Agrigento, Sicily, Sunday 8 June, Day 46

This morning we caught our first taxi of the trip from the hotel down to the bus station. Luckily yesterday I had identified where the bus left from and where to buy tickets as the Tourist information centre had given us incorrect info on both. But we were in the right place with the right tickets and soon we were sitting in a very comfortable bus heading off to Agrigento, about three hours drive away from Catania.

It was a nice change from trains. The landscape from Catania to here is very varied. There are the slopes of Mt Etna, lots of dry wheat country not unlike the wheat belts in Australia, craggy mountains often with crumbling castles grafted onto the summits, strikingly awful towns of concrete multi story apartment blocks that make housing commission look good, groves of olives, sudden green valleys, some wonderful stone houses that are very much like Spain ...

The Sicilian roads seem to be a series of roadworks linked together by confusing roundabouts. Luckily the bus driver knew the way, and we arrived on schedule. Being really lazy we caught another taxi to our hotel, so I feel a bit odd, as I did not do much to get here. We certainly fell short of our 10,000 steps today though I think we will make up for it tomorrow when we head off to explore the temples of Agrigento, which we can see waiting for us in the valley below. Here is a bit of the view that we contemplated while eating an extremely nice dinner on the terrace of the hotel.

The food and the people in Sicily have been memorable. Sicilians have a wonderful sense of humour.  The hotel and the fellow guests are a bit weird but in an entertaining way so far. Tomorrow we will explore the temples and then catch an early afternoon train on to Palermo, which is our last stop in Italy.