Saturday June 6

We left Malta on Ryanair at 4pm - the flight arrived early but the luggage took over 30 minutes to even start tumbling down the carousel - fortunately ours was first off. We grabbed a regular taxi to our holiday apartment on Piazza del Martini where our host Jack met us. 

The apartment was a bit disappointing at first glance but you have to "go with the flow" and as time went by we decided it was just fine. Jack showed us around the unit including the very odd expresso machine (which turned out to be a disaster - more on this later). By 6pm we were ready to set out to find a grocery store and somewhere for dinner. After some difficulty we did find a grocery store and bought a few essentials for breakfast; alas they did not have any berries. Walking back to our apartment we stopped at a tourist trap (aka a restaurant) for something to eat - a shared burrata and a shared pizza. Wine by the glass here is very limited and also of the cheapest variety. We were finally back home at 9:30pm where we spent some time getting the TV to work - while there are lots of channels, all seem to be in Italian and none were showing the French open. Then it was off to bed.

Sunday June 7

We were up early and tried in vain to get the expresso machine to work properly but it seemed hellbent on spraying water and coffee grounds all over the place. I sent Jack a message asking for help - and he came over to re-demonstrate how to operate the machine. Give me a Nespresso any day.

We set out to find the Lidl grocery store and check out a few restaurants. The Lidl was OK but lacking in many items - particularly cheese and any wine over $5 a bottle. We did buy makings for our ubiquitous pasta/salad holiday home dinner, some prosciutto and Emmental cheese. It was quite a hike to the Lidl - a good 20 minutes but alas you need to be flexible.

After dropping the groceries home we headed out again looking for a deli and a wine store - we did find a wine store and bought a bottle of Mt Etna wine for 26 EUR but no cheese. We wandered around for a while then headed home picking up 4 huge bottles of plain water as according to Jack (our host) you should only use bottled water for coffee and cooking. The web; however, does say it should be safe to drink tap water.

Monday June 8

Today was our BDO (Big Day Out) - a 10 hour small group tour to Villa Angela and Valley of the Temples. To cut a long story short: the van was packed with 8 persons (3 across even in the front seat), there was a lot more driving than sightseeing, the driver/guide was the worst ever (we must develop a special plaque for this award), and the sites were boring - never again. 

Back at our apartment (at 6:08pm) we started with happy hour before even showering, followed by sambos for dinner.

Tuesday June 8

Only a half day tour today - Mt Etna. Our pickup time was 8:40am which can imply you will be the last ones which usually means the worst seats; however, our guide/driver was early and we were first on board. The van was better and initially we were only 6 persons but we added one more at the first stop (toilet, cafe and meeting point for other 4x4 vans). The tour proceeded half way up Mt Etna where we stopped for a 1 hour hike to one of the extinct craters. It all went pretty well - all vans in the convoy stopped for a late lunch at a mountain restaurant where those on the full day tour got lunch and those on the half-day had to fend for themselves - so we had a beer, Diet coke and a bag of chips. Around 1:30 the half-day trippers headed back to Catania - instead of a luxury 4x4 van we were piled into a clapped out jeep with another couple and 2 guide/drivers - the drive home took 1.5 hours so we only reached home at 3pm - quite tired. So we stayed home for sambos.

Wednesday June 10

Off to Syracuse (or Siracusa in Italian) today - see next entry.