Celebrate our club’s 70^th in true Sicilian style: great food, fine wine, warm camping - & even some climbing…

 Dates: setting off ~6^th April returning back to the UK during the first week of May 

So what are you going to do for the club’s 70^th? Risk life & limb climbing some daring do in the Himalaya, teeter on a knife edge above a 3000’ drop in the Alps, battle against wind & rain on Stanage or … 

The journey: all aboard the train to Paris & overnight to Rome – then amble through the street cafes, soak in the wonders of the Pantheon & Coliseum – sample Italian faire before sweet dreams on the sleeper to Palermo far off on the North West tip of Sicily. Hop on a bus and little while later you’ll be in San Vito Lo Capo – just a stone throw from a great campsite, miles of perfect sharp-limestone and the blue azure of the wilder reaches of the Mediterranean. It’s certainly an experience – not quite the orient express with Newman, Kinski, fur coats & murderous intrigue – but nevertheless a trip to enjoy & savour. 

The camping: excellent campsite abutting a national park and nestled between the rock just 50 metres from the tent and the Mediterranean a stones throw beneath the campsite. The site is very clean with excellent facilities whilst still feeling like a proper campsite. There’s a 30m swimming pool (you’ll need a cap!), small shop with wonderful fresh bread each morning on every other day the fish man dispensing local fish from the back of his small fiat. On top of all this there’s a friendly café, bar & restaurant with the mouth-watering Sicilian food at KMC prices and portions - & wine just a few euros/litre!). 

The climbing: around 6-8km of sun-kissed sharp and unpolished limestone. Very well bolted with good lower offs. Mostly single pitch and at all grades including shed loads of 5s and 6s. Basically a sports version of Stanage by the sea suitable for everyone from beginner to guru. 

… there is also a lot of other climbing in the area, a bus ride or car journey away and much bigger and typically not bolted. But it's not like Corsica or the Alps – they’ll be no snow other than on mount Etna (where there’s no climbing)

Walking, running & swimming: Excellent for the first two – lots of long days (or more for the cartologically challenged!) amongst rocky & hilly landscapes with vistas of the sea at every turn. As for swimming – around the campsite there are a few beaches but be warned most of the coast here is rocky & sharp. A few km away the small town of San Vito is awash with beaches with a great backdrop of hills and the national park.

… & there’s even something for the older members: for those whose history extends to the pre-tricouni epoch – Sicily will bring memories flooding back. Even Ken & Rob Allen could reminisce about their childhoods here. As they’ll no doubt fondly recall the Greeks were here a millennia or so before the Romans – with the legacy of their stay scattered around the island – truly spectacular and moving architecture preserved as if they’d just left. Certainly, Syracuse, Agrigento and several other lesser towns have no parallels out side of Greece – throw in amazing Roman structures, often embedding Greek pillars, and top it all off with baroque facades from when Rob A was a nipper and you have perfect recovery days wondering in awe & dreaming of Achilles, Homer & Kenomia – the infamous god of Wiskalia.

Overall: this area of Sicily is very quiet: except on bank holidays and occasional weekends when the locals come to the campsite with ubiquitous bbqs of Sicilian goodies, a few yappie dogs and Italian-style parenting skills. All a bit challenging for us dour abide by the rules Brits – but it’s only the odd day here and there and really adds colour and cacophony to the occasional evening.

So there you have it – and who could want for more.

As for travel: I’m sure there are alternative means of getting to Sicily, but having just listened to the Philippine representative at this years climate change negotiations (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SSXLIZkM3E) – I’d rather not actively encourage the big metal bird options – and anyway you’d miss Rome as well as the wonderful coastal views as the train hugs the shoreline of Northern Sicily.