The next week was spent with a group of our dearest friends at a Sicilian villa in the small town of Fiumifreddo di Sicilia, just past Taormina. We left Cefalu at around 10am and made the relatively painless 2.5hr drive to the villa (with only one or two crises of confidence). We did question where we had brought our friends as we drove through deserted backstreets lined with rubbish and abandoned buildings, but we eventually found the villa and drove through the gates to find a southern Italian oasis.
The villa is set in an orange orchard and the property has been in the family of the owner for over 500 years. There were three separate buildings that allowed us to spread out, a gigantic pool (unfortunately with no shallow end), a kitchen garden, sun-beds and several terraces with large tables that we feasted around constantly. Mt Etna could be seen clearly from the pool and we watched her every morning as her smoke drifted across the sky.
The villa provided a great opportunity for us to relax after a lot of moving around and with the temperature a constant 31 degrees we spent much of the time lazing about the pool, drinking spritzes and nibbling at cheese boards. Below are a collection of snapshots from our stay - Dave and I both got very excited at being able to photograph other people for a change!
