Long drive to the heartland

Tim: The next day - our last at the agritourismo - saw us do almost nothing at all, except a drive to the the local shop for some bread. Polly was also in need of a decent coffee so we drove a short distance to a place called Oil Bar, part service station, part café. I'm told it was better inside than it had any right to be.


The agritourismo had, like all working farms, a couple of dogs. They were quite friendly and we enjoyed their company on walks, but we didn't know their names until we asked. The owner of the place, Pepe, told us both of their names but I forgot the second because I couldn't believe the first. She would come when I called her, but I couldn't get used to calling her 'Al Jazzira'. Why would you ... .


On Tuesday we drove to our next stop, a town in the Sicilian hills, but to get there we needed to put in a five hour drive. The scenery was absolutely spectacular, lush green and beautiful dry-stone walls, high mountains and sandstone towns. We took photos, but next to being there they'll be poor substitutes so we just tried to drink it in. But we learned some things on the way;

* road signs point to the road they mean, not to the direction they mean - a subtle but important distinction. On a straight road, a right arrow to, say, Noto means go straight ahead if it's on the left hand side of the road. Oh, if only we'd known that on day one...

* the main arterial through Southern Sicily, the 115, is sometimes so narrow that it's a single lane through older towns (I mean a single lane shared by both directions)

* you can do anything you like in a car here if you it slow enough or fast enough. Medium speed, you're fucked.

* about 20 to 30 km above the speed limit felt about right on almost all occasions (but we were regularly passed by everyone and derided, no doubt, as driving like nuns).

* from a field of many, many contenders, special awards to the man who blindly reversed across all the lanes of traffic on a perilous hair-pin bend (deities, prophets), and, the person double parked on the wrong side of the road in my lane, blocking in a police car. Your deeds will live on.

Despite all of this, we arrived at our destination in the late afternoon.