Today was a later start . I’d slept well to the sounds of the crashing sea,and with a shorter day ahead I was in no rush to get going.

The campsite was arranged in a series of terraces down to the sea-tents got the front positions closest to the water with camper vans etc further uphill and behind.

As I was packing up I spied two other cycle tourists on the pitch behind me -a married couple,older than me,with his ‘n’ hers Surly bikes . These are pretty much the best touring bikes out there and so I guessed I was in the presence of no little expertise and experience .I watched as they packed their stuff away -they seemed choreographed and in complete ergonomic harmony -no movement was wasted as panniers were filled, tents aired and rolled and bottles filled in an impressively well practiced style.

I of course was trying to appear cool as I packed and re packed my panniers, put them on the bike and took them off again, belatedly remembered I’d left my helmet hanging in a tree, tripped over a stray tent peg and generally just huffed and puffed and faffed about

Turns out they were even more experienced than I thought -an American couple called Ward and Jacky, they were on a month long tour of Italy, having previously cycled around the world (and written a book about it), veterans of seventy countries and counting . Wow. Ward told me that the previous day, on a campsite “rest” day, he’d cycled uphill for four hours into a local National Park-pretty similar of course to my rest day spent expertly procrastinating while browsing nonsense on the internet .

Today I had two aims -visit the nearby town of Cefalu and see something of the Queens funeral . I didn’t achieve the latter, despite my best efforts, failing to find any TV, anywhere. I did listen on the radio though and it was a really weird feeling to hear it all from afar, feeling connected but disconnected at the same time .

Cefalu was lovely though, if very touristy. A maze of narrow streets leading to a small main square with a Norman cathedral, it was rammed. It was described as the prettiest town on that Northern Sicilian coastline. For me though, the presence of umbrella led tour groups, coaches loudly beeping as they reversed slowly up impossibly steep and narrow streets and a good smattering of shops proudly selling tack made me not to want to linger .

One shop that I did approve of though was the one selling freshly made arancini balls-thats all, made to order and apparently essential for any middle aged foreign cyclist about to climb steeply out of the village 😊🚴🏻‍♂️

Climb steeply I did ,once again never losing sight of the glittering sea to my left . I also noticed a railway line beneath me that hugged the coastline too-later research identified this as the Palermo -Messina line ,surely one of the most scenic regional train routes around .

Tonight’s campsite was virtually empty-massive and clearly hugely busy in the Summer,tonight it had that familiar end of season feel.

I had a decent pizza there though and my sole dining companions ,an English couple did the UK proud as she (sozzled) loudly argued with him (even more sozzled) that Macron, not Trudeau, was the Canadian, not the French president and that Westminster Abbey doesn’t allow dogs in (who knows what trauma lies behind that 🤷🏻‍♂️)

She then raised a (very full) glass to “Our Queen” before bursting into tears, and the pair of them weaved patriotically back to their motorhome.