CRISPINDOTORG

St Crispin's Day BBQ

2009-10-31T04:20:16Z

more images on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/crispin/sets/72157622574887227/

A beautiful weekend

2009-10-11T12:06:08Z

The Collingwood Children's Farm - Farmers Markets

At home with friends

Italia - some of the best ones..

2009-10-08T12:30:07Z

Friday - Mt Etna, Taormina

2009-09-20T23:23:14Z

5:30am and Gaetano has us up to take pictures of the sunrise and to watch the fishermen come in - we must be mad, after only a few hours of sleep we are down on a rocky out crop watching an amazing sunrise.

From there it was on for a traditional Sicilian breakfast which comprises Cafe Granita (with cream ) and brioches.

Then back in the car for the climb up Mt Etna which exploded as recently as 2004, we climbed up to 2500 metres which is where the road ends and you can see the amazing destruction that the lava brings as it courses down the hill.

More coffee, honey samples and then back in the car down the other side, when suddenly he pulled over got us out of the car and motioned us into a small cave, from the road it looked little more than a roadside drain, but once inside it's magnatude amazed us. The cave was produced by a lava river that ran through leaving this long tunnel 6-8 metres wide and kilometres long. As we absorbed the size of it a party arrived on their way out there must of been at least 10 people who were walking back towards us - quite amazing (our third tunnel experience in two days).

Gaetano took us off on a side road filled with apple orchids and people out searching for porchini mushrooms which grow to huge sizes on the side of the volcano. He took us to another view point where we could see down a different valley and the how some vegetation is unscathed where in other places the devastation is complete.

More stops to taste local honey, olive oil, jams, olives and wines and then on to lunch at a vineyard on the farside of Etna.

Once again we put away mountains of food and enjoyed wonderful hospitality with the owners of the property we ate so many treats including three types of prickly pear served frozen and delicious.

Gaetano kept finding little places to show us and next was a small valley with a rushing stream, we walked for about an hour and managed to get some relief after lunch.

Then on to Taormina first to the beach and views of the sunset and the up to the village high above on the cliff, where we walked from one end of town to the other with a wonderful display of nightlights.

We got back to our appartment at about 9:30pm dead - no need to eat just need to sleep!!!

-- Post From My iPhone in Italia

Wednesday - Catania

2009-09-19T07:36:10Z

Wednesday morning and we are in another bed, where are we oh yes Catania - what is here hmmm check the guide book, visit the Duomo (check), the Piazza (check), the fishmarkets (check), the city Gate built by the spaniards (check), and to try the street BBQ vendors, avoiding the horse meet (check). So in the first day we knocked over most of the sights and walked for miles and miles. Catania is a cute town, like Palermo there is a blend of Arab, Indian and African culture which has added to the rich heritage (9 countries have dominated Sicily; Greeks, Phonecians, Moors, Normans, spanish, Romans, French, English, Italians). This means that there is variety in the food and a fascinating streetlife.

We had dinner at a great restaurant just around the corner from our appartment and still in the Biscari Palace (our accomodation) we arrived for dinner at 8pm and while they were extremely polite it was clear we were very early, they made us comfortable and fussed around with apologies for an hour before finally starting dinner service at 9pm. The food wax outstanding the antipasta and the fish (above were miraculous).

-- Post From My iPhone in Italia

Thursday - Siracusa and Ortiga

2009-09-17T08:42:14Z

Thursday was the first monster day, Gaetano picked us up at 9am and rushed us down to Siracusa. First stop was to visit an original fort built by the Normans high on the hill behind Siracusa, most amazing was this fort was built primarily underground and a vast network of tunnels still exist in perfect condition. These tunnels run from the castle on the hill all the way down to the port below probably as far as 5kms.

We continued on to see where the vast amount of stone that built the city of Siracusa came from, there are these deep grottos (now sub tropical oasis in their own right) that sink between 10 and 50 metres down, these were the places that stone was removed from but it was also the home of the slaves who mined the stone, each of these quarries (which also doubled as homes and water stores were linked together by a tunnel network so the slaves could move around and never come into contact with free citizens.

We continued to the catacombs which are enormous caves under the city once filled with the bodies of the town nobility, families would go to visit the grave and take a picnic (make a day out of it - underground of course), this church is the oldest christian church in Sicily.

From there we continued to the archeological park with it's amazing aquaduct cave, greek theater and roman theater built later to accomodate the gladiators!

A full day already we moved on to have lunch in Ortiga watching the water and then in land and upstream to the spring that starts the papyrus river (full of frogs) we walked along absorbing the sounds the vast amount of papyrus which is the source for the local cottage industry.

Back in the car for some walking around the old town of Ortiga, watching the weddings and stopping at a bar for more cafe to fuel us on.

We watched the sunset across the bay then back in the car for the trip to Noce.

We arrived at about 7pm and took in the beautiful city at night - there is not much for the kids to do there.

After taking in the church, teatro, various architectural highlights it was time to be fed again, we had taken care at lunch not to eat to much so that we might have room to enjoy the dinner - thank god we did, as the food came, and came, and came. With Gaetano getting extra generous portions of the particularly special courses we walked away barely able to move and were in the car whisked home by midnight (ready for a early start in the morning)

Tuesday - Agrigento

2009-09-16T09:48:40Z

Agrigento is famous for two things the valley of the temples archeogical park featuring Greek temples from 500BC, and the Mafia. So it is that the town is quite ugly and the park remarkable.

We drove from Marsala (about 2 hrs) and wandered the big dusty park, it was hot, and dry and you can only go to the outside of the ruins but they are amazingly well preserved.

After a couple of hours of stomping around, we continued on in the Alfa rocket to Catania and the Biscari Palace where we are staying in one of his appartments that he keeps for "Opera Singers or Actors staying in Catania for weeks or months". Actually it is very comfortable with big lounges to loll about on, a small kitchen and right in the centre of town - the prince even offered to lend us a scooter to get around on.

We took the Alfa back to Avis ( the upgrade and satnav combined seem to only end up costing us 40 euro) and then walked back through the streets of Catania to get a feeling for the place.

We had dinner at a small pizzeria where I had an excellent pizza with ham mushrooms and truffle, and eve had roasted vegetables with melted cheese, and quite a passable bottle of Sicilian wine.

Monday - Island of Mozia

2009-09-14T08:26:32Z

The island of Mozia is a short ferry ride from the salt pans of Trapani. There isn't much there a tiny cafe, a museum, a winery (cantina) and vast amounts of Phonecian artifacts. It's quite bizzare realizing that the step you have just walked are part of a gate complex that has been standing from 600BC.

We saw lots of lizards and a snake in the Necropolis and made our way slowly back to our Ferry.

We decided to do a tour of the Cantina Pellegrino who produce wine and a vast amount of Marsala, we borrowed bikes from the hotel and cycled over which was good fun, then joined a larger tour group made up largely of Australians (oddly it seems that half the country is in Sicily at the moment - must be due to all the cheap fares).

Back to the igloo for a quick swim and more avoiding the pool inspector.

For dinner we went into Marsala's old town to Trattoria Garibaldi and had an excellent meal.

-- Post From My iPhone in Italia

Sunday from Palermo to Marsala

2009-09-13T08:45:18Z

Sunday morning and we were up at a reasonable hour had a reasonable breakfast at the B&B and did the kick hike down to the Avis shop to pick up the rental. We had be allocated a Kia, we decided we should upgrade to an Alfa 159 (diesel of course), the Alfa together with the TomTom satnav rocketed us along the road hugging the corners at 150kph, I hope that the speed cameras missed us ;-) .

We arrived at our destination the
Mountain top village of Erice, but to say arrived is a little incorrect, we arrived at the bottom of the mountain, the TomTom then lead us up the steepest side, on a tiny goat track, winding very slowly up one hairpin bend after another till we finally made it to the top.

The town of Erice is famous for being a picture perfect medieval walled town, for having a monastry of nuns who historically worked as prostitutes, and who today will sell you the finest biscuits and pastries you can get - delicious, we bought a large serving and added them to our growing pile of snack food that included a kilo of regiano parmagana from Monteveglio, Salumi and crackers from Capri, lollies from Firenze and Siena and fruit from Palermo.

The town itself is actually a little dull, picture perfect yes but closed up the only shops are for tourists and most of the town doesn't have much view, then there are the bus loads of German tourists who move like locasts from one shop or point of interest to another, it is no wonder that much of the town is up for sale.

We had a good wander around and made our way down the easy side of the hill, and on to Marsala. Here we have booked into Villa Favorita (a winery that has been modernised into a tourist resort) we booked into one of their 'igloo' bungalows which are set amongst the citrus trees beyond the pool.

The igloo was full to the brim with Mosquitos, the walls covered with splatter of blood as previous guests had made war with the residents, but they had not dealt with Australian travellers before and in a small amount of time (thanks to a damp towel) we had cleared the bulk of the population.

We took a swim in the pool, which is carefully roped off so that you can't accidentally step into it. Swimming there is a bit of a trick, because for some very odd reason they require you to wear a swim cap, we found ways to avoid being caught by the pool watchers but we enjoyed watching the Germans get caught out.

Actually it's quite a good resort and by far caters to the largest number of guests of all the places we have stayed on this trip. We drank some beer by the pool and played some Bocce on the court beside the bar, we even had dinner at their restaurant drinking wine made in their winery (not memorable).

-- Post From My iPhone in Italia

Saturday - Palermo Road Trip

2009-09-12T09:00:51Z

We got up early to meet our guide Silvano who had a tour for us to go to Cefalu. When Silvano arrived he had a large screw in the rear tyre which obviously needed to be fixed before we left so while the car was repaired we visited the Capo markets taking in the array of fruit vegetables, fish and freshly slaughtered meat.

Back in the car we went to Monreale which is an amazing church built by the Normans but using Byzantine masons for the amazing gold mosaic images on the walls and ceiling. We climbed up to the top for the view down the valley and from there we contined to the castle town of caccamo where the original fort was built sometime before 100 BC but was really developed by the Normans in the early 1100s.

We continued on to Cefalu (about 40 minutes further in the car), where we visited the church had lunch and promenaded along the waterfront eating the obligatory gelati.

We returned to Palermo to take in the Catacombs which contain more than 8000 mumified bodies (smells like dead guys), it's really grizzly room after room of these people many dressed in their best clothes or uniforms. Men and Women seperated, babies and children in another section, and different sections for clergy and professional people - amazingly they were still doing the mumifying till the 1920's.

We contined from the Catacombs to Palermo's beach (a bit like St Kilda) it's a place for promenading and taking in the seaside atmosphere.

It's been a big day and we are moving on tomorrow to Marsala via Erice which is supposed to be the most exciting / interesting area of western Sicily. Given that we are tired we will probably sneak back to the piaza behind our hotel that is full of outdoor restaurants mostly serving a combination of classic Italian and Tunisian cuisine (it's what we had last night delicious and the cheapest meal we have had in Italy).

-- Post From My iPhone in Italia

Thursday - last day in Capri

2009-09-10T08:45:39Z

Thursday morning we got up and rented a canoe and paddled our way round to the green grotto which while not quite as famous as it's azzure relative was fantastic and not quite so busy.

We had a last swim, I took some more pictures of the fish then we went for a last Capri pizza.

Costanzo called the porters and our bags were collected by a strong man who put them both on his back and marched off.

We took the funicular down the hill to find our ferry (and our bags), a quick gelato and on to the ferry for Naploli.

After the usual chaos and misdirection of Napoli we bordered our overnight ferry bound for Palermo, we slipped into the restaurant had an ok meal and a passable bottle of wine and slipped off to our cabin.

-- Post From My iPhone in Italia

Wednesday - Capri Straight down a cliff

2009-09-09T10:14:05Z

Costanzo's brother sells towels, simple beach jewellery and other things for the tourist down at the piccolo marina, he convinced us that we needed to complete the walk from Anacapri back to Capri quite beautiful, remote and not something done by most people who visit the island - not being one to shy from a challenge we decided to go for it.

First you walk up the hill to the bus stop, the catch the bus to Anacapri the other town on the island which sits up high on the cliff above the more wealthy town of Capri. We wandered around the town visited the church and listened to a young virtuoso violin player who was excellent (probably only 12 years old) and using the accoustics of the church to help his practise.

We stopped for luch and gelato before making ourway to the chairlift which takes you all the way to the to the highest point featuring a Chapel and the site of an original stellar observatory - it is a long way above the town of Capri and it looks like just a sheer cliff face from the top back down to our B&B at the bottom. We followed our instructions to look out for stones marked with red paint, which guided us to a narrow goat track along the precipice and slowly made our way down the other side from dry dusty cliff, to overgrown grassy bush, to different types of Forrest we made our way down eventually scratched exhausted, hardly able to put one foot in front of another.

We did take in the opportunity to swim and snorkell again after everyone else had gone home (most tourists disappear when the sun leaves the beach)

-- Post From My iPhone in Italia

Monday - ferry to Capri

2009-09-08T10:07:54Z

We were not sorry to leave Napoli, it's a strange place with tiny winding streets and tiny Nona caves where the old grandmothers now live in a tiny room facing straight out onto the street. In the morning they put their meager furnishings onto the street and mop the floor (everything goes out chair, table, bed, clothes washing) there is no privacy from the world in the nona caves as the bed is usually in the same (and only) room and the traffic parades past the open windows.

We mailed some of our clothes and stuff home to Australia hopefully it will arrive about the same time as us!!

On to the ferry for Capri and the first water leg of the planes, trains, buses, boats and automobiles journey. Finding the ferry and getting on board was all pretty simple but the other end was anything but. This was one place where having more information would have helped, we took a taxi up the hill with our heavy bags to be dropped at the square top of the hill - 20 euro fare thank you, another taxi was required to explain to us that we had come a block to far and would still need to walk a significant distance as Cars do not go where we are staying. Suffice to say we mde it to be told that what we were supposed to do was use the porter system from the port you just drop off the bags and they take them to your hotel for just 8 euro per bag (next time keep this in mind).

Capri is an island of hills, of narrow winding laneways that turn into paths from one end of the island to the other. There are mad palatial villas that hang off the cliff with million dollar views, and there are quiet vegetable gardens hidden away in the back streets.

There us no question the rich part of Capri is obscenely rich (there are two Prada stores) but the island has a real mix of cultures and heritage.

We stayed in a small B&B with a pool and view of the ocean and our room opened out onto the pool, despite a bit of mould and mosqitos it was really cute and the owner Costanzo was keen to ensure you saw the best of the island.

We bought snorkell and masks and had a fantastic time watching the fish off the beach at Piccolo Marina not far from our B&B.

On Tuesday we walked out through old Capri all the way to Villa Ilysis which it was said was built by a French count who liked young boys and as a result had been disgraced (it was rumoured he killed himself by mixing alcohol and Opium). There was an outstanding photographic exhibition on there of images taken by a famous German photographer in the late 1800s around Capri and Sicily.

We contined a bit of a bushwalk along the cliffs facing Sorento to Villa Jovis which was built by the Roman Emporer Tibirius - we walked from there to the cliff formation referred to as the natural arch (bit of a walk, up and down) and the we slowly made our way back to the town and the beach for a swim and more snorkelling.

Caserta 1200 room palace and pimped up small cars

2009-09-06T08:11:34Z

We caught the train from Napoli to Caserta (a 40 minute trip) to find the Palace which was built to provide the Napolese kingdom with an in land base (safe from the French ships canons) and a palace to rival Versaille in size and grandure.

With more than 1200 rooms gold and silver everything and amazing grandure from the marble staircase to the enormous waterfall which runs for kilometres from the mountain towards the palace. This place is quite mental.

But before we even reached the palace from the train station we thought we had in advertantly stumbled upon an Italian rave party we a huge duff doof doof base sound we walked closer and closer expecting to see hundreds of drugged up party kids but instead we found the street full of small cars all with enormous audio systems that made the walls thud and the ears nearly bleed.

Eve was in heaven all these silly cars - she managed to get the rev head moment that we missed in not going to Modena.

We continued our walk through the palazzo - of the total palace they tour you through less than a 16th of the total space but it took more than two hours to see.

I have lots of pictures but sorry only a few taken with the iPhone - I will update this when we get back.

Dirty Napoli

2009-09-05T08:31:01Z

We left delightful Ca Giosa dropped our mighty Fiat Panda back to the Hertz office and found our train to Napoli. At first we had a few challenges with platforms (it turns out there are three platform 6's) but soon we were sorted and whizzing at high speed (300kph) down to Napoli. We had lunch in the restaurant car which was like an episode of Seinfeld (remember the soup Nazi) and was hilariously funny though quite expensive.

We arrived in Napoli and grabbed a cab to the Hotel Palazzo Deucami which was really good. What amazed us immediately about Naples is how filthy it is the road is piled with rubbish, there is dog crap everywhere (this ended up destroying a pair of Eves shoes). The old town is dark and a bit dank, the famous archeological musem turned out to be half closed (another rip off). Though we did get to see the Pompeii erotic section ha ha.

-- Post From My iPhone in Italia