Carrying on from Lois’ entry yesterday, we got ourselves ready and headed out for dinner. We’d booked into a restaurant just 3-5 minutes walk away from the hotel along the waterside, and found it without any issues.
We were one of the first customers there and got seated at our table, before perusing the menu. As requested, we’d secured a desirable spot on the terrace overlooking the harbour, which was a lovely vista for our final evening in Sicily.
Grand old building that the restaurant was set in.
Locals putting the world to rights.
Our table number was 42, which made us both giggle; the meaning of life?
After not being able to find prices for the restaurant before visiting, we were pleasantly surprised that everything on the menu including the wine was very reasonably priced. We wasted no time in ordering a lovely bottle of white wine, which was delicious, and would go perfectly with our chosen dishes. Lois has bruschetta to start, whilst I had clam pasta, both of which were thoroughly yummy!
We enjoyed eating at a leisurely place whilst the restaurant filled up and there was even a queue forming for people that hadn’t pre-booked; there was a really nice bustly feeling about the little area where we were situated, and the restaurant was obviously a firm choice for locals.
Next up I went for octopus whilst Lois took a pasta dish, both again very nice indeed – mine in particular included a mountain of octopus!
Washed down with a second bottle of wine, we chose to take a look at the desert menu and chose to share a key lime pie and a chocolate desert, which turned out to be a chocolate fondant! Both of which were so tasty, but the fondant took the winning medal. Lois tried a digestif of prickly pear liquer, whilst I took an expresso.
After finishing off all that was before us and feeling nicely stuffed, we gave up our table for a potter around the harbour, before heading back to our hotel for a good nights sleep.
We both slept well thanks to the good air-conditioning in our room along with the comfortable bed and woke to yet another sunny day (we joked with each other each day about how tiresome it had become, hehe!). Again, we enjoyed breakfast outside overlooking the local area and out to the sea on the top floor of the hotel.
The breakfast spread was very good, so we filled our boots for the long day of travelling we had ahead of us. We headed back to our room, packed up our bags for the last time in Sicily, checked out and loaded up the Fiat, again, for the last time. After managing to get the Fiat up the steep hill out of the underground car park, through the security gate and out onto the main road all in one manoeuvre, we made the short journey to the airport, filling up with petrol on the way. We dropped the car off without much hassle, but saying goodbye was a sad moment; we’d loved our little Fiat and it had served us proud travelling around the island.
After going upstairs to the departures lounge, we were prompted with queues; what were these things? We’d not seen this many people for weeks!
It took around 40 minutes to get to the check-in desk, winding our way left and right, with people watching and reminiscing the previous two weeks to keep us entertained. After a very quick re-pack after finding out one of our bags was 9kg over the weight limit, we were all checked in and made our way through security without any issues.
We had about half an hour before boarding was due to start, and after being lucky and finding some seats in a terminal cafe/bar, we had some extra sustenance in the form of a pizzetta, a couple of beers and a coffee each. Again, this was well priced, especially for an airport eatery.
Lois was amused by the translation used for an out of order till.
Boarding went smoothly, but we were delayed taking off for around 40 minutes for some reason. We were already thinking that this would put extra pressure on the already tight less than 1 hour transfer time at Rome airport, but we were re-assured by the cabin crew that there were other people on-board making the same connection, and so there was nothing to worry about.
As we taxied around the airport before take off, it gave us a last chance to say goodbye to Etna and after take off, we were treated to coastal views out over Sicily and on to Italy.
The gap between mainland Italy and Sicily really is small!
After a pleasant flight, we landed in Rome airport and started our mad dash for our transfer flight. It was one of those times where your gate was right at the other end of the airport and as the letters and numbers of previous gates disappeared before our eyes, we finally got closer, but there was first a short train shuttle ride. The situation was helped to be any less stressful as in our confusion, we’d mixed up the boarding time with the flight time and thus couldn’t see our flight on any of the boards we were passing! Doh!
Safely at our gate with five minutes to spare, we grabbed some quick food and got a bottle of water for the second leg of the return journey. People steadily filtered in, as there had also been a gate change to that shown on the boarding pass, yet the plane leaving the original gate was too going to London; great! Once we were boarded, there was another short delay before we took off, again enjoying fantastic views over the alps and beyond.
Then, as time went on, we left the sun behind and were greeted by that most British thing of cloudy rainy weather! However, we didn’t let it get our spirits down too much and it cleared just in time to sort of enjoy some views of London.
Once landed, we made our way through security and on to the luggage carousels. Bags went around and around, but ours weren’t there… oh no! We gave it more time, before noticing that several other British families on the flight from Catania were also wandering around in search of their bags. We made the short trip over the to help desk where, without any form of digital checking first, were given a paper form to fill out and asked to keep receipts for anything that we needed to buy in the meantime. We knew that this would be complicated as a) we didn’t live in London and b) we were going out for a posh meal the very next day and we were both very much still in holiday clothes, shorts, sandals n all.
In ernest, I headed back to the conveyor belt for “one last check”, which must have jolted the luggage gods into delivering our bags! What a relief! After collecting all three of our suitcases, I headed back to meet Lo and inform her that she could stop filling out the form. What we think must have happened is that our bags ended up on the flight to London that was going from our original gate in Rome and was leaving five minutes after ours.
We said joyful goodbyes to the other affected families before heading to the tube station to catch the 19 or so stops back into the city centre for our overnight stay. Using out contactless bank cards, as informed by the underground staff, we saved around 50% over buying two regular singles, which was a bonus and well worth remembering. People came and went, but we remained until we finally alighted and jumped into a cab out of the station to our hotel, The Grange Wellington.
Check-in was smooth and were informed of a free room upgrade due to it being our honeymoon, which was a lovely surprise after the journey home. The upgrade turned out to be a right treat, as the room was huge!
We finished off the night by ordering room service just before they ended serving and enjoyed some chilled time in front of the TV watching some of the last bits of the Olympics. What a fantastic honeymoon it had been so far, and we still had a Michelin Star meal to come tomorrow along with the train ride back ‘oop north.
Recommendations
Cutilisci – Fantastic food and location for a meal in Catania
Plaza Hotel Catania – Very handy for the airport and great service
Grange Wellington Hotel – Not just because we got the upgrade, but because it was very well priced, convenient and again, the staff service levels were very high – nice breakfast too!
Alitalia Airlines – Besides the minor scare of baggage loss, the leg room was great, baggage allowance and additional allowances good and service nice too