We dithered about stopping another night on the agritourismo. I’m never the most decisive about these things but in the end I did it. Flynn and I went to the Etna Panorama whilst Jane interacted with the local horse.Then off to the only real reason we came this far south. The Riace Bronzes. First though…

The weather is getting hotter so whilst we walked Flynn south along the beach we hummed and hawed about staying another night. We almost did – it would;d have been our first two night stop this month but, in the end we decided we’d get bored looking at the sea for a whole day. We…

Our stop today is Matera. It has some claim to be one of the oldest continually inhabited places on earth. The town of this name (actually Matheola) was founded in 251 BCE by the Roman Republic when they were on their way to subduing Sicily. The town is built around a steep y shaped valley…

We decided to stay on in the car park in Otranto for breakfast and a wander round the old town. We had some hope of shops being open but everything except the cafes were tightly shut with no sign of opening. Cafes open means coffee and another pasticciotto in a sunny square on the other…

From our viewpoint over the Adriatic we drove a little way south to. The Ostuni free parking was very well placed only 15 minutes walk from La Curia Bianca and even if you didn’t fancy that walk, it had a rather good view of the whitewashed city walls towering over the plain. Some people claim…

Rain stops play today. This is a brief break in the thunderstorms we’ve been driving through on our way to a camp near an old bauxite mine which is a lot nice than it sounds – or would be if we could see it. The weather is very unpredictable. Yesterday it was 27C and we…

There was light rain in Ravenna when we woke up. Not much of a problem as Sunday is a driving day with only one bit of important touristing. On our trip to Romania last year we stopped at the Roman town of Petronell Carnuntum in Austria and bought some ironic “Alea Iacta Est” tee shirts.…

One side of the mountain was sunny and the other cold at first light. By the time we got out for a proper walk it was grey but warm on both sides. The car park we overnighted in was the trail head for several walks round the mountains but mainly for the Via Sassi Stones…