Day 21: Duck Thy Head Geoff!

Be warned. This is a long post, even by my standards!😆 There were many fun parts to the last 24 hours.

After a long day of touring and wandering we went out to play last night. We first wandered the harbour area then walked the old city walls to catch the golden hour light and watch the sunset.

*That late golden light is hard to beat.*

We wandered along slowly, simply taking in the warm evening and the beauty around us.

*Is there anything more beautiful than Golden Hour?*

We eventually sat on the fortress wall with others and quietly took in the colours in this small space. I wondered to myself, just how many Mediterranean sunsets have I been blessed to take in over the years? I never came up with a number, but fortunately there have been many. I never tire of these moments.

There is very little twilight this far south, so we were very soon walking through town in search of dinner through darkening streets. The Saturday night crowd was out in force, and we later learned that the annual marathon scheduled for the next morning was adding to the numbers.

Many restaurants were full, but we eventually found an outside table at a small relatively inexpensive pizza restaurant. While enjoying our meal, things unexpectedly kicked into gear!

A loud song started and the restaurant staff tied bibs to several customers and then started feeding them slices of Buffalo cheese! Pretty funny and people walking past stopped in large numbers to watch and soon became part of the show!

*Everyone was walking in the warm night air licking and slurping various spectacular gelato cones! When in Roma…*😊

This morning we were up early thinking that we needed to be down to the harbour early for an excursion we’d decided on last night. We arrived only to find that the boat we’d planned to go out with didn’t depart until 10:00. We had no idea what their schedule was because the ticket place was shut down last night. So with time on our hands we watched the marathon prep and then went for a nice walk along the city walls.

Marathon getting ready to begin.

Eventually we arrived back at the boat and after loading up we departed for Neptune’s Grotto, a place I’d read about at home.

*It was really refreshing to get out on the water. Hot on shore, but cooler on the water.*

*Our destination was on the back side of this massive limestone headland!*

*We continued past the grotto and onwards to another island which also had impressive cliffs.*

Our reasonably large boat went inside a huge cave.

I accidentally shot this in slow motion!

Backing out of the cave.

The backside of the same island with the cave which as Annemarie will tell us, you can see!😆

Off to the grotto!

I’d figured out how to reach the grotto by bus, but it seems that there are some 600 stairs down the cliff face and after the visit 600 stairs back up the cliff face! It was an easy decision to go for a pleasant boat ride😂

Over the years I’ve taken every opportunity to wander into cave systems. I even briefly entertained thoughts of trying my hand at caving, but likely common sense got in the way.😏

I developed an early interest while taking courses in limestone karst research while in grad school. Later I was lucky to be able to wander through various cave systems accessible in places like Yugoslavia, Slovenia, Ireland, Greece and various others. The very best caves I’ve so far ever seen were a number of systems, both wet and dry, while travelling through Vietnam in 2008. They were simply spectacular, and seldom visited at that time. I expect that’s changed like everything else. Today another opportunity presented itself and though heavily viewed by the public it was a fun experience!

Neptune’s limestone grotto was apparently discovered by a fisherman in the 1930’s and has been open for public viewing since the 1950’s. The water inside is salt water and I found that it provided wonderful reflective qualities. Super clear as there are no sandy areas anywhere close that could generate any turbidity.

*You can see where some of the stalactites from the ceiling have been sawed off, presumably in earlier days for personal collections or more likely for profit.*

*Super clear salt water reflection pools.*

*Coalesced stalagmites and stalactites.*

Of course I didn’t leave the caves unscathed. I was wearing my peak hat and I missed a few low hanging spots. I now have a couple of red cuts on the very top of my head.🙄 Duck Thy Head Geoff!

*Adventure about done, it was back to port.*

We ate a few odds and ends that had been accumulating in our bags then went out for our main lunch course at about 15:00.

*We found the gelato mother lode! Probably one of the top three gelato experiences in my life. A last taste before heading to Spain. We did walk off lunch afterwards!*

Yes, tomorrow afternoon we are off for Barcelona! We leave these shores with mixed emotions. Excited to return briefly to Spain, but sad to see the the backside of Corsica and Sardinia. Brilliant travelling here!

While walking off our gelatos in the heat we actually bumped into our host Manuele from two days ago on the north coast. He had travelled across to here to run the half marathon. His father and brother live here so a nice family connection. A super nice guy!