Honeymoon in 2011 - Getting to Sicily

The best thing about getting married is that it gives you one more reason to travel! We've had long and strenous trips with Inna before so this time we decided to take it at least a bit easier. We also wanted to go somewhere in Europe as we knew that we couldn't take it easy anywhere too far away, because we'd want to see everything and do something all the time.

Finland can be pretty cold in winter so we felt like being warm for a while. Europe isn't hot anywhere during the winter but at least Sicily, our destination, is relatively warm.

We started off by driving to Vantaa at 3 am and took a plane to Catania via Berlin. We used a smallish airport in rather snowy Berlin and we were disappointed to find out that there wasn't free wireless Internet. The wait in Berlin wasn't long though and soon after midday we landed in Catania.

At the airport we thought for a while that our backpack had decided to change the destination but finally it arrived among the last bags from our flight. One of the things which made this trip special was the fact that we rented a car. We had reserved the car beforehand and it was waiting for us at the airport. We took the car from Hertz for 207 euros for the whole week, which was very cheap in my opinion. In addition to this we had to pay about 60 euros for the full tank of gasoline. The price for gasoline was about the same all over Sicily so we didn't lose any money this way. We could have taken an additional insurance for 20 euros per day, but I thought that I wouldn't wreck the car anyway. One of the problems with the normal insurance was that in case of an accident I should always pay first and only afterwards I might get my money back, if at all.

After the first couple of minutes in our small Lancia I already regretted my decision not to take the additional insurance. The Italian traffic proved to be horrible. Within the first sixty minutes I had broken at least half a dozen traffic rules and it constantly felt like I would lose one of the mirrors any second. We also didn't have any kind of map at first so finding the way to our hotel was a bit tricky. We ended up cruising around the city center of Catania for quite a while before finally giving up on the search for a free parking place.

We drove through many small and cosy Italian towns instead of taking the highway.

We remembered the rough whereabouts of our hotel and started driving along the eastern coastline towards Messina. Without any map we didn't realize that we could have used a highway all way long, but the smaller road offered better views for sure :). On the way we briefly saw the old city of Taormina and found a nice road map of Sicily too. Unfortunately the price of seven euros wasn't that nice.

The Mediterranean Sea and green hills

Driving the small and curvy road was slow and it was already getting late before we were even close to Messina. We also knew that our hotel was at least an additional hour away from Messina so we decided to skip the small road and head for the highway. The highways in Sicily are in good condition and they are full of bridges and tunnels. The only bad thing is that they aren't free. We had to pay about 8 euros on our way from somewhere to Messina and from Messina to Brolo. By the time we got to Brolo it was already dark and it was raining every once in a while so we weren't able to admire the views any longer.

Sicily seems to be full of ruined, ancient buildings.

In Brolo we knew that our hotel should be pretty close and we started searching for the town of Piraino. We checked our map and took a road leading up to the mountains hoping to find some signs. We found a few signs but Piraino wasn't mentioned in them. We checked the map again to notice that there should be a road to Piraino from one of the towns mentioned in the signs. We kept driving along the curvy road full of hairpin turns and finally found ourselves in a small village on the mountains. It was already late and dark but I managed to find someone standing outside and asked for a way to Piraino. Of course he showed just the road we had used to get up. So down we went.

Back in Brolo we started asking for directions again and we had big troubles finding anyone capable of speaking English. In a while we found another dark and curvy road heading up to the hills and this time the sign said Piraino too! It took maybe twenty minutes to get to the top and there we were, in a small mountain village of Piraino. Everything seemed to be dead in the dark rain. We drove for a while towards the center and saw a sign of our hotel! We turned to the road and found a very narrow road heading down. We drove it for a while and it was totally dark everywhere. We thought that there's no way a hotel can be in a place like this and turned around. In Piraino we checked everything once more and realized that there really is no other way but the really narrow and totally dark road down. On the way the owner of our hotel called me and asked where we were. Five minutes later we found the place and still couldn't believe that the hotel was actually there.

The view from the hotel was really beautiful even at night and the owner served us tasty pasta for free! It had been a long long day and it was time to sleep.

Free Italian pasta!

The travelers

The Alps are amazingly beautiful. I have to get there, soon.