the museum a miss, we had to find it and would probably spend a couple of more hours walking around and as I had decided to take a different, scenic but more slow route back and we wanted to enjoy it in the sunlight. Well what a good choice it was the first road was the SS189; it was fantastic, well surfaced, loads of sweeping bends and outstanding scenery, mountain ranges, lush pastures, dramatic geological features, it was a joy to drive and I yearned to be on the bike. We stayed on SS roads and after leaving the SS189 the road climbed and got very twisty with switchbacks and plenty of hairpins. We caught up with the occasional local and overtook, Alena looks out and gives me the nod to go and I floor it - teamwork in action.
The tight turns and hairpins slowed us down and we arrived back in Cefalu about 17.30, parked the car and had time to get some fresh fish and beer for dinner.
All in all a brilliant day and if any of you find yourselves on Sicily then you must visit Agrigento and ride the roads we used for our return trip, you willl not be disappointed.
Now for the pics.
What a fabulous day!
We decided last night to go further afield today so we headed to the southern coast to Agrigento, about 90 miles away, to visit the Valley of the Temples. I'd seen this place on a couple of travel programmes and had it down as a must see. We set the alarm for 7am as I expected possibly a two hour journey. After brekkie we headed off for the 500 metre walk to the car and were on the road about 9.3o'ish. We used the autostrada for some of the way which provided some lovely scenery across the mountainous spine of the island, the sun was out and there was some mist across the mountains which we drove through as we got higher. Traffic was light but there were a few contraflows. As we approached Agrigento there were plenty of signs for the Valley of the Temples making it a pretty routine job of finding the car park and ticket office. It was warming nicely and I suspected we would be doing a lot of walking again today so I took a bottle of water with me from the car.
As we approached the ticket office a lady introduced herself to us, there were a few other people standing with her, she said she was our tour guide - eh what! Was she expecting us? She explained that she would take us on a guided tour, I thought that sounds good, it must be included in the entrance price - naivety alert!
She then said that entrance was 10 euros per head (I'd already checked that out on the website) and her guided tour would cost 20 euros per head, phew, so that would be 60 euros then. We thanked her for her kind offer and declined, I have no idea if she is an official guide or whether she just doorsteps likely looking victims as they approach the ticket booth, I would imagine she makes a nice little earner out of it.We bought tickets for the Valley of the Temples and also for the museum which is not at the site but we would have to drive to later, cost of 32 euros plus her ladyship had the booklet about the site. Of we went.
It was to prove a photo frenzy day as there was just so much to take in. I'll let the photos speak for themselves. The site was a wall surrounded city established about 450 BC with temples to Juno, Hera, Zeus, Hercules, Castor and Pollux and others. You will see holes carved into some of the city walls, these were used as tombs and you will also see obvious tombs carved into the bedrock, believed to be early Christian burials from about the 6th C AD.
Calling it the Valley of Temples is a bit misleading because it is set on high ground and has a commanding view of the surrounding countryside. There are plenty of info boards explaining when excavations and archaeological digs have taken place plus photographs or artist's impressions on how each particular site would have looked and details of the feasts, rituals and sacrifices that were common for that particular deity. All brilliant, educational stuff, just the sort of stuff I love as I have a strong interest in the ancient world and civilisations. I love to read everything on the info boards and take my time to absorb it and then try and imagine how it looked 2,500 years ago.
As ever I am utterly amazed and have huge admiration at the scope, engineering, construction, mathematical exactitude and sheer ambition of these ancient people who built these places with nothing more than muscle, their own ingenuity and hand tools. We wandered, wondered, strolled, absorbed, mused and drifted away with all of this history around us. I am glad that we did not take the guided tour as we much preferred to take our own time.
The sun was warming and I was in shirt sleeves, what a great feeling, it was probably 16-17C and I pondered what it would be like walking around here in high Summer with temps in the high 20s or even 30C with lots of crowds, we were both so glad we had chosen this time of year to visit.
This was not just a place of temples, it was a large residential area also and there was lots of evidence of other buildings, water cisterns, roads, water channels and other essentials systems to support a population. At one of the temples there is the remains of a bronze statue on the ground in his naked glory, this young mummy gets her young son of about 6 or 7 to stand by the statue for a photo and he only stands right next to the rather large cock which is at his head height, his mum was sniggering and I burst out laughing aloud, aaah the innocence of youth.
We noticed that a lot of the bedrock had fossils in them, mostly of clam and shellfish type organisms, a clue that millions of years ago Sicily was underwater.
The largest temple by far was that of Zeus, the head divinity, it was 6000 sq meters, so a huge complex. We reached the far extent and started the walk back, this was now approaching four hours since we got here. Luckily there is a cafe on site so we sat outside in the sunshine in a beautiful, fragrant garden with cappuccino, snacks followed by delicious ice-cream, Pineapple and cherry for me, pistachio and vanilla for Alena.
We got back to the car (5 euros for the parking) and both of us had aching feet and felt pretty knackered, we'd walked over 10ks again, We decided to give the museum a miss, we had to find it and would probably spend a couple of more hours walking around and as I had decided to take a different, scenic but more slow route back and we wanted to enjoy it in the sunlight. Well what a good choice it was the first road was the SS189; it was fantastic, well surfaced, loads of sweeping bends and outstanding scenery, mountain ranges, lush pastures, dramatic geological features, it was a joy to drive and I yearned to be on the bike. We stayed on SS roads and after leaving the SS189 the road climbed and got very twisty with switchbacks and plenty of hairpins. We caught up with the occasional local and overtook, Alena looks out and gives me the nod to go and I floor it - teamwork in action.
The tight turns and hairpins slowed us down and we arrived back in Cefalu about 17.30, parked the car and had time to get some fresh fish and beer for dinner.
All in all a brilliant day and if any of you find yourselves on Sicily then you must visit Agrigento and ride the roads we used for our return trip, you willl not be disappointed.
Now for the pics.
Attachments
Bit of a quiet day today, her ladyship got up about 7am to go to the market held down by the port, I chose to stay in bed She returned after a couple of hours with some fresh veg, eggs and tomatoes. I cooked brekkie and she went off to meet her Russian friend Alla for girl talk and coffee, brilliant, more quiet time to myself so I started to think about our onwards journey when we leave here on the 21st.
Our plans have changed from when we left the UK. We were planning to cross to Dubrovnik from Bari but the ferries are clearly seasonal and are not running yet, we may consider going NE to Ancona and cross to Split and then hoik a left and head north towards Slovenia, a matter to be discussed with the long haired general.
Our next move is to the Amalfi Coast for a few days and take in Pompeii. We could make it in one day at a push from Sicily, we have just over 100 miles to get to the ferry port south of Messina and then 300 miles on the mainland. However, there are loads of contraflows on the Autostrada, many of them in the tunnels which does slow progress down and the wait for the ferry is undefinable as there are no stated crossing times, you just rock up get in the queue and roll on when it docks and the crossing is the longer one. As it did on our outbound crossing, it could add two hours to the journey. As we are not on a strict itinerary I decided to look for a stop after about 300 miles and have an easy ride into the Sorrento area of about 100 miles the next day. For this stopover I have decided to book a hotel rather than an AirBnB, we can pig out on their breakfast and have dinner the night before in their restaurant. I found one just off the Autostrada at Lagonegro, a four star hotel with breakfast for £73, I'll take that. I will book an AirBnB for three days in the Sorrento region, one with a washing machine as we really need to do some laundry.
Anyhoo, back to today, Alena and Alla returned and I went out with them, we went to her husband's fishmongers and bought some fish and huge prawns for tonight, we have only eaten fish since arriving in Ceaflu. Back for a siesta as I'd had such a hard day As the sun started to dip we went out for another little walk and I found a few parts of Cefalu that I hadn't noticed before. A medieval open air laundry facility which uses fresh water from the mountain, you can see several spouts at ground level under the arches directing the water into the channel and lots of individual areas for people to use. It was at the bottom of a curving set of steps. Then I saw these large amphora type jars set in concrete beyond a window which is clearly there for people to observe them, I guess they were used for some sort of storage.
The cathedral was open and was bathed in gorgeous evening sunlight - we entered and I was able to get some pics of the sunlight streaming through one of the windows. Onwards we went and fond some remnants of the original Greek wall built around the 5th or 6th C BC. I decided that we should have a beer overlooking the sea in the death throes of the sun as it dipped beyond the Western mountains. The sea was flat calm and the sky completely cloudless, we saw this sandcastle art which was way better than anything I achieved with my bucket and spade when I was a nipper, there were families wandering around the sea front enjoying the idyll as much as we were.
Tomorrow we plan to go West along the coast road to a town called Bagheria near Palermo, it is only about 35 miles away so an easy drive.
Here come the pics
She returned after a couple of hours with some fresh veg, eggs and tomatoes. I cooked brekkie and she went off to meet her Russian friend Alla for girl talk and coffee, brilliant, more quiet time to myself so I started to think about our onwards journey when we leave here on the 21st.Our plans have changed from when we left the UK. We were planning to cross to Dubrovnik from Bari but the ferries are clearly seasonal and are not running yet, we may consider going NE to Ancona and cross to Split and then hoik a left and head north towards Slovenia, a matter to be discussed with the long haired general.
Our next move is to the Amalfi Coast for a few days and take in Pompeii. We could make it in one day at a push from Sicily, we have just over 100 miles to get to the ferry port south of Messina and then 300 miles on the mainland. However, there are loads of contraflows on the Autostrada, many of them in the tunnels which does slow progress down and the wait for the ferry is undefinable as there are no stated crossing times, you just rock up get in the queue and roll on when it docks and the crossing is the longer one. As it did on our outbound crossing, it could add two hours to the journey. As we are not on a strict itinerary I decided to look for a stop after about 300 miles and have an easy ride into the Sorrento area of about 100 miles the next day. For this stopover I have decided to book a hotel rather than an AirBnB, we can pig out on their breakfast and have dinner the night before in their restaurant. I found one just off the Autostrada at Lagonegro, a four star hotel with breakfast for £73, I'll take that. I will book an AirBnB for three days in the Sorrento region, one with a washing machine as we really need to do some laundry.
Anyhoo, back to today, Alena and Alla returned and I went out with them, we went to her husband's fishmongers and bought some fish and huge prawns for tonight, we have only eaten fish since arriving in Ceaflu. Back for a siesta as I'd had such a hard day
As the sun started to dip we went out for another little walk and I found a few parts of Cefalu that I hadn't noticed before. A medieval open air laundry facility which uses fresh water from the mountain, you can see several spouts at ground level under the arches directing the water into the channel and lots of individual areas for people to use. It was at the bottom of a curving set of steps. Then I saw these large amphora type jars set in concrete beyond a window which is clearly there for people to observe them, I guess they were used for some sort of storage.The cathedral was open and was bathed in gorgeous evening sunlight - we entered and I was able to get some pics of the sunlight streaming through one of the windows. Onwards we went and fond some remnants of the original Greek wall built around the 5th or 6th C BC. I decided that we should have a beer overlooking the sea in the death throes of the sun as it dipped beyond the Western mountains. The sea was flat calm and the sky completely cloudless, we saw this sandcastle art which was way better than anything I achieved with my bucket and spade when I was a nipper,
there were families wandering around the sea front enjoying the idyll as much as we were.Tomorrow we plan to go West along the coast road to a town called Bagheria near Palermo, it is only about 35 miles away so an easy drive.
Here come the pics
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