Oh Sicilia

As Kristen pointed out, it's spelt differently from the Simon and Garfunkel record, but that didn't stop the song 'Cecilia' playing constantly in my head for the 10 days we travelled around Sicily ('oh Cecilia, you're breaking my heart...')!

As you can no doubt imagine, food featured prominently on this trip - shopping expeditions for antipasti before long lunches in the afternoon sun at the villa, and the "day of food" tour that took in Ragusa for its restaurants, Modica for its chocolate and Noto for its gelato... which actually tied in quite nicely with the underlying search for the world's best gelato (for the record, found in Palermo the day before we left in a pedestrian mall just a block from the Piazza Ruggero Settimo).

While the food was heavenly, the driving was hellish. Here are a few insights for the uninitiated:

• hazard lights are most frequently employed when a car is slowing down - a testament to how Italian drivers view the concept of slowing down
• indicators are optional tools - when they are used, it is not to indicate that you are about to change lanes, but just to confuse the driver behind you
• full beam lights have not been installed for use on empty roads - they are to be used as 'gentle' reminders when the car in front of you is travelling too slowly
• the concept of two cars overtaking at once actually means there are three lanes of traffic travelling in the same direction
• driving a left hand drive car on the right hand side of the road can really mess with your mind - to the extent that you start saying left when you mean right and vice-versa - not so good when you're trying to work out where you're going!

And following on from these insights, it only seems fair to also share some of the lessons learned:

• ask for an automatic when hiring a car - there's enough to deal with without also having to get your head around changing gears with the wrong hand
• also make sure you hire a compact car - while the extra boot space may sound like a good idea to begin with, suck it in and pack light because the roads are narrow, car parking spots are tight and station wagons are just impractical
• pay the extra money to get multiple drivers insured - always best to share the load
• hire a sat nav - maps often aren't detailed enough and if you choose to rely on road signs, watch out - Italians place their road signs on the turn rather than giving tourists a bit of warning that an off ramp is approaching; when there are road signs, they often point to 9 different destinations at once so you have to be a speed reader to work out which one you're after; and signs to a main town don't always take you by the most direct route (as we found out when we were directed onto farm roads between Marsala and Trapani)

Sights wise, the restaurants on the sea front at Cefalu, the white cliff at Scala dei Turchi, the beaches at San Vito lo Capo and Castellammare del Golfo and the temples at Agrigento were all amazing but had to fight hard to compete with fluoro speedos and tight pink shirts on tanned Italian men!

Hiring a house with some of the crew from Russell McVeagh was an awesome way to spend a week and Kristen pulled out all the trumps in finding us the villa (minus the snakes we heard about but never saw!). Time to start planning next year's annual escape... we're thinking Portugal, or perhaps a French wine-growing region...