Sicily - 11th-18th June

On the 11th of June we flew to Sicily to stay in the village of Cefalu for a week.  This was a bit of a milestone for us, being our first trip away from the van.  We left the van at a campground in Lyon and flew to Sicily, via Munich of course (where else!).  In Cefalu we joined my sister Sarah and her friend Amanda for a week long celebration of Sarah's 25th birthday (ahem).

 Cefalu lies in a beautiful bay on the north coast of Sicily and was previously a fishing village.  It probably still is to some extent, although the major industry must now be tourism.  It looks exactly how you'd imagine an Italian village to look, with narrow cobbled streets lined by a random, chaotic collection of buildings.  Our apartment was really close to the water, separated from it only by a small piazza and the views were amazing. 

Our street

The fruit and veggie guy.  He comes around every (early) morning and bellows out what we presume translates to "I have fruit and veggies".  He was very loud but mercifully brief....unlike the guy who sells coconut on the beach.  It'll be a while till I forget his incredibly loud refrain of "COCO...COCO VERY ICY, COCO VERY NICEY....COCO"

Not too bad considering I didn't use a tripod and may have been slightly tipsy...maybe

Our place is the top floor of the house on the left of the picture

Drinks on the balcony with Amanda and Sarah

View out of our apartment- you don't get sick of that.

Sunset over Cefalu

The beach in front of our apartment

 At the inland aspect of the village there's a huge hill that seems to rise out of nowhere, called La Rocca.  In a passing attempt at exercise we walked up to the top one morning.  The views were incredible of course and there are some impressive roman ruins also.  

La Rocca, with the Duomo in the foreground

The Roman Wall half way up La Rocca

Views from La Rocca

The major piazza contains a duomo (church) which looks incredible against the backdrop of La Rocca.  The inside was also very beautiful but unfortunately we don't have any photos- at the time we dropped in there was a wedding on and it just didn't seem right somehow to start snapping away!

The Duomo

We really enjoyed hanging out with Sarah and Amanda, and it was fabulous to have the chance to really relax for a week and stay in one spot.  Most of our time was spent eating and the food did not disappoint.  I have never had so much pasta in my life and it was all delicious.  For Sarah's birthday dinner we took a taxi half an hour inland.  There were definitely no tourists in that small mountain town and the meal was very impressive.  The rest of our time was fairly evening divided between swimming, reading and napping!

One of the many incredible sunsets we saw

Sarah and Amanda hosted us for an AMAZING dinner at their place.  Thanks again!

Morg admiring the view from Sarah and Amanda's place.  All I can say is wow.

At one of our many fabulous dinners out

One of the lovely restaurants we ate at

I know, I know, another sunset photo.  But they were SO beautiful!  Last one I promise!

The inland village we went to for Sarah's birthday dinner was amazing, a true locals town.  We definitely stood out!

Sarah's birthday present, all the way from Japan.  Shortly after this photo we convinced her that waving a knife around in Sicily was probably not a good idea. She also has serial killer eyes in this photo.

Yours truly

Topless sunbathing = fine, walking along the street by the beach in your swimming outfit = not fine.  Go figure.

Overall it was a fabulous holiday.  We were very sad to leave but we're also looking forward to getting back home again (home is where the van is!).