Wednesday 10th May

The intention today was to visit Monreale, the site of another magnificent Norman/Arab Cathedral, only 10 miles or so from Palermo.

There were only two parking options marked on Park4Night for Monreale and we looked at both, but there was no space for Basil. As we were driving through Monreale Sarah pointed to a gap on the street where Basil might fit.

I turned into the gap, but turned too early, with the result that for the second time in three days the rear side of Basil caught the front bumper of a parked car. Sarah sprang out. No damage to the parked car, which had big black rubber bumpers, but the scrape had removed Basil’s rear plastic wheel arch and damaged one or two other plastic parts which stick out from Basil’s size.

Again no damage to Basil’s bodywork, but it will mean having to buy three spare parts to bolt on and finding someone to reattach them.

I have no real excuse for this second prang. I’ve driven Basil for 50,000 miles and parked him hundreds of times. Maybe I felt pressured to get into the gap quickly by cars behind. I’m going to have to be super careful on my near side from now on.

Nerves somewhat shattered and confidence knocked we abandoned Monreale and headed for a campsite for a breather. But as we neared our chosen site at San Vito Lo Capo, we saw some motorhomes parked some distance off the road and next to the sea. I found somewhere to turn Basil round and we went to investigate.

We found it was a large area in a nature reserve where off grid camping was tolerated. There were a dozen or so motorhomes sparsely spread along the shore line and we joined them. This place is idyllic and easily finds a place in our top 10 camping spots of all time. We are metres from the sea and Skye has acres to run around in.(38.1229, 12.7253).