Mt Etna

For the very few of you who have followed my blog since it early days (apart from thank you) you will know that as I focussed on “What’s next” I have wanted to spend 3 months in Italy. In Novemebr 2015 we will – well almost- Insurance and Visa rules mean it will be a few days short.

Agrigento – Sicily

On insurance, my new post fulltime work cost saving regime means we will use our credit card policy which allows only 90 days for the trip. While on the cost cutting, yet again, I couldn’t face the cost of Business Class (just over double the cost of economy). We have decided however that we will only do daytime flights – we are not in a hurry.

To do this we enlisted the support of a travel agent something we haven’t done on recent trips given the resources available online. Our initial discussions weren’t that fruitful with agents suggesting that it really wasn’t feasible. Then we stumbled upon a very helpful travel agent who seemed to immediately grasp the idea. She understood that we are not we weren’t in a hurry so flying in a number of steps is not a problem to us. Infact the whole idea of this holiday is slow travel – apparently this brings the cost down? Using stop-overs in Singapore,Sri Lanka and Dubai we land in Milan having flown only during the day. Our return will be Rome, Dubai, Singapore, then home via Perth. To claim the Perth leg is a day flight is a stretch (lands at midnight) but it is only a short hop from Singapore – so I will claim it. We won’t have to attempt to sleep on the plane which is something I really struggle with. It also provides an opportunity to spend a few days in Sri Lanka, something that wasn’t on our agenda previously and for my favourite person it will be her first visit to Singapore.

Syracusa -Sicily

We had already booked our appartment in Syracusa. So that’s the centrepoint of the trip. We are trying out Airbnb on the other side of the world – for us that’s adventurous! We have about three weeks to get from Milan to Syracusa and then about 3 weeks from late January to get to Rome before heading home. Perhaps a few days in Paris as well?

Our children are also coming over in relays which will be fun across Mid-December through early Jan. It will be our older two’s first chance to visit Sicily our youngest having been with us in 2008 which is when the photos in this post were taken.

It has been great to read blogs about people in similar positions to ourselves as they have planned and executed their strategies such as

– Senior Gap Year

– Picnic at the Cathedral

– The Wanderlings
 

I’ve also enjoyed reading 

– onedayiwent

– The dangerously truthful diary of a Sicilian Housewife

– The Story of the Rough Guide to Sicily

I am sure that this won’t be my last post about planning our trip, however there is still about 10,000 words of my Honours thesis and a PhD proposal to be written before we leave!

Noto – Sicily