Otranto

We had the car for one more day so we decided to drive around on the heel of Italy, first stop was Otranto.

Otranto has a huge castle around the old town and on a Sunday there were a lot of people.

Some art, a boat??

Leuca

Right on the southern tip of the heel you will find Leuca. We found a car park outside the center and walked along the promenade to the marina.

It was very nice to walk there, they did a great job here!

We parked along the big building in the middle of the photo.

A village with a lot of beautiful buildings.

This looks like a castle but I am not sure if someone used it.

A promenade all the way along the village. We had a small snack at a cafe before we drove back to Gallipolli. The next morning we drove to Lecce to deliver the car. Walked back from car rental to the train and made it right in time before the rain came. When we came back to Gallipolli we had to go to the supermarket and decided to do it at once because it was no rain at the moment. When we finished the supermarket and start to walk back to the marina it started to rain, and because it was siesta it was no place to go inside… I have never been this wet on this journey, if I was not swimming!

Ciro Marina

The next day it was time to leave Gallipolli and we sailed over this huge bay to Ciro Marina. Luckily we could find shelter in the nice marina they have.

We stayed alongside the fishing harbour. They never came to get paid and we couldn`t find their office, so we stayed one night for free.

In Ciro Marina you will find a nice promenade and we decided to have a run in the morning before sailing further south.

Quiet and nice before 8 in the morning!

At the end of the promenade we found this wall.

Crotone

The next stop was Crotone, a perfect place to wait before the long sail to Sicily. From Crotone along the coastline to the southern part of Italy it is hard to find any shelter, if you don`t want to stay in a marina.

I didn`t go ashore in Crotone, but Astor had a walk to find some diesel.

Sicily

Siracusa

Siracusa is a popular destination for sailors. There is a huge bay where you can always find space for your boat to anchor. But the water is so dirty so it is not a place where you want to swim. Because the bay is so huge it will be some swell if there are a lot of winds, in almost any wind direction.

We took the dinghy ashore and used the small marina/abandoned marina. It is a short distance to supermarkets, a little bit longer to town.

It was quite windy the first days after we arrived so we stayed in the boat, but finally the weather calmed down and we could go to town. Ortigia, the old town of Siracusa lies on an island and is a really charming place with a lot of amazing old buildings.

A lot of narrow streets. And look at theese amazing balconies!

Jummy!!

***

***

***

***

On the east side of the old town (outside) we could see why we anchored inside the bay. Too much waves out there!

The castle. We read that it was worth going inside, but it was too expensive for us.

***

***

***

It was nice walking around in the streets and watch all the nice buildings.

***

If it wasn`t for all the cars around it could be a nice photo…

***

A beautiful fontaine at the square.

***

***

You can anchor in Siracusa for free, but in summertime they collect a fee for garbage. You can`t deliver the garbage, you just have to pay for it… and this is how it looks like around the marina where we put our dinghy!! So we are going to pay for all of that??

I can`t understand why they do this. I have to say this is not in the touristic area, in the old town it was clean. But anyway, I don`t wanna pay for this!

In the evening we walked back to the old town, because we wanted to have to sun from the other side.

Along the town quay there is a huge promenade. Maybe more busy in the summer. No boats here. You can stay 5 days for free here, but if the winds is strong and from south/west it is not a good place to stay.

***

The sunset came to fast so we didn`t took that many photos. And it got cold at once!

***

***

We had a light dinner before we went back to the boat. This is soooo good!!

We went to the market earlier this day and because they were closing we got strawberries for 4 EUR/KILO, so we had to buy…. We made strawberry jam and we bought some icecream for dessert.

Then it was time to leave Sicily for now and sailed to Malta. It looked like it would be nice weather! But while Astor was checking out the bad weather came from west and it was really bad, rain, hail and thunderstorm!!

Luckily it got better after 30 minutes. We anchored in the southern part of Sicily before heading over to Malta. In the morning we woke up at 6 and thank God for that, because when we came out to the cockpit the Italian Coastgard was visiting us, wanted to check our papers!

A little bit slow writing blogs at the moment, because I have a huge job making a photo event for our homecoming in a few weeks. We will have 3 events in different places and it is a lot to prepare!