Licata
We have had an amazing year sailing from Turkey, across the Greek islands, through the Corinth canal and on to Sicily - 1,900 miles - not bad considering we average about 5 miles an hour!
We have arrived at our winter destination - Licata marina on the south coast of Sicily.
This is the view up to the castle from the front of the boat.
Kingfishers on the boat next door.
The beautiful old Palazza Frangipane in the centre of town, now a bank.
On October 10th Katy flew out to visit us and we had a wonderful few days visiting places around the island. Our first stop after picking her up from the airport was...
Villa Romana del Casale
This is thought to be the country retreat of Marcus Aurelius Maximianus (AD 286 - 305) and sumptuous even by decadent Roman standards. According to the Lonely Planet guide it is decorated with the finest Roman floor mosaics in existence. Following a landslide in the 12th century, the villa lay under 10m of mud for about 700 years so was protected from the damaging effects of air, wind and rain. The beautiful floors were excavated in the 1950s.
The "Corridor of the Great Hunt"
This is 64m long and depicts hunting scenes of tigers, elephants, leopards, antelopes, ostriches and a rhino amongst others. These animals were captured for the circus maximus.
Detail of a horse's head. It is incredible how they achieve the shading in mosaic.
Scenes from the hunt.
Fish dinner along the coast from the marina. Happy Katy!
The extraordinary cemetery on our walk up to the castle above the marina.
The view from the castle looking back over the cemetery to the marina beyond.
We made it to the top!!
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