Tindari and the Coast

4 July 

It's been a week!  Who would have thought it?  I am not sure what I have learned in the last few days but it has certainly been fun.  But I am sure I am now better able to converse in Italian even if we all spend half the time wondering what we are talking about. 

The weekend was spent with my new best friend, Joel, who is the American in my class and who owns a car.  We had agreed that we would make few most of the weekend and travel into the interior of Sicily, staying over, and exploring the parts that we would not normally be able to get to from where we are.  As it turned out one of the girls on the course wanted to come along with us but did not want to spend the night away so we agreed to do day trips instead.  She pulled out at the last minute but Joel and I stuck to plan B and the idea of day trips away.  So after school on Friday we jumped in the car and after grabbing a slice of pizza in a cafe headed of about 20 miles west of here to a place called Tindari, on the coast, which has a set of Roman and Greek ruins sitting on a cliff top.  It was, as ever, hot and sunny with clear blue skies and we made good time getting there.   The ruins were interesting to see and you could see the peninsula with Milazzo some miles away across the sea.  But the heat was tiring and after an hour we 

headed out of the ruins and past the various cafes that lined the road back to the car.  Stopping in one for a 'grenita' (a typical dish from Sicily: slushy ice cream and cream in a glass with brioche. Not bad, even for somebody like me without a sweet tooth).  We then headed back to Milazzo via another small town, Patti Marinero slightly further along the coast where there are meant to be some impressive roman ruins.  We wandered around what was a tiny two street and 'two horse' town that had clearly seen better days before ensconcing ourselves in a big open air beachside cafe to watch the Germany/France football match on the ipad with a beer or two.  We would have watched it on the massive screen at the end of bar but the locals were unable to get it going until literally ten minutes before the end of the match.  I assume that was why we had waiters hovering around us and eager to serve because in every other aspect the place lived down to our expectations..... We decided during the course of the match that we had seen enough ruins and decided to kiss them off, particularly as we had we had not been able to find them earlier.  So it was back to the car and an early evening after the last couple of days of late nights.  Nevertheless it was still about Midnight when I got home and I worked on some translation work as a favour for my Spanish teacher back home until 1am.