Betwixt Mt Etna and the Ionian Sea

It is 5 o’clock in the afternoon as I write this penultimate chapter on our 2009 adventures. We are in Pozzillo in Sicily on the Eastern side about halfway between Messina and Siracusa. On one side of the fisherman’s cottage I look out onto the slopes of Mt Etna, and on the other side onto the Ionian sea which the cottage nestles up to. It is warm but with a lot of cloud which we have seldom lost since we arrived in Italy.

Our stay in Praiano was tempered with fine days and drizzly days. On Monday we set off bright and early to go to Amalfi by bus, but when we got to the bus stop we saw dark brooding thunder clouds so we decided to call it a day and went back home just arriving before the heavens opened. The view is simply stunning from the villa with 180 degree views across the Bay of Sorrento.

We look across Praiano to the Littari Mountains that form an immense ridge down the back of the Sorrentine peninsular, past the lovely mosaic tiled church. Or down over an umbrella pine tree to the blue waters below.

Next day we tried again and the weather was excellent. We caught the bus to Amalfi admiring the way the bus drivers weave in and out of traffic on roads that are no more than one lane wide. It can be chaos when two buses meet especially when cars bank up behind and there is much shouting, waving of arms and hooting until one side or the other back up and the traffic flows again.

On arriving in Amalfi about 8km and 45mins away by bus! we caught another bus up to the heights above Amalfi to the most pictureque village of Ravello where we visited the Villa Ruffolo home to many great movie stars and famous people in the past. The views across the bay are divine.

The houses cling to the cliffs, hundreds of metres about the sea and earth and sky seem entwined as one. The gardens at the villa are very colourful.

We had a lovely pasta lunch in a quiet square in Amalfi, and wandered around with the thousands of tourists, and bought some limoncello, a lemon flavoured liqueur that is the local speciality.

Wednesday was another fine day and so we caught the bus to Sorrento and the train to Herculaneum, which together with Pompeii were buried in Roman times by Mt Vesuvius. Unlike Pompeii Herculaneum was buried by mud (not ash) and it has preserved the city much much better than at Pompeii. You can clearly see three story buildings still intact and even wooden staircases inside.

It is not a large site, but very well restored with the existing town of Ercolano all around it. Most of Herculaneum still lies buried under 20m of mud below the existing town.

There are well displayed boards in English besides the key houses including the Roman fast food shops that served their hot food from amphora inset into the counters.

It drizzled all day on Thursday so we stayed at home reading hoping to go to Capri on Friday. Whilst better on Friday, the sea was quite rough and it was unlikely that the Blue Grotto would be open in such conditions so we hopped on the bus and went to Positano for lunch.

It is surging with tourists and whilst a lovely town clinging to the mountainside, like Taormina in Sicily which we visited today, the huge numbers of tourists have made the experience just one big souvenir shop experience. Still we had lovely pizzas overlooking the harbour and walked back up the hill to catch a bus back to Praiano for our last night.

On Saturday we drove along the Amalfi drive that we had been using the buses before to Salerno and connected with the A3 autostrada for a fast but long run down 550km over mountainous terrain. The road was again a mixture of long tunnels and viaducts. It was almost as if there was a motorway 800m up the side of the Southern Alps from the top of the South Island to the bottom. The traffic was tiresome with black mercedes or black anythings looming up in your rear vision mirror from nowhere impatient to pass and then roaring off. Like no other country we have ever visited have we observed such total disregard to the speed limit and by quite excessive amounts too!

Then suddenly there it was, the Straits of Messina, narrow, wine dark and busy with ferries and freighters going in all directions. We were still 300m above it all as we descended in long tunnels to sea level to catch a ferry across the Strait. A welcome relief from driving followed for 30 minutes as we crossed the 5km Strait and caught the A18 autostrada for the final hours journey to our villa in Pozzillo. We were welcomed by the owner and relaxed on the large terrace a few metres from the sea and the fishing harbour.

Today we drove 20km to Taormina, the jewel of Sicily but ruined by tourists. Taormina has hosted kings and emperors and was originally a Greek settlement. It is 300m above the sea with views to Mt Etna and along the lovely coast. The Greeks built a theatre in a natural bowl on the hillside and it still hosts performances. What a setting!

We stopped at a pasticerria and bought two cannoli, lovely Sicilian cakes that are filled with creamed sweetened ricotta and studded with chocolate pieces and served in a pastry twist.

This week, weather allowing we will visit Mt Etna, Siracusa (Syracuse) and some of the lovely baroque towns of South Eastern Sicily and the great Greek temples of Agrigento. Ciao.

A 300km Long Tunnel

We left early in the morning on Monday to conquer Mt Ventoux a mountain famous for its wine and for the harrowing leg on the Tour de France in which the cyclists climb to 1910m (7500 ft) on a 7.5% gradient. We drove slowly up the mountain the views growing ever more impressive and the temperature dropping from 25c at the bottom to 4c at the top with an icy wind to boot. About  200m from the summit we hit cloud and drove through the thick mist until we got to the summit.

From time to time the cloud lifted and we saw the countryside below spread out like a map with no detail able to be spotted from the height we were at. Just like a picture we saw the jumble of colours far below us. On a clear day you can see the Pyrenees 300km away.

As we got to the bottom again the cloud all lifted which was a disappointment but C’est La Vie. We drove onto the magic town of Sault for breakfast and looked at Mt Ventoux in the far distance over rolling Provencal countryside. 

We completed a circular tour around Mt Ventoux admiring the lovely Village Perche that Provence is famous for like Montbrun below.

Tuesday dawned bright and sunny again and we decided to drive to eastern Provence via the famous Fontaine de Vaucluse, where the River Sorgues appears from a spring and almost magically forms a wide fast flowing river. We set the Garmin to take us by the shortest route, and very quickly it had pointed us down small tracks crossing the Vaucluse Mountains where it seemed only goats would go. Eventually we reached a quarry in the middle of nowhere and the track petered out so we turned around and using intuition rather than Garmin we drove into what was now a rainy Fontaine de Vaucluse and found a car park. We trudged  along the river in the rain to the spring that the river is formed from and trudged back again in the rain.

Unfortunately the rain stayed with us for the next two days and so we did little sightseeing while we stayed in the sleepy town of Barjols which has as its claim to fame 30 fountains all fed by local streams. The mushroom shaped ones are the most famous.

We stayed at the great value inn called Pont d’Or which is all that is great about French Provincial Hotels. Smallish rooms, great fixed price menus. 17 euros for a three course meal that couldn’t be bettered almost anywhere. The omelette with herbs was the best I had any where, and Wendy’s Daube Provencal (like Beef Bourginonne) was the best beef stew she had ever had.

And so our time in France came to an end and on Thursday morning we left in drizzly conditions for Italy. We had 500km to go that day and once we got to Nice we entered the incredible A10 autostrada that goes all the way to near Pisa. It is just one long stretch of tunnel followed by a viaduct all the way. We lost count of the number of tunnels (hundreds and some over 2km long). It was tough driving – in to the dark, into the light, overtake that truck, be overtaken by an idiot Italian and so on. It is without a doubt the most impressive engineering for a road in the world at least as far as the length of what has been done. Eventually late afternoon we finally pulled out of the constant series of gullies and ravines leading down into the Golf Of Genoa and brighter weather beckoned as we drove into La Spezia looking for a hotel. Nothing looked that attractive so we continued along smaller country roads southwards until we found a charming hotel with friendly management who welcomed us.

We needed a SIM card for our phone so after a short rest we went driving looking for one and after alot of wasted time in traffic jams and getting lost we found a shop in Aulle that sold what we wanted. It was staffed by a single girl and there were a few people in there. It was 7pm and we were tired. But it turned out she had spent three years in London studying English so she was pleased to see and help us. Unfortunately in order to get a SIM card in Italy you need a passport and we didn’t have ours on us. She tried to get around the rules with a driving license but the computer system wouldn’t accept it so we gave up and decided to return the next day. We had a lovely meal at the Pizzeria that the hotel had downstairs with pizzas cooked in a wood fired oven.

Next morning we woke up to a gorgeous view from our window.

This area of Italy was flooded with walled hilltop villages – two a penny. After getting our SIM card and getting the internet for a month for just 10 euros we continued our long drive south and after a long day stopped at a place about 70km north of Rome on the coast called Tarquinia. It was the site for an ancient Entruscan settlement and it has the best preserved necropolis ever discovered with thousands of burial mounds containing quite magnificent tombs. We wandered around the burial mounds going down flights of steps and peering into the tombs which dated from 500BC and had the most marvellous paintings on the walls and ceilings to guide the deceased in the after life.

We were almost alone there admiring the achievements of a civilization predating the Romans and about which little is known. After viewing the tombs we drove into the ancient town of Tarquinia and went to the museum based in a 15c palace and saw some of the fascinating finds found in the tombs.

On Saturday we continued south around Rome and arrived at Naples where we exited the motorway and headed along the Sorrentine Peninsular along narrow windy roads that are carved out of a solid 500m high cliff to the small town of Praiano where we had rented a villa for a week. The view from the villa is outstandingly  gorgeous. We unloaded our luggage on the narrow corniche road outside the villa attracting much hooting and waving and found a park for the car aways a way on the main road. We had been told that at 7pm there would be a procession and celebration as part of the Festival of Saint Gennaro and it would go right outside our balcony overlooking the main road and the bay below. We waited outside at 7 and just as we heard the procession gathering strength from the church, the heavens opened, thunder and lightning appeared from nowhere and the procession scattered into shelter. 15 minutes later it was all over and we saw the mortal remains of St Gennaro carried on a sedan proceeded by priests chanting some ancient verse. They went past us, turned around and went back to the church and when they arrived the skies were lit up with the most marvellous firework display. Maybe not the most spectacular in the world, but as they were just over the road they lit up the skies and assaulted our eardrums in a great display.

On Sunday after a stroll around the village we rested. In 7 days we had driven 3200km (with no locks!) from Amsterdam to Praiano. It had been tiring driving. This week we shall explore Capri, Herculaneum and Amalfi  before driving another 600km to Sicily. Pictures of this lovely villa next week. Ciao.

Wet Holland to Sunny Provence

On Monday morning we were invited over for coffee with Nelka and Jan who lived on a tugboat in another lake.  The tugboat was 19m long but for all its size it was all grunt and deck with very little living space.

After coffee we headed up the Maas which has changed character and was now gentle flowing with meadows on both sides. Cows and Sheep drank from the clear waters. Our guidebook had said it was a quiet river but it turned out to be very busy with a constant flow of barges and pleasure boats returning from France.

We moored over the next few days in quiet lakes just off the main river or in busy towns and eventually on Wednesday afternoon arrived at our winter port of Roermond. Petra left us here and we worked on the boat changing the oil and tidying up.  Next morning we were lifted out by a crane and put on to the hard ground.

We spent the afternoon trying to put on our plastic tarpaulins we had bought in Germany. But they proved very difficult to handle in the moderate wind. We also found out that we couldn’t leave any bottles of wine or water on board as the temperature can sink to –20C and cause them to explode. As we had quite a bit of both we called up Petra who very kindly came to fetch us and our wine/water/beer and we spent the night in Montfoort.

Next day we left to go to Schiphol to pick up our Renault car we had bought on a short term lease. It looks like a rental but you in fact own the car and they buy it back after you have finished but you don’t need to pay the capital value of it. With the help of our trusty Garmin GPS we headed back to Roermond to finish off the tarpaulin only to be told that the way we were doing it was no good as water could lie in a big puddle in the middle of the tarpaulin and cause the boat to fall off the boat stand.

  So in the end we had to settle for covering just 2/3 of the boat but doing that took the rest of the day so we slept on board that night and left the next morning.

In the space of a few hours we had gone from Holland to Belgium to Luxembourg and then France as we headed down the motorways at 130km/h.

Eventually we stopped in Burgundy at a lovely village of Meursault which makes one of the top Burgundy white wines. The Hotel Les Arts offered a small room for 48 Euros and an excellent fixed price menu for around 20 euros. We had breakfast in the vineyards with a baguette we got from the baker and jam we bought from Holland.

Today we arrived in Vaison La Romain in the heart of Provence. After trying a few hotels we eventually found one on the edges of town. We had driven a lot of km to get here but now we can relax in the sun.

This week we cruise through Provence and then into Italy and down to the Sorrento peninsular where we have a villa for a week in a seaside town called Praiano. Ciao.

Wet and Windy in Holland

We left the lovely mooring in the Biesbosch, which means forest of reeds and stopped at a local chandlers to get a new fender and some bits and pieces we had difficulty getting in Germany. Then it was on over busy rivers to Briellesemeer a lovely small lake near the fortified town of Brielle. We anchored wild in the lake on what would turn out to be the last fine day this week.

Next day we motored through the heart of the Port of Rotterdam looking at all the big ships, passenger liners before turning off into a smaller canal and heading for Delft where we were going to stay the night. It was drizzling and a lot colder then the weather we had enjoyed before. When we got to Delft it was all full as three passenger hotel boats had commandeered most of the small available quay. We got a mooring further up the canal and next day arrived at Leiden. Leiden is a lovely small town and as we tied up we spotted a NZ flag flying on a boat nearby. A small world as we had only seen 2 other NZ boats all summer. The picture below is the view of our boat and a wedding on the shore taken from the other NZ boat.

We were invited over for drinks by Don and Inja and we had a great yarn about boating around Europe as Don and Inja had been doing it on their boat for 7 years or so.  Don runs a Palm Tree business in Brookby and is a property developer as well, and is hosting the next NZers Afloat in France lunch next February which will be something to look forward to.

Then it was on to Gouda where we had moored last year. Last year it was rainy and this year it was too. There was a brief pause in the rain which enabled us to walk to the main square and admire the lovely town hall that dominates it.

Then next day onto Montfoort about 4 hours away to pick up Petra who was joining us for a weeks cruise to Roermond where we are leaving the boat.  After an early start we headed off back to Gouda, then through very busy waterways past Dordrecht and spend the night in the Biesbosch again. The weather at last lifted in the evening.

The Biesbosch is certainly a favourite of ours -  a wilderness in the heart of Holland. So close to big cities yet a haven of peace and with lots of wild birds.

We are slowly heading up the Maas River to near Maastricht where Roermond is. This is our last week on the boat and on Friday we pick up a brand new Renault Megane Coupe and head to Provence and the Cote d’Azur.