Today's plan was to see Noto, and avoid the mistakes of the Ragusa experience. Noto is a Baroque town that is on the same train line as Ragusa but much closer. We knew from the Ragusa experience that the train leaves Syracuse at 5 am and then at 11am with none in between so Mick investigated the bus. We ended up getting a bus at 8 am which took longer than the train because it has to continually leave the freeway and return to pick up passengers in the towns along the way. It was however the better option and we arrived at Noto - practically right at the centre of town this time- around 9 and headed straight for a bar in the sun for coffee. The bar was called May 16 because of a revolution that occurred on that date in the Piazza at its front.

We looked through the town with its incredible Baroque architecture for which it is well known. The balconies have finely detailed carvings and gargoyles. The stonework is honey gold in the sun, and we were lucky to have a fine day to make the most of it. Our luck with weather was holding.

The Palazzo Nicolai was our next stop. This was a very grand home of a very rich family and some still occupy part of it. Another part is the public library, and a third part is open to the public and has examples of old furniture and paintings. The nobles who owned it certainly lived in style.

We hadn't been in a church for about 24 hours, so we headed to the Church of San Carlo, possessor of a fine bell tower. We climbed the eighty very narrow and steep steps, and got to the top five minutes before the Angelus bells rang. We were standing so close to the bells and they were so loud that I jumped even though I knew it was about to happen. From there we could see the balcony of the Palazzo Nicolai where we had just been.

That brought us to the Duomo, whose magnificent steps made for an imposing entrance, immediately across from the town hall. A testament to the partnership of Church and State? It was much simpler inside, with lots of light walls and simple ornamentation. In fact, the roof fell in in 1996, and it took ten or 11 years to replace, reopening only about ten years ago.

One saddening sight was that of a couple of young nuns, African women, whose work seemed to be to dust everything in sight- and most things out of it. One was dusting every chair leg in a pile of a dozen or so chairs. Senseless waste of human life? On top of this,they seemed to being berated by one of those bossy women you find in churches all over the world - who act like they own the place, and are not very gracious about it!

We are by now very used to the afternoon closing time but the St Chiara (Clare) church had already closed at12 so we missed seeing the inside of it by minutes. A walk 132 steps up some of the picturesque laneways to the top of the town gave us a nice view across the whole town, old and new, and then we had to return to the centro level by another set of steps.

One of the ways in which a two month trip like this is affordable is using the apartment to its fullest. We estimate that one way or another we eat about two thirds of our meals 'at home' making the best of local produce. As part of making sure we didn't have too much food left over at the apartment, we had planned our menu for the last couple of days to include a good (proper restaurant) meal in Noto. We found an excellent "chilometro zero" place called Il Geranio near the town centre. It was a wonderful Sicilian experience that reminded us of our first Sicilian meal in 2011 in Ristorante Norma in Catania. The chef came out to meet us and tell us about his food, and the specials that were not on the menu, just as the Norma chef had done. We had a terrific lunch and were very well looked after.

Mick here: Anne had grilled swordfish with rosemary and caponata. I had wild boar stew with wild boar sausages. We shared contorni of orange salad with shallots, anchovies, chilli and capers and fried potatoes (not chips!). Anne washed hers down with a pistacchio semi freddo. I had an espresso. We were the only customers for the hour we were there. Tough business.

You will note what a masterpiece of organisation the day had been so far? We were feeling good. The train schedule suited us better for our return, and we knew that it was only about a twenty minute walk to the station - in the newer part of town.

As we got what I thought was close to the station, we were greeted by a group of four young girls probably aged from about eight to fourteen. Where were we from? Oh. Where are we going? The station. But that is in the other direction. You need to go back in the direction you came from and make a right turn.

Google had led us astray in Palermo, so it wasn't beyond the bounds, so as the girls giggled we went back about 50 metres, at which point I decided we were being taken for a ride, and we made our way down to the station on a parallel street to the one inhabited by our little sirens ( They probably were quite unaware that luring strangers to disaster is a local tradition in Sicily!) as they saw us walk past the end of their street, they called out that we were going the wrong way. They didn't give up easily!

The station was where it was supposed to be, but not the ticket office (none at this unstaffed station) nor the customary bar which sells tickets. We decided to simply ask the Capo di Treno, who was lovely, and went to no end of bother to find change for us. We train we were on was either the same graffiti covered rail motor as a couple of days ago, or its twin.

Given the graciousness of our host, Marco, when we told him I had bled all over his lovely sheets, and after three washes they were not pristine - he refused payment for new sheets - we decided to buy him a gift on the way home. Nothing says thank you like champagne and chocolates.

We then settled into our last night regime- eating the last of the food, cleaning up a bit etc.