Today we started from Valle dei Templi in Agriegento.

Tourists come from all over the world to visit Agriegento and the well preserved Greek ruins that date back to 400BC.

For team though, the most significant event that took place in Agriegento was meeting Tonino Fiorentino and Liliana Buscarino from the G. S. Valle De Templi Sports Club. This couple really made our trip through the western Sicily a huge success. In addition to organising some of the local events, they also covered a lot of the running for the team during their 3 days with us. We could see in their eyes and by their enthusiastic attitude that they really felt the magic of the Run.

With the addition of Tonino and Liliana, our team had now grown to 14 people. This made covering the 70 km a lot easier. Our next stop of the day was with students from almost every school in the town of Naro.

As we ran along the main road, children waited to join us our way to City Hall. With every step more and more children came out to run a few blocks and by the time we arrived our group had grown to over 200.

The Mayor, Hon. Maria Grazia E. Brandara, gave us a warm welcome as we entered the official conference room for the ceremony. She was proud to express the town of Naro's commitment to activities that promote harmony and cultural understanding. After a brief TV interview we said goodbye to the Mayor to pick up our lunch generously provided by Laura's mother and father. We had now met all the members of our local coordinator's family.

Back on the road and we reached the town of Gela where we met the Road Runners Bip- Bip Gela Running Club.The President of the club, Canni Carmelo, and the Vice-President, Ilva Ciccarelli, helped us tremendously organising the event in their town.

Meeting local runners at the entrance to a city always gives the team tremendous joy for runners are always smilers and these guys were no exception.

They were all so excited to show us their city and to point out local monuments along the way. The veteran runners in the group were well known in the town and received a lot of applause as we passed through the busy streets to Scuola Elementery L. Capuana.

The children at this school expressed their excitement like only Sicilian children can but it was really the runners, teachers and parents that cheered the most. Unlike many northern European countries, Italians are never afraid to express their emotions in public.

With some difficulty we managed to pull ourselves from the crowd and continue on our way to meet the Mayor of the city, Mr. Rosario Crocetta and Minister of Sport, Miguel Donegani. They are both doing an amazing job at trying to improve the lifestyle and wellbeing of the people in their community. The mayor even followed us in his car as we left the city limits.

As we still had a some time available, we decided to head to the beach for some fresh air and a quick picnic.

4 brave team members went for a swim in the chilly waters of the Mediterranean Sea before we left.

With Tonino's help we leap-frogged with two runners on the road to cover the rest of the miles to Caltagirone.

As we arrived at our finishing point for the day we met by the Mayor of the City, Franco Pignataro who offered us greetings from City Hall.

The team and the Mayor were interviewed by two TV reporters and a newspaper reporter on the famous city steps of the City that led to the central cathedral. Some of the boys were still eager to run so they decided to tackled the steps but as they neared the top they questioned the wisdom of their inspirational.

These classic Sicilian characters were curious about the brightly coloured strangers that had entered their town.

The whole city is full of beautiful examples of classic Sicilian architecture.

Once all the official proceeding had taken place, Tonino offered to buy us Gelato. Not knowing where to go, he asked the local police that had guided us through town if they knew a place nearby. Only in Sicily would you ever have the police provide an official escort to get gelato. We felt like V.I.P's as we pulled up in front of this Gelataria.

We would like to thank the Caltagirone Mayor's office for kindly arranging a hotel for the team.

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Team Members:
Ondrej Vesely(Czech Republic), Nelson (Homagni) Baptista(Australia), Namitabha Aleksandar Arsic(Serbia), Marc Schrader(Germany), Zoltan Theobald(Hungary), Pierre Lantuas Monfouga(France), Enrico Eugenio(Italy), Rose de Waart (Holland), Madhurima Schepel-Engelbrechtsen (Denmark)

Harmonemail:
You can send a message to the runners or read the messages.

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