'Long weekend" in Sicily 2 (Feb/28-March/9)

On our second day in Piana Grande (2/March), first thing we needed to do was: to get a hand blender. We already had a "holiday blender", but we weren't sure if it was allowed to take on the airplane(Rynair). I remembered when I went to Mallorca, my friend Andy took it with him for me to make smoothies for his clients as breakfast. So, we looked into it, on the net, everyone said different things. Some said OK, but some said, not allowed. We didn't want to take a risk, So, we left our holiday blender behind......Still, we wanted smoothies for our breakfast! 

So, we drove into the town, and found a electric shop. Got ourselves funky orange hand blender. Sorted! Then now, drove back to the apartment, got ready for our little sightseeing.

It was sunny then.

By the time we were ready to go out again for our little walks, it started going grey. Oh, dear...Very familiar weather...(warmer though!)

When we got to the archaeological site called " Eraclea Minoa", about 20mins car ride from Piana Grande, it was pissing it down! Thanks to my new rain jacket (I especially purchased for holiday purpose), I didn't get wet! (I usually soaking wet, never really had proper rain proof jacket...) and enjoy the site. It situated by the beach, but that day, the sea was rough and grey. We paid €4 to get in, which included entering baby museum with artifacts. Wow!  Those were built/made by ancient Greeks, Minoans. As soon as got into the room (only had a room to exhibit interesting history and artifacts), I felt almost as if went back into the time... It was great little place. It wasn't like British museum, but lot more "RAW". 

We spend about a few hours, walking round the site and foot path. The view from the top was breathtaking.  I bet in a warm sunny day, it will look even more beautiful. The colours from mountains, orange grows and olive grows, smell of the sea..mmmm, yum yum.

It had a small theatre too. All in all, it was a cute small site, and well preserved.

We found a huge fennel along the footpath, looked happy!

After visiting "Eraclea Minoa", we drove to the nature reserve for more walks. Just wanted to check it out. I knew it was raining, but all day, rain was on and off, again, by the time we got there, it stopped.

This nature reserve became one of our favorite places to chill out. The sea, orange grow, cute footpath and full of nature and wild plants. Due to off season, it was quiet & hardly saw people walking there. Very peaceful.

Yes, it was well sign posted, but footpath sign was little confusing. We noticed quite often, we got confused by how Sicilians do signs for foot path. It was equally confusing as Greek footpath! Anyway, always find the way in the end.

By the way, we took the handblender home. At the air port, they didn't even bother to look anything. very relaxed attitude, not like Stanstead!

"Long weeked" in Sicily Feb-March 1

We just had "long weekend (10days)" in Sicily...Actually, it was our winter holiday. We were debating either La Gomera or Sicily. I really wanted to go to La Gomera again for yummy sunshine, then again, we never visited to Sicily before, so, we decided to check the place out! 

We flew from Stanstead (as usual) to Palermo by Rynair ("love or hate relationship" airline! cheap though). It was packed, yet it was OK flight. Couldn't wait to get away from the grey sky and cold temperature...

When we got there, it was warmer. NICE.

We hired a car but the company wasn't based in the airport, took us more than 1hour to get to the car hire place. By the time we got there (car people picked us up, about 20mins from the airport) it was dark... Then, we needed to find our accommodation for the night in Terrasini. It was called "B&B Green Garden" (www.greengardenterrasini.it) Although it's in English, it was run by locals. It was cute and clean place with good wi-fi, and all facilities. There was a communal kitchen next to the office. Staff was friendly, recommended us to go to the local restaurant to eat. Yes, we were really hungry. After checked in and checked a few things on the net, we explored the streets, Guess what, we saw... Orange trees were casually standing by the road. Loads! No-one picking them. So we picked some and tasted. They were bitter and lots of pips. We ate them anyway. We settled in this little "Italian kebab take-away shop". They had pizza, chips, salads, paninis and sweet things. I had panini without meat, Marcus had chips. That was our dinner that night.

Following day, we set off to "Piana Grande" in Rivera near(about 1 hour? way from Agrigento). Took us abour 3 hours to get there. Then we got lost.  Couldn't find the petrol station we were told to go, so we rung Maurizio(he was on the contact name) from a garage in Rivera. Very quickly he turned up, we were now heading to "Piana Grande".

Wow! He had a very pretty house, they lived downstairs, and had 2 apartments upstairs. Above pictures were taken from our front balcony on the sunny day. It was very pretty. 

Accommodation itself was very clean, neat, well decorated and cozy. Here's contact address: mfalletta@tiscali.it. It was called "rosso di sera" He's on the homeaway.com also. We had good deal due to off season. I bet in summer, it'll be lovely to just walk down to the beach for swim! Only 5-10mins walk! All down hill. 

Maurizio and Ivana (who owned the place) welcomed us with yummy espresso and canola. We had a couple of them, they were really lovely. Crunchy pastry, smooth, sweet, yet had little sour to ricotta mix, and pistachio on top. I hadn't had these since when I used to work in the Daphne's. We made them for one of our special desserts. I thought nothing special about the dessert that time, but now I had real McCoy and know now how important to make the pastry right, get top quality (in Sicily, good home made) ricotta. It was so yummy, I had to have another one. That was how I ended up having 2. If there were loads more, I would've defo had a few more easy. That's enough food talk...

First thing we normally do when we get to the destination of our holiday is to get some food in. We drove round the town, found a few supermarkets and people were selling fresh products by the street. we had no hesitation stopping, and purchased local(mostly) produce. Then we think about what to do next day. 

Thanks to Mourizio's wi-fi, we managed to look into some places we wanted to visit during our stay. Internet connection wasn't particularly well, but did the job, we just needed to check a few things each day...Not eBay though!!! ☺ (we didn't have a guide book...)