Day 121 The Sea Between!

Friday 20/07/2018 (Day 35 SZ) Saganuma Saganuma Corso Italia, 385, Ragusa, 97100, Italy

Our day started with a truly yummy breakfast, for once when it said it was a bnb it truly was. Plus there were 3 to wait in us hand and foot... what unreal service this Italian family has given us! The owner Claudio.... pronounced cloudio.... then Giuseppe and Matilda Giuseppe’s mother and Claudio’s mother in law! My goodness the food was unreal, every time we turned around she would place more on the table for us! And you know me eating is like a sparrow... I actually had to hide some I hadn’t eaten in my back pack so she didn’t take offence to not eating it all... how bad am I!!!!

It as so funny 😆 our whole conversation to Claudio was with google translate! He mainly liked to talk to John I noticed, but that was ok, no big deal...

We had packed the car before our breakfast, and I had bumped my hand on the narrow steps as we catered the numerous baggage down to the car... I had a bit of blood around the place and Matilda was very worried I would be ok.. not one word of English had been spoken on our visit here, but we all managed quite well... thank you google translate!

The last thing I had to do was get out if my small suitcase the magnet boomerang and little koala 🐨 to give to Claudio, I have been doing this at most of our one on one bnb too accomodation.... anyway as I was getting it out if my bag Matilda appeared she was hovering over me while I was trying to get the stuff out, I soon realised I would have to give her one as well, and when I did present her with the koala, the look on her face was sheer joy... she just keep say thank you, thank you, thank you... I am running low on them but her sheer joy made up for my concern... something so simple gave so much pleasure... it made my day...

Anyway off we took said our farewells to Claudio and Giuseppe his side kick... before we left Claudio had been at John to make sure we give him a 10 on TripAdvisor his rating was very important to him... as far we haven’t done TripAdvisor we are only doing booking.com ....!

The area we have been is to be honest like the slums and as we drive through to the ferry terminal it doesn’t improve in fact probably looks worse... you can tell this is a very poor part of Italy, so very different to the areas further north... where there must be more money spent..l sad really you can see it was once grand as well with many beautiful old buildings, that are now decaying and unkept and unloved... they also don’t seem to have a civic pride in their areas... like so many of the European countries we have been in mainly the poorer ones the unloved, unkept state of the buildings, roads and general areas...

We arrived at the ferry terminal and all we had to do was drive into the line.... John jumped out of the car bought a ticket, we had to wait maybe 20 mins then drive onto the ferry, 20-30 mins later we had arrived in Sicily.... getting off the ferry on the other side was slightly better looking but not a lot...

While we had been in the ferry we had to get out of the car so we headed up top to see the sights..... while there we noticed a whole family of 5-6 with bright hot pink and bright blue shirts with Happy Family on it... it seem to brighten everyone’s sight just looking at them... not sure why they were happy, but it made us feel happy too... very clever.

From the ferry straight to the autobarn, no looking around Messina we had to get to our abode in Ragusa... the trip down, was pretty uneventful... extremely dry, dry country... gums, yep gums growing everywhere ...... It came to my notice that we had passed a couple of ladies of the night only they were in Day light... on the side of the busy Hwy as well... crazy girls trying to make a living this way... so dangerous!

A stop at an autobarn cafe, had me in stitch’s there was a guy in a muscle shirt and 2 girls made up well in sexy little outfits.. these were the crew that served us... they looked like something out of a sitcom... only an Italian sitcom... the guy was the only one who spoke English so he had to do most of the serving... it was kind of like watching models play at something they didn’t fit true to the story line... these guys didn’t fit the role they were doing... but as I said to John, for Italians it’s all about the look not the practicality of it..... and this was a prefect example... it was funny the next team arrived and they looked the part... an older woman and a younger girl with dressed for the job at hand... you could see the older woman getting up the Guy about something he hadn’t done... the girls had already disappeared by now and he was left to sort out the change of shift....

Interesting to see it all unfold no English was needed body language expressed it all.....

We past village or should I say city after city as they were all big, sprawling towns, with heaps and heaps of high rises... dotted on hills, cliffs and in valleys... all the way to Ragusa which is a fair size in itself... we found our way to our abode in the middle of suburbia ..... on a Main Street next to a deli and Pizzeria.... with a one and half door to get into it... up 26 steps to the first level, the huge open lounge kitchen and a bathroom... with a tiny balcony off the kitchen over looking the street! Then up 6 steps to another level then another 10 steps... to the bedrooms, another bathroom and a study... an outdoor closed in balcony and 2 little outside close in rooms, one the laundry the other a store room... this is huge and yes just for us.. we are over the moon... microwave, oven and cook top....I am in heaven...

The owner quickly settles us in and off she goes... we unpack, then have rest before heading down the hill as we are on a hill to see the sights of the town... a lot of shops like so many towns here, were shut down... then we found our way up the main area where there we people everywhere... plus the groups of elderly gentleman sitting around in their groups discussing the problems of the world....

A very large group of Nigerian refugees from the look of it, and heaps of unreal old buildings and of course doors!

We managed to find quite a few older church’s, a few little shops to get some stores, then headed home to cook dinner and get to bed...

I do love this huge apartment it’s given us space to spread out instead of feeling crammed in...もっと詳しく