"Long Weekend" Sicily 5---Cellenute

The day before went back, we went to Bovo Marina to potter. It was sunny morning, wanted to make the most of it, we packed our snack and water then we were off. It was warm. Then huge grey cloud came over, quickly it started raining again. By then, we knew what it was like the weather there, so we were relaxed that it was going to clear. Then did. It repeated many times during the day. When we got there, An old-ish couple with a dog parked their caravan and chilling out. We walked up and down the beach about 2hours. Sea water was cold but very refreshing.

Marcus noticed there was a little river, so we went over and had a look. Water was very, very chilly.

We lied on the beach, that point, sun was out and fairly warm till this huge cloud moving over towards us. Awesome. 

This sky is what it looked like after the rain...

We enjoyed our day out on the beach that day anyway, we headed back to our little apartment. I wanted to have an early night, to leave early there, get to the airport early.....And plenty time for our last visit to Cellenute.

To me , personally, I prefer this site than "Valle dei Templi". I think it was more raw. There was no metal gate, no fence to keep away from us, instead, there in Cellenute, I could walk on them and feel.... AND, there was huge ruined city. The city which ordinary people lived and died. It had sad histories, almost could feel those dark side. Thousand of people were killed. 

I bet it was stunning view and buildings. Again, this site had a two parts to it. €8 to get in. Could spend all day there. Next time we go to Sicily, we'd love to stay in the village to visit the site every day. The village itself looked a bit touristy, am sure busy in summer. 

I found the head of little statue. I wondered who owned her? Did the person pray with her? She was lying on the footpath. Due to lots of rain, probably she came out from the ground! Wanted to get fresh air? Oh, by the way, potteries were everywhere on the ground! Amazing!

I miss the site the most. Somehow, it makes me feel sentiment and same time gives me calm and peace. Magic!

"Long Weekend" Sicily 4---walks "Torre Salsa"

Not sure how many times we visited Torre Salsa. First, I didn't realise how big the place was. Whole nature reserve was bought buy WWF to protect the nature and tortoise coming to the shore and drop eggs. It was beautiful beach. I would love to go there again for our beach holiday! Remember, this is not a nudist beach. Actually it's very accessible to get to this beach from the camp site run by a German lady( I think she's not German to be precise). www.torresalsa.it. On this website, wonderfully well organised, it explains a lot about the place. And she reminds you it's (Torre Salsa) NOT nudist beach. I don't go to a nudist beach (apart from Greece and La Gomera), but, I think it would be wonderful to be naked in the beach... It had white cliff(rock), can you imagine lying on it in naked sun shining on you! (do it not very hot day...  :->) Arrr, wonderful.....

First, we tried to get into Torre salsa from on our way to this camp site. There was left turning. It was fairly sunny day. We heard a lot from people on the tripadviser site and Maurizio and Ivana (our landlords) the road there was rough and "bad". How rough and how "bad"? We needed to find out. So, We parked our car and started walking. Soon, we saw how "bad" the path was. It was really wet, marsh land. Our shoes were getting heavy... After 1 hour or even less, we decided we couldn't go any further, so, gave up. We found a little castle?, had rest there. 

It was dry land to start off with, then quickly turned into a wet land!

This is what it looks like when we were there. We had lots of rain, probably 7 days out of 10 days rained. Apparently, it was very unusual for Sicily climate in the season... Or maybe we brought rain with us from the sunny England! ☹☹☹

In this photo, Marcus is looking at the ruined castle. There was a tower on the top. We climbed up there and had 5 mins sit down. Very quiet. All we could hear was birds of prey were circling in the big sky. Then I felt maybe ancient(or medieval) people were doing the same, looking at the birds in the same sky... Wow! How romantic!

After that, we now really wanted to get into the Torre Salsa. So we drove off to the campsite. Only 5 mins or less away from where we were. We asked the lady if we could go for a walk on the beach. We paid €3 each to get in as a day visiter. It was well worth spending. Also, it was very nice site. Suitable for families. They had different walking courses, and does Nordic walking too. How fun! 

We drove right down to the beach. It was beautiful.

We walked on the beach. Sat down on the rock and had our snack(again!).  It was like a deserted beach, no-one around. Only me and Marcus. How cool is that? We found a huge crystal rock!

Suddenly I became a hippy to hug the rock!

And Marcus pretended he was meditating!

All fun!

Arrr, lovely Torre Salsa.....

Following day, we went back to Torre Salsa again. there were a few different way in to the nature reserve. This time we tried to get in from "Ingresso Cannicella" after drove passed WWF centre.

We parked our car after 30m after this sign . We just followed the path, thinking not far to go. I was wrong! We walked probably 4 hours in total at least. We walked the middle of nowhere, no-one around. It wasn't difficult path, just followed it, and took us to cute picnic area with beach under. The path reminded us Greece. Of course, path was a bit rough and really wet. 

Every now again, it rained. Birds of prey were hovering on the huge grey sky, looked awesome! We carried on walking, in the end, it took us to the side of the WWF centre. From there, we even more carried on walking the olive grow, thinking following the foot path. But the foot path was nowhere to be seen. We ended up walking down by the side of main road under neath the huge bridge. Then, we tress passed the somone's field, went on to the asphalt road. Eventually we got back to the car. We thought we took a shortcut.... I was a bit grumpy then.

Oh, by the way, the beach was cute. Again, it was peaceful, deserted beach.

This footpath looked like starting from next to the WWF centre. This sign actually showing you to go to where we just came from. Anyhow, it doesn't matter, does it, as long as enjoy the walks with beautiful scenery....I guess....

Sicily 3-- Agrigento "Valle dei Templi"

We visited Agrigento twice during our stay in Sicily. Of course, we wanted to go to "valle dei Templi" and its museum. Sunday the 3rd, we spend all day there. Due to off season, there weren't many people. Which was good, I thought. I never saw anything like that in my life, huge ancient ruins and temples. They were just look like ones I saw on T.V long time ago. First one we saw was one situated very closed to the top car park. We paid €10 to get in for the archaeological site without the museum. I knew that, we would be spending long time there, so, I wanted to make it as separate visit. 

We got in to the site, it just wowed me! It was amazing. From there, we walked down towards second part of the site. Ruins everywhere. I kept imagining how it was like, how people looked like, how they walked, what they did, and more. Those things blew me away. And view from there was also fantastic! One of the view I liked was Agrigento city behind the site with yellow flower on the front...Spring was arrived.

We just walked round and touching the ruins and feeling it! The most of temples had metal gate and fence to prevent from people coming in, but one of them wasn't locked. So, I assumed it was opened for public and got myself in, so as Marcus. We were enjoying the view and the temple. After about 15mins or so, guards came and told us off. Told them it wasn't locked! Anyway, this is the view!

Those photos are very close up from the side of the temple. I would imagine they are quite rare!?

It was lovely sunny spring day. Loved feeling warm sun on my back. Made hell of difference from English grey cold weather.

We were also looking for somewhere to sit down and have our snack. Anywhere would do! 

By the time we got to the end of first part, it was after midday. I was a little tired. Needed rest. 

Look what we found. It was a pillar for the end of the  temple. (sorry not sure what the name was) It was huge. Made me wonder how those ancient people built these gigantic buildings? and Those were cut very precise. I quite often watch on youtube about ancient civilisations and buildings as well as aliens, when I actually saw them, all I could say was :"Cor Blimey..." ❀❀❀ I just stood there looking at the ruins, lost words. Then... "I want to see more!!!"

When we got to the second part of the site, a stray dog decided to spend time with us. First, she was following us and then, soon realised we were following her. She took us everywhere. She knew where she was going. and She was a cute dog! ☺☺☺

After walking for a while, we ended up in front of the "secret garden" (Giardino della Kolymbetra)
I think we paid €4, cor, it was well worth spending it. It was huge garden with untold numbers of orange trees, olive trees and lemon trees. There were bins to put peelings in, benches to sit down and rest. Felt like it was a paradise! I can imagine hot sunny day after walking in the temples, I bet it was peaceful place to have a rest. So, that's we did. We picked loads of oranges and filled them in our bags, ate as many as we could and still left untold numbers and more! I told Marcus, "I can't eat everything.."

 From there, we walked up to another little temple over the rail track. On the way there, we walked passed little Greek bridge and very old olive tree!

 There we decided to have a rest, looking out the garden and the temple. The dog was still with us, and looked very happy. 

Slowly we walked ourselves back to the car park. And on the way, we lost our little friend. She decided to follow someone else.

A few days after our visit to the valley of Temple, we went back there for the museum. I heard a lot about it on Tripadviser, I was really looking forward to it. That day, it was raining. We parked our car in the car park in front of the museum. By the time we got to the museum, we were soaked. It was that much raining. it wasn't far from there, just pissing it down. We spent about good a couple of hours there. We wanted to take our time looking at those interesting artifacts. We met an English couple who loved archeology. Saw an American couple taking photos of the artifacts, again, it wasn't busy either. Thank God, one thing I don't like is packed museum and galleries. So, it was like heaven to me. 

The museum was good, very well presented, but when we were there, lightings weren't good. Some were lit really bright from behind, it made huge shadows on the exhibits, some even didn't have lights at all and very dark. Some staffs were talking really loud and laughing loud. Apart from that, it was cute little museum and loved that fact it was packed with wonderful history. 

When we got to the car, guess who found us and put a huge smile on her face! Yes, the dog found us. Again, she followed us a while and waiting for us to come out while we were having our snack in the car. Rain wasn't too bad then. 

It was hard to say good-bye to the dog, since she was so cute and well behaved. Anyhow, we headed our way back to Piana Grande.

When we started to drive on the road, I could see her running after us as if "see you next time!"