Wow, that's pretty incredible. My mum jokes that Sicilians 'marry like medieval people' - meaning getting hitched primarily for political or financial reasons. Your story sort of proves her point!!

I've always found driving in Sicily to be OK to be honest. I fly from London to Palermo a couple of times a year and always make the long drive all the way down to Scicli - right through the centre of the island - usually in a small Fiat ot Nissan or something. The roads are great and Scicli itself has nice wide roads as the whole town used to be under wAter like Venice. A nearby damn blocked he river flow but they tarmaced the river beds and turned them into roads.

The accident is Gela was all my fault though. I was chatting to my girlfriend and didnt realise the street getting narrower and narrower. Eventually i just heard a horrible metallic sound as my poor car scraped along the outside of someone's house. I panicked and swerved and hit the wall on the other side!! Worst of all i couldn't reverse out the street and it was way too narrow to turn around, so i added another bunch or scratches as i made the tightest left hand turn to take my battered car back to the main road!! :-((