It is our great good fortune to be invited by Madeline and Roy from SY Mythrill to visit this famous nature reserve, nestled in the mountains north west of Syracusa in the province of Syracuse.
We leave the marina very early on Saturday 3 December, a gorgeous sunny day, for the 2 hour drive to the start of our planned walk. We are really excited to be getting out of the Marina and into the countryside for the first time. This is just great!
There are many interesting walks, horse and mountain bike tracks in this region,with abundant bird life, trout filled streams, and interesting flora.
It is an area of deep rifts with running water at the bottom and high plateaux, and home to many important species of bird, insect and animal life.
Byzantine churches and necropolises and many prehistoric grave sites (5,000) are distributed along the steep wall of the Anapo river.
Our walk takes us from the ancient remains of a Prince's Palace on the top ridge, down to the river 1400 metres below, then back up again via a different route.
We are soon passing many cave tombs and stop to admire them as we go down towards the bottom of the gorge.
It does not seem to take long to get to the bottom where we walk along an old railway track converted into a good walkway. We soon come across some locals burning off weeds which they have cleaned up.
They invite us for coffee and we swap for some chocolate biscuits we have in our packs. We stand around as the coffee is brewed in a small pot over a gas ring, then we all have a tiny shot served in small plastic cups.
We have a lot of fun with these people and they take us to a spot on the edge of the river off the track where we see a most magnificant sight along the river.
We could almost be in New Zealand!
We continue our walk, finding an interesting small museum with many local artefacts on display and well documented information on all the species which inhabit the area including wolves.
There are many photo opportunities...
We climb back up to the top and sprawl on the stones of the Prince's Palace while we eat a late lunch, driving back home through some very interesting and picturesque old towns.
Thanks Maddy and Roy, we arrive back at the Marina feeling that we have explored one of Sicily's very special sites.
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