The travels of Tim and Megan: Sicily, Italy

Hi folks

On 16 August I departed for a few days of much needed sunshine in Sicily while Tim stayed behind to keep an eye on the Premier League. Our friend Neena has been having a great old time travelling around Europe for a few months and this was my chance to catch up with her, along with some other ex-Russell McVeagh kids. Kristen had done a fine job in booking us a villa and some hire cars so all Alex and I had to do on Saturday morning was get to Stansted Airport for an unbelievably early 6:10am flight and fulfil some duty free requests. We made it and touched down into a stunning Palermo day a few hours later.

Neena and Jono kindly came and met us (after testing the patience of Sicilian drivers...it appears you can crawl as slow as you like but once you stop, the horns and shouting begin) and drove us the hour or so back to the villa, which was on a hill in a lemon orchard not far from Trabia on the north coast. Libby, Kate, Kristen and Fab had put together a quality antipasto lunch and after that, and celebrating NZ's first gold medal (go the twins!), the eight of us went down to the local beach to catch some rays. We also caught the attention of the sole lifeguard who got very upset when we swam out too far (apparently past our knees was dangerous) and we faced the indignant peep peep of his whistle more than once.

That night we put together a very fine pasta dinner back at the villa and had some drinks, although the 3am start ended up getting to me so it was a poor showing from me, others fared better...

The next day was beautiful again and we took a road trip an hour or so around the coast to a beach near Alcamo Marina, which I would highly recommend. It seemed a bit like a white sand Hawkes Bay beach, except of course for the warm bath temperature of the water and the high volumes of speedos walking past. Italian men seem to have taken speedos to another level as they featured some decorations I've never contemplated on togs before. My favourite was a very fetching sunset with palm trees. We had another great day of sunshine and went for a seafood dinner at a nearby restaurant until we had to say goodbye to Kate, Jono, Fab and Libby who were back to work the next day.

On Monday the four of us (Alex, Kristen, Neena and moi) opted for a little road tripping over the beach and Neena bravely took the wheel again. She did a stellar job considering the quality of driving we experienced (tip: do not assume that a left hand indicator means a car is going to turn left or, indeed, is not about to turn right directly in front of you) and that we didn't really know where we were going and no one was too quick on decision making at intersections. Somehow, we made it to the Villa del Casale and spent an hour or so admiring the elaborate mosaics, some of which featured a beach vollyballer (see below). We then moved on to Ragusta, which we stalked from several directions like a cat with prey before nailing it and finding lunch and Modica, where we sampled some of the chocolate the town is famed for. Finally, we stopped off in Noto for the "best gelato in the world" (according to Lonely Planet) and yes, it was pretty fine.

On Tuesday we went back to the beach at Alcamo Marina and tried to store up some sunshine reserves to take back to Londontown. I sadly had to leave around 7pm for the airport and after a pleasant hour in the check-in queue ("queue" in the loosest sense) learning sign language for New Zealand and other countries from some Polish folk, I was off back to London, anticipating the German adventure which was just around the corner...

Megan