Light house

Capo Murro di Porco

The first of the Sicily backblips - and eventually to be the last of them. After a few days of lazy lie-ins, I eventually managed to get up for the dawn on Friday. I was way too early and misjudged my position to see the sun rise behind the lighthouse on the Point, so Saturday was my final chance before we headed home later in the day. At this lower latitude, the sun rises much faster than I'm used to and the colours change rapidly. But in the few minutes it took the sun to climb into the cloud above, the sky was on fire around it. As I watched the sunrise, the melancholy calls of crested larks were at odds with the promise of the new day.

We had decided to use this final day to see Etna. There wasn't time or opportunity for more than a ride up the cable car from the tacky lava stone shops of the Refugio, but it took us to the volcanic wasteland way above, where there were views up to the sulphurous crater slopes. Oh to be there when there was a bit of huffing and puffing, but all was quiet as we watched.

Then it was the descent into the chaos of the outskirts of Catania and a dash through the madness of the Italian rush hour traffic to reach the airport and return the hire cars before the appointed time - or else risk a penalty. A bit too stressful an end to the holiday for my liking, we didn't make it back in time, but they let us off anyway. Miraculously we had avoided any scrapes and collisions during the week, so the scarily large deposit against my credit card was left untouched.

The queue for the security checks at the airport were modelled on the approach roads to a Catania roundabout, it was every man for himself. We were beginning to wonder if we would make it through in time to catch the plane. We needn't have worried because at departure time, the plane was still waiting to be refuelled!

A fun week of sunshine, good food, good company, and little adventures. Shame it was just a week, though.