This was our second Christmas on the boat. This time in Licata, Sicily. We had quite a busy time! First Annieck came out to visit us. We had a great time with her. We visited the Valley of Temples, went to Caltagirone and visited the Scala dei Turchi. The weather was beautiful, we cooked, played Dixit, and had a relaxed loving time together. After 5 days she went home to prepare for her winter sport holidays in France. Being a student is not that bad is it?! On the 24th the Etna erupted and when she flew back on the 25th she made a perfect picture from the aircraft! This way she also saw that icon of Sicily, checked!
After 3 days of being together the next visitors came: Oscar and Matthias. The flew in at Catania and took a taxi to the Marina. They arrived around 10 in the night and we had a great evening … morning … as we went to bed very late or early! Oscar loves culture and prepared a program for 4 days full of culture! We went to Agrigento to the Valley (again!), to Piazza Armerina, to Palermo and Ragusa. And of course we visited the beautiful serene cemetery of Licata with the amazing views. The last day we had enough of culture and we stayed ‘home’. We discovered a few nice restaurants Licata and we tried to find a drinkable bottle of white wine. Which certainly is possible if you are willing to pay a lot of money for a bottle of wine. Like 20 euro a bottle, which I find a bit too much for just having a drink haha! We celebrated the start of the New Year at the jetty in Licata. We had some fireworks as we used the old flares. Handy to know how they work! You hope to never use them but in case of I know how to handle a flare! We just had a great time together. Oscar is a study friend from long time back. We know him for almost 35 years already! Thank friends for being with us this time of the year!
Than again on January 3 we had spontaneous visitors! Mieke and Ben, who crossed the Bay of Biscay with us, decided to pay us a quick visit to have some relax time! It is always a pleasure having them on board. As they are boat owners themselves they know how it works. This makes life very easy! We did a few trips but not too many. Ben loves to do boat jobs. So with Robbert they changed the salt water in the owners head to sweet water. And now there is NO smell at all anymore. SOOO happy with that! Mieke and I went to town on the electric scooters to buy the typical Sicilian things they wanted to take back. Never a dull moment! Thanks guys! It was a great having you around!