Enna to Sant'Agata

3 May In the garden of Claudia, Rosetta and Liliana, just outside Leonforte

The train to Catania was a loco requiring a high rise lift. This time Phil and I left our bikes loaded and managed to haul them on. We decided that for this type of train two girls up and two men down was the best way to go! The train to Enna was a wonderful roll-on train. Hugely appreciated.

The countryside around Enna was beautiful but the climbs were hard: too steep to stay on the bike for long. Instead all except Leon did lots of walking and pushing. It was also hot. By the time we reached Leonforte we were starving.
We found a little alimentari open later than usual and bought some nice things for lunch. We were sitting in the little square when Angelo appeared bearing broadbeans and peas as a gift. He worked as an ambulance driver and was on night shift. (His wife was at home minding their 6 grandchildren.) He spoke good French (which was bad news for Heather) and loved singing the songs of Nat King Cole etc . He took us to a bar for coffee. Would we like to see the famous 1652 fountain? He could take us in his car. We would. He sang as he negotiated the narrow streets. He also had a chalet. Would we like to stay the night? He would love to put us up. It was still hot and we were pretty exhausted. We decided we'd accept the hospitality of a stranger and take him up on his offer. Thank you. We'd love to.

He drove to the outskirts of his village and then turned down a rocky country lane. There was a beautiful looking 2 story farmhouse further down the road. Could that be it? A sharp right took us to a modern brick place with an unkempt front garden. His son and friends were just leaving. We said hello and goodbye, then he opened the door proudly. A dirty tiled floor, a smeary, becrumbed table. A clean kitchen through the famous arch which his son had designed and he had built. A clean bathroom, a smelly bedroom with grey sheets. His wife rang his mobile and we held a hurried confabulation. We could not stay. The house was squalid, the garden too rocky for tents. How to escape? What excuse could we make which would leave his pride more or less intact?

We said (that is Heather said in French) we had been thinking. There was a nice cool breeze now, and we had had a rest. We had enjoyed our coffee thankyou, and the fountain, and seeing his chalet and the arch, but now we thought we should ride a bit further along our way. His phone rang again, and to make our point firmly, we all went and sat in his car, with Phil, not Heather in the front this time. I wondered how much more slowly it was possible to drive a car, but eventually we were reunited with our bikes and rode away. It was 5.30pm.
Through the town centre and then more hard climbing confronted us. The road was narrow and twisting and busy with traffic which was upon us before it saw us. We were carrying water and really tired. I felt unsafe and scanned every driveway and laneway, desperate for somewhere to camp.

Finally I spied a house with a piece of level garden and the necessary shrubbery. The gates were unlocked and a car was in driveway. I'm going in to ask I yelled to the others. The red faced apparition in the doorway startled the three ladies inside. I know I looked desperate.

I dragged out my prepared question about camping on their terra. They were hesitant. Heather came along. We said we needed somewhere to stay one night, would leave first thing in the morning. They looked us over, then decided we could be trusted to lock up the next day and said yes. They did not live in the house, which they said was owned by the family and used by various members. Not only could we stay, but would we like some coffee. Four coffees appeared, there was a mangled conversation. They were three sisters – Rosetta, Claudia and Liliana. We gave them a thank you card with all our names on it.

The garden was lovely, and the concrete terrace stayed warm as dusk came and we watched the lights come on in hilltop villages and towns as far away as Enna. Dinner was a nice soup and the wine which Phil had carried up all the hills.


4 May Free camp on side road below Troina

We left our beautiful garden and rode up to Agira. It was a striking hilltop town,perfectly cone shaped, mimicking Etna which loomed over its right shoulder. As we came into town, we saw a vegetable seller, not with a truck, but with a donkey!

We stopped, shopped, had coffee and rode on to Gagliano which was a most extraordinary dense hill town built under the crags of a fortified mountain. The road skirted the base of the town, and we wondered when (or if) we would find a food shop. At last, we came around a bend where the road out of the town met the road we were on and there was a panetteria on one side and an alimentari on the other.

The alimentari owner asked where were from and when we said Australia, he said something to a beautiful young woman, one of his customers. She said excitedly in perfect English that it was such a pity that here fiance was out of town as he was English and starving for some English conversation. She came from Gagliano, and had just returned after 10 years in London where she studied history, did a Master's degree and worked. She also found an English Fiance. But now she was back, working in the family tie making business. The fiance had come as well to work as a graphic designer in the business. In fact, they were getting married on Saturday, in Taormina!

We took her photo and then the alimentari owner indicated he'd like to be in a photo as well, but he was not properly dressed. Out the back he went and back he came in his green dustcoat.

So, lunch in Gagliano, then more riding, at least until the hills got steeper and steeper and there was a lot more walking up to Troina at 1100m. The scenery continued to be fantastic- green rolling pastures as far as the eye could see, with little farmhouses dotted here and there. We needed more water to camp for dinner, but were too early for the shops. Our plan to while away an hour or so in a bar fell apart when we could not find a bar, then found that we had ridden through town, leaving the alimentaries behind. We circumnavigated the town once more, managing to lose H and L in the process and found the supermarket which had been closed when we first went past.

The only hotel wanted 120E for a room, so we instead found a free camp in a little sheltered spot on a side-road which turned out to be surprisingly busy. Deciding that attack was the best form of defence, we waved cheerily to the passing drivers, who waved back with a mixture of warmth and amusement. After pesto and fennel pasta we fell into bed exhausted.


5 May St Agatha di Mitilino Hotel Parimar

Next morning we got up and continued waving to the motorists in all manner of vehicles, and they continued to wave back, some of them by now old acquaintances. Heather and Leon found us, having spent the night in the 120E hotel after a puncture. The reunited party continued climbing through the same gorgeous country. The gradient was gentler than yesterday, but the road needed our attention because although the surface was pretty good, corners had regularly slipped away or were threatening to. Blocks had been put round them to warn cars. A mafia built road? Onwards and upwards to Cesaro, spread along the flank of a hill with a saint atop the highest peak, arms outstretched. We had a long and peaceful lunch in the square, garnering our strength for the last 15kms of climbing. We passed through pretty little San Teodoro and then entered Parco dei Nebrodi which contains the largest beech forest in Europe. The clouds of the morning gave way to brilliant sunshine which dappled the road and grassy banks. All was peaceful. Hardly a car passed by and the roadside was sprinkled with buttercups, daisies and tiny orchid like flowers. We didn't need to get off and push at all – wonderful! At the top the breeze was cool but the sunshine warm, and we pulled out the almond cake with glazed jam topping bought at lunchtime to celebrate, then filled fresh pannini with pieces of chocolate.

Then it was time for the much anticipated downhill. All 33kms of it. We pulled on tops and raincoats,to keep warm on our fast descent, and we were off. Within minutes we were in icy, wet, white could. We peered though it, and could see little. We were frozen as we picked our way watchfully around the innumerable, wet hairpin bends, listening for traffic above and below. It grew colder. We stopped to put on everything we had – so glad we'd brought gloves and neck gaiters 'just in case' - and smiled at each other ruefully. Back on the bikes there was still 25km to be endured. Cows loomed out of the mist at the side of the road, their bells cling clanging. Horses too, also clanging. An occasional car passed slowly. Half way down we reached the village of San Fratello, hugging the road, tightly drawn and shuttered against the cold, wet day. We spied a little bar open and piled into its cheerful warmth. A cappuccino, three custardy hot-chocolates and four pastries later, we hit the road again. Sad to say, in Gail's case this was literally true; she was brought undone by a greasy patch on one of the bends. Shocked to have gone down, she hauled herself and bike off the road as quickly as she could, relieved that nothing was broken, though the bruised knee was a bit spectacular.

It was raining lightly as we reached St Agata. When the friendly fruit-seller told us the only camp-ground was closed, we got directions to the Hotel Parimar. The shower was luxuriously hot, and the pizzeria down the road was friendly, generously plying us with cheese-filled fried rice-balls, and a kind of pizza filled pastry as well as the pizza we'd actually ordered. The staff then offered us some of their dinner which we politely refused with full stomach gestures, but Phil forced himself to drink the beer they offered him!