Out and About near Torre Salsa Campsite.

We took a trip up to the small town of Bivona, 40 miles into the mountainous heart of Sicily. The scenery was magnificent, but it came on to rain with low cloud so there are no photos worth reproducing.

So why Bivona?  Well, we’ve been going to Nick’s hairdressing salon in Bedford for 25+ years and know everybody there so well it’s like visiting friends. One of the lady hairdressers comes from Bivona and we said we might have a look-see, so we did. This is one of the squares that the gloomy weather doesn’t do justice to.

There are only half a dozen units on the campsite, long-termers of different nationalities that meet up each winter. They are a really friendly bunch and have included us in all their social activities. One of these was a Sicilian evening at a local pizzeria with traditional music. So here we are, a French, a German, an Italian and an English couple in the pizzeria. Sounds like the start of a joke, “Have you heard the one about the….”.

The music came from an accordionist and a singer who put an enormous amount of energy into his songs and also danced with some of the female diners. Here he is doing an arm-in-arm dance with Jane. The singer’s daytime job is running the local garage!

It was all great fun. The pizzeria was packed with locals, mainly families, so it wasn’t a show for the tourists and certainly wasn’t tourist prices; for starters, pizza, a beer & coffee to finish came to just over £6 a head.

Back at the site, our French neighbour Christian is a keen guitarist. He’s trying to show me here how to play some lively Brazilian rhythms. My hands have turned to wood, but I’ll keep trying.

 The walks from the site contain some fine views. We try and chose different routes, and this time take a dirt road suitable at one time for a car but now, sadly, negotiable only by donkey or tank. We see many rocks with crystals embedded in them; the most spectacular is a rock about three feet square. In close-up, the detail of these sparkling gems looks like this. We’re rich!

A bit farther on, the cliffs look like kneaded dough, formed into patterns and whorls presumably by volcanic activity. It’s almost like tree rings, as you can see.

And now you are not only at the end of the whorl, but the end of today’s blog post.