Mount Etna - Catania (2)

Mor Toad / Moy Toad
David and Jocelyn Fawcett
Tue 10 Oct 2017 07:45
Sea was fine it was sunny and interesting to check out the coast line through binoculars. No beaches along this southerly stretch. You could see  at some point that  many years ago the lava flows had reached the sea as quite a lot of black cliffs along the shore which are now built on. Quite a lot of yachts and motor boats out enjoying the sunshine too on a Sunday  afternoon. We reached Catania after about 4 hours and motored up the port - cruise ships, ferries and small boats and yachts in a series of marinas up the channel but we were heading for one at the end so easy to explore the city, do any necessary shopping and for our crew member to reach us from the airport. Also Raymarine were coming back in the morning.









Another view of Etna from the harbour. Apparently Catania was devestated in the late 1600's by a laval flow. 





After a late lunch David and I walked into the town , came across an Escher Exhibition which we went to. Very interesting very extensive and  dry busy  as was the centre of town . 








Woodcut of Etna and larval flow in the 1930's. He apparently was very fond of Sicily and lived in Italy for a while. 

Plenty of elegant buildings and churches 18c. Lovely piazzas and people enjoying a Sunday afternoon stroll. We sat in one of the squares and had a drink and anti pasta and watched the world go by before returning to the boat for supper and for the arrival of Andrew who brought Sunday papers, Araldite  to mend Davids glasses, liquid metal and self amalgamating tape plus granola ! 

Monday morning Raymarine guys turned up at 10am on the dot - boat was taken out for a quick turn round the harbour to check wind instruments and yes the wind instrument was replaced. 'Not cheap! After that David and Andrew had a go at unblocking the rear  heads again as the holding tank saying full in spite of the fact David had thought he'd emptied it yesterday coming across. Fingers x successful. Finally we went out for lunch and had a walk around the city generally taking in the ambience. 










Lava Elephant . The cities symbol since the 13c a talismanic protection against Etna's eruptions 





Just love these pots - grotesque but quite fancy one for the garden. Need to find out more about them 

After that a visit to the chandlers for 2 smaller fenders and another supermarket shop so we hopefully can find anchorages going south to Syracuse and beyond