On the way there
Looking out at the Alps from the plane
Catania - Festa di Sant Agata
I happened to arrive in Catania at the time the annual 'Festa di Sant Agata' celebration was being held. Many people carry vast tree-trunk sized candles, alight, on their shoulders and process up the main street, Via Etnea, ahead of the statue of the saint.
Coast north of Catania
The sea-front and castle of Aci Castello at sunset
Taormina
The Teatro Greco in Taormina, with Mount Etna behind.
The Teatro Greco in Taormina from above
Aeolian Islands - Salina
Monte dei Porri, the second of Salina's volcanos, with its head in the clouds, above the village of Leni
Rinella from the end of the pier
Aeolian Islands - Lipari
Lipari Castello from above
A dumped car succumbs to the vegetation. The Aeolian Islands have a long history of human settlement and many archaeological sites - if this car isn't removed soon before it's completely covered up, it'll be being unearthed at a dig several hundred years in the future...
Aeolian Islands - Vulcano
Inside the Gran Cratere crater on Vulcano
The summit
The Aeolian islands of Salina and Lipari from Vulcano. The smoking crater rim can be seen in the lower left.
This smoking vent on Vulcano really was as close to the path as it appears, just metres away...
The volcanic islands of Panarea (closer) and Stromboli (in the distance, smoking (it's very much still active)). Here's an enlargement.
Cefalu
A ruin, one of the ubiquitous succulents and the castle on the city of Cefalu's hill 'La Rocca'.
Palermo
Palermo's Cattedrale
Sunset over Palermo. A world away from the chaotic and run-down city streets.
Agrigento
The Tempio della Concordia in Agrigento
Reconstructed columns of the Tempio di Ercole with the modern town of Agrigento behind
City walls and the Tempio di Giunone
Siracusa
The impressively sized Teatro Greco in Siracusa.
Fonte Aretusa
Sunset from Ortygia
Pantalica
Looking across the gorge to a Pantalica hillside. The many dark rectangles you can see across the picture are some of the 5000 rock-cut tombs in the area.
Pantalica tombs close-up
Looking out of one of the tombs in Pantalica
Inside a house in a Byzantine cave village
Catania, again
Piazza Duomo
It appears that they really do re-plant this flower-bed appropriately every single day... it must be hard work on the first day of a new month...