Sicily: Four Rs

What have you been up to? Where have you been? What are you doing there?

These are the questions we have been getting from friends, family and followers. Even mine host here is a tad anxious about whether we are having a good time!

Answers: Nothing. No Where. The Four Rs - Resting, Reading, (w)Riting, Reflecting

And it’s good!

View from the rooftop of our apartment this morning

After entertaining folk with tales from our first five action packed weeks, and endless reports of the ABCs

ABCs in the education sense = lots of school visits

ABCs in the tourist sense = Another Blimmin Church/Castle/Cathedral/Crypt!

we are sensing concern that we may be bored! 

Our travel plan always was to pack experiences and learning into every available moment for the first five weeks and then to come to a complete stop and reflect on what we have seen and done. We have a backlog of ‘stuff’ that we have not found time to write about over the last few months/years and we planned to create space to do this. This of course includes our current travels.

We asked a number of people for recommendations about a place in Europe that would be good for this.  Our requirements were: internet, sun, sea, peace and quiet, access to food somewhere reasonably handy - and cheap!

We had a number of suggestions but the standout was from Brian and Jean Annan who advocated for Sicily. I went online and entered our dates and stipulations into Trip Advisor and we ended up in Piana Grande, Riberia.

Corner of our apartment looking across the bay

There are no ABCs of any sort nearby, we are in an apartment on a 3 hectare section by the Mediterranean - 5km beach walk at the bottom of the cliff. Our landlord lives below us and presses tourist itineraries upon us. There is an agriculture service town 6km away, which is nothing like any town people from NZ imagine when thinking about Italy - more like an agriculture service town in the Far North of NZ.

On the roof top

We drive into town to buy fresh produce, olives, bread and meat etc and bring it home to cook. The internet comes and goes, but we have great 4G cell reception to tether our phones when needed. We do the things we came here to do. And we are very content, for these two weeks. It really does remind us of a holiday our family had in Henderson Bay in the Far North - minus the boat!

At the far end of the beach below our place

Pretty much a kiwi camping holiday - just under a roof and with internet.

If you ask us if we have done this, that or the other that people come to Sicily to see and do, the chances are quite high that the answer will be 'No'. I think you've got the picture here (literally) of what we're doing!

And the super observant will notice that the number of blog posts are multiplying every day, just not appearing at the top of the list as I am back dating them to match the timeline of when they occurred.