The mountains of Sicily

 

Are really quite big! If you look at the photos from Palermo you can see them rise steeply from the coastal plain, and large areas of the island are mountainous and, if not, then definitely hilly.

Angie and I have just come back from two days driving around the inland area in a hired car (an adventure holiday in itself, even before you leave Palermo!) but it was great and we saw the mountains close up, with ear-popping ascents and descents on all kinds of roads.

Being a very car-enthusiastic nation, the state have provided some pretty good roads around the island, but it's a big place and in some of the back of beyonds we were grateful the car hire place had bumped us up to a big Peugeot 508 with high ground clearance. Less desirable in the back streets of Licata, our first stop.

In Licata our lovely BnB hosts were very enthusiastic about the castle, high above the town. So on a roasting morning we climbed up a dry stony track flanked by prickly pear cacti and Bougainvillea and when we reached the castle the view was stunning. Here:

The castle in Licata

And that was the first mountain-top castle of the day. The second one was even more striking. We drove up to the town of Mussumeli to see the  Castello Manfredonico, perched on this improbable crag:

And the view from this 2500ft peak across the surrounding valleys and hills made you understand exactly why they put it here. Here's the window, from which defenestration would only ever be a one-time experience.

Then today, to complete our run of Sicilian mountains, we decided to climb one of those at the end of Palermo bus routes, and ended up 2000 feet up a mule track with a view below to die for (which we did not quite do). Maybe now we stay in the plains.