Breakfast on the terrace again, with a view over the Meditteranean. I realised that if you can see a satellite TV dish, you know where south is, you don’t need a compass or the sun. It hadn’t occurred to me before. Another large jug of Americano coffee. This stuff is rocket fuel. I considered discreetly pouring it onto a nearby pot plant, then decided to have just one cup today.
After breakfast I paid, loaded the bike and headed for a shop that had LaCoste polo shirts in the window for €40, which seemed very cheap.
I needed one or two since a mystery stain had put two of my shirts out of commission. Same, stain, same place in shirts worn two days apart. The shirt on the right is 25 years old, bought on a driving trip around Australia and still looks like new, or did. They don’t make them like that anymore.
At 9:40am the shop was still closed. I thought it was likely to open at 10am, and I used the time to spend 50c at the railway station.
At 10:10 the shop still had not opened, and it was time to to leave Agrigento. I didn’t want to go the Google maps route to Syracusa via Catania, on the freeway, but instead set Zumo for Gela. It was only about 220km to Syracusa that way, and I had informed my BnB host Filippo that I expected to be there at about 2pm.
By Gela, the country was improving, getting a bit greener. The agriculture on the way there was mainly irrigated tomatoes, in white plastic linear “tents”, in uncountable numbers, spread everywhere. All the signs indicated Syracusa, so I was on the right track. After Gela the Syracusa signs were replaced by Catania signs. Since Catania was further along my route than Syracusa, this seemed OK. Eventually, on a comfort stop, Google Maps showed me near Caltagirone, nowhere near where I expected to be. I reset Zumo for Modica, and let him get me back on track. I learned that really tiny roads on Google are real proper well sealed roads with plenty of traffic. Towards, Modica, I pulled over to call Anne, who is now 9 hours ahead of me. The layby I stopped at had litter everywhere, dumped bags of it.
It was the same all over Sicily, at least, maybe less on the mainland. In Palermo, the streets were swept by street sweepers, but the footpaths were not, and had all sorts of things there. You had to watch your step. Yet private spaces like shops and BnBs, at least, were always spotless.
Near Modica I crossed a viaduct seemingly so high you could parachute off it. From Google: The Modica Viaduct was completed in 1968, 120 metres high. No wonder I had vertigo. In Modica I texted Filippo I would be an hour late, about 3pm. It ended up being 3:20.
On the freeway approaching Syracusa at 110km/h, I fleetingly saw a bug on a trajectory intersecting mine. We collided just below my larynx and he started stinging me as he fell inside my jacket. I was trying to beat him to death with my left hand as I braked and steered into the emergency lane. I never did find him. Normally I wear a “throat coat” to keep out cold air in winter and insects in summer, but it was so hot today, I had packed it away. Not again. As I was about to move off again, there was a light blue and grey Polizia car in my mirror, stopped right behind me. Groaning inwardly, I climbed off the bike and turned around to face the car, reaching for my phone, to try to translate my flimsy excuse for stopping on the autostrada. The two Polizia waved, no problem. So off I went.
My plan had been to go to the Neapolis: the ruins and Archimedes museum, and spend a couple of hours there. Filippo thought it was closed Mondays and suggested the catacombs nearby. But first, he very kindly allowed me to park my bike in his parents garage.
That was interesting, and an hour later I headed for the Neapolis to discover it was open, but closing. Serves me right for abandoning my real goal too easily. I should have gone straight there as planned.
It was 6pm now. I walked down to Ortigia Island, where the Old Town is, had pizza.
On the way there I passed a shop selling LaCoste polo shirts, and walked in. They were €90 discounted by 30%, but €63 wasn’t cheap and they didn’t have my size.
Somewhere near here, in 212 BC, Archimedes, the greatest mind of the ancient world, was murdered by a Roman soldier.