I came down the opposite side of Mount Etna to the one I drove up. This was the side that the ash cloud had gone over during last week’s eruption and the roads were thick with it
Villages seemed very strange and depressing with cars, houses and trees all covered in a sticky black layer.
I drove all the way to the coast where things were brighter
Mount Etna could be seen peeking out of the clouds in the distance
I swam in the sea and watched the paragliders land on the beach just outside my back door
Then I headed to nearby Taormina
A town by the sea, nestled in mountains with views of Mount Etna
It had a great buzz about it. There were weddings and parties and people sipping coffee in cafes
Mosaic flooring dating back to the 2nd Century BC
And the highlight of the town, the ancient Greek Amphitheatre
Constructed in the 3rd Century BC by manually moving 100 000 cubic meters of rock from the mountain
It was later adapted and used by the Romans
And is still used today for the annual arts festival
After another night by the sea I left Sicily and arrived back on mainland Italy to some stormy weather
I passed a friendly looking garage so stopped to get my brakes checked. They needed replacing so I spent a couple of hours in my van, getting jacked up and down as they worked. I got some new air filters too as my old ones were full of Moroccan dust and volcanic ash.
I had my last evening on the west coast, watching the sun set behind the distant Sicily
Then slowly worked my way east. I had one last stop in Italy – Matera
A town carved into the rock
Spread over two sides of a steep valley
This ancient settlement of cave dwellings is thought to have been inhabited since the Palaeolithic (10th millennium BC). This makes it one of the oldest continually inhabited settlements in the world.
You can see guttering held up by bones
And ancient Rupestrian Churches
Completely carved into the rock
In the 20th century it became known as ‘The Shame of Italy’ due to extreme poverty and rampant disease.
It’s residents were rehoused in the 50s, the town was cleaned up and it has since been made a UNESCO world heritage site
I’m so glad I stopped here. I felt like the rocks whispered the stories of lives that had been lived within them over the last 3000 years
From Matera it was a short drive to Bari. Everything went smoothly, I happily floated across the Mediterranean on a nightime ferry and arrived in Albania this morning.