16-Day Driving Trip in Sicily
Jan 18th, 2016, 06:46 AM
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16-Day Driving Trip in Sicily
SICILY TRIP REPORT
The overview:
My husband and I, in our early 60s and pretty active, spent 16 days, traveling by rental car, in Sicily and three days in Rome in late October and early November. It was a great time to go: The weather was mild and pleasant and the crowds were nonexistent. I had brought a light down jacket, I wore it only twice, and wouldn't bring it again. In Rome in November the temperature did drop at night.
Our itinerary:
Palermo 3 nights
Erice 2 nights
Marsala 1night
Agrigento olive farm 2 nights
Modica 2 nights
Siracuse 2 nights
Taormina 3 nights
Rome 3 nights
What worked:
We would recommend staying two nights in each location because you'll probably end up driving into each too late to see anything that day. We found that most things offered in organized tours, such as cooking classes, could easily be arranged on your own, but of course it takes time to do the finding and arranging. I used trip reports in Fodor Forum a lot (thanks to all). I also used organized-tour itineraries to help plot our course. I agree with those who recommend NOT driving in Palermo and instead picking up a rental car as you leave town. After Palermo, driving was easy everywhere; the trickiest part was negotiating narrow streets in ancient towns. Sicilians spoke at least a bit of English almost everywhere we went, but we didn't see many Americans.
What didn't work:
Daylight savings time changed in our first week, giving us an hour less of daylight to see things. We would try to avoid that next time. Traveling on our own, we did run into closures that we didn't know about; an organized tour probably would have known about most of these, but not all (ruins in Siracuse closed because of rain). We didn't pay enough attention to the fact that many sites, especially churches, close for hours at lunch. We would have preferred a smaller car for two people, but ours did hide the luggage in the trunk.
Conclusion:
Sicily is a wonderful, easy land to visit on your own, but it's laid-back and you need to be too. One guidebook said "prepare to be disappointed" because things can be closed when they're supposed to be open, no reason given. Every time that happened to us, we laughed and said "prepare to be disappointed!" Fortunately, there's so many sights that if you miss one it's no big deal. There's wine and fabulous food at dinner somewhere every night!
Day 1 October 21 2015 OUR FIRST MISTAKE
Left Miami airport at 8:35 pm on Alitalia on frequent-flyer tickets. I had realized too late I could probably have gotten our frequent-flyer tickets thru to Sicily because we ended up flying the short hop from Rome to Palermo on Alitalia. But I booked the main leg first, from Miami to Rome, and the puddle jumpers to and from Sicily weeks later. The Air Bus 737 had entertainment boxes under many seats which narrow leg room. But at least the entertainment system worked, which has not always been the case.
Day 2 Oct 22 ARRIVING IN PALERMO
Arrived on time, claimed bags and had a four-hour wait for puddle jumper. Another Alitalia flight had left earlier but it cost more than twice as much. So we waited. Almost missed the plane because it changed gates twice and we didn't hear the announcement, if there even was an announcement in English! By the time we got to Palermo it was dark and I thought to call our B&B, BB22, as it is not a big hotel where someone is on staff all the time. They leave at 8! They had been trying to call us, they said. They gave us the code for the front door, told us our room was on the third floor, and said the key would be in the room's door.
They said if we took a bus we would not be there before 8, so we sprung for a taxi, which was $60. The bus is $12.60 for two. The cab driver said his cab couldn't go into the narrow, twisting street where BB22 was, which turned out not to be true, but he let us out in front of the San Domenico Church plaza and we walked from there. Suitcases rolling over cobblestones. It's only about 2 blocks but it's confusing. We had to call twice, and tho the staffers were not there, they answered and helped us. We finally saw one of the many little B&B signs posted around the area and we got there.
No lobby, as it's an old mansion or palace which had been converted into apartments. Eight years ago a person from Milan bought it and turned it into a stylish B&B. No lift; don't come here if you have a lot of luggage and are not Hercules! The public area is on the third floor across from our room. It has a staff desk, breakfast tables and a lounging room with an honor bar. Our room was quite modern and Italian chic, with a florid antique chair painted shiny silver. Lovely modern and spacious bathroom, and a tiny balcony with a funky multicolored chandelier looked out over a jungle of a lot next door, many red-tiled roofs and a sliver of the sea. (www.bb22.it)
We dropped our bags and looked for dinner ideas in the "things to do" notebook nicely provided by the B&B. We picked out Antonia Fresca's trattoria nearby, and found it by wandering around. Apparently it's a Palermo institution. During the day, there are seats on the piazza by the old church; at night it's kind of cafeteria style. We ended up with a veal spleen sandwich, their specialty, and two other specialties: sardines wrapped around an orange-flavored couscous and an arancina with ham and cheese. Arancinas are big rice balls filled with whatever, Sicily's favorite fast food. Lots of folks in there but not overrun. About $16 including a glass of wine and a beer, Moretti much to Chris's pleasure. Walked back and went to bed.
The overview:
My husband and I, in our early 60s and pretty active, spent 16 days, traveling by rental car, in Sicily and three days in Rome in late October and early November. It was a great time to go: The weather was mild and pleasant and the crowds were nonexistent. I had brought a light down jacket, I wore it only twice, and wouldn't bring it again. In Rome in November the temperature did drop at night.
Our itinerary:
Palermo 3 nights
Erice 2 nights
Marsala 1night
Agrigento olive farm 2 nights
Modica 2 nights
Siracuse 2 nights
Taormina 3 nights
Rome 3 nights
What worked:
We would recommend staying two nights in each location because you'll probably end up driving into each too late to see anything that day. We found that most things offered in organized tours, such as cooking classes, could easily be arranged on your own, but of course it takes time to do the finding and arranging. I used trip reports in Fodor Forum a lot (thanks to all). I also used organized-tour itineraries to help plot our course. I agree with those who recommend NOT driving in Palermo and instead picking up a rental car as you leave town. After Palermo, driving was easy everywhere; the trickiest part was negotiating narrow streets in ancient towns. Sicilians spoke at least a bit of English almost everywhere we went, but we didn't see many Americans.
What didn't work:
Daylight savings time changed in our first week, giving us an hour less of daylight to see things. We would try to avoid that next time. Traveling on our own, we did run into closures that we didn't know about; an organized tour probably would have known about most of these, but not all (ruins in Siracuse closed because of rain). We didn't pay enough attention to the fact that many sites, especially churches, close for hours at lunch. We would have preferred a smaller car for two people, but ours did hide the luggage in the trunk.
Conclusion:
Sicily is a wonderful, easy land to visit on your own, but it's laid-back and you need to be too. One guidebook said "prepare to be disappointed" because things can be closed when they're supposed to be open, no reason given. Every time that happened to us, we laughed and said "prepare to be disappointed!" Fortunately, there's so many sights that if you miss one it's no big deal. There's wine and fabulous food at dinner somewhere every night!
Day 1 October 21 2015 OUR FIRST MISTAKE
Left Miami airport at 8:35 pm on Alitalia on frequent-flyer tickets. I had realized too late I could probably have gotten our frequent-flyer tickets thru to Sicily because we ended up flying the short hop from Rome to Palermo on Alitalia. But I booked the main leg first, from Miami to Rome, and the puddle jumpers to and from Sicily weeks later. The Air Bus 737 had entertainment boxes under many seats which narrow leg room. But at least the entertainment system worked, which has not always been the case.
Day 2 Oct 22 ARRIVING IN PALERMO
Arrived on time, claimed bags and had a four-hour wait for puddle jumper. Another Alitalia flight had left earlier but it cost more than twice as much. So we waited. Almost missed the plane because it changed gates twice and we didn't hear the announcement, if there even was an announcement in English! By the time we got to Palermo it was dark and I thought to call our B&B, BB22, as it is not a big hotel where someone is on staff all the time. They leave at 8! They had been trying to call us, they said. They gave us the code for the front door, told us our room was on the third floor, and said the key would be in the room's door.
They said if we took a bus we would not be there before 8, so we sprung for a taxi, which was $60. The bus is $12.60 for two. The cab driver said his cab couldn't go into the narrow, twisting street where BB22 was, which turned out not to be true, but he let us out in front of the San Domenico Church plaza and we walked from there. Suitcases rolling over cobblestones. It's only about 2 blocks but it's confusing. We had to call twice, and tho the staffers were not there, they answered and helped us. We finally saw one of the many little B&B signs posted around the area and we got there.
No lobby, as it's an old mansion or palace which had been converted into apartments. Eight years ago a person from Milan bought it and turned it into a stylish B&B. No lift; don't come here if you have a lot of luggage and are not Hercules! The public area is on the third floor across from our room. It has a staff desk, breakfast tables and a lounging room with an honor bar. Our room was quite modern and Italian chic, with a florid antique chair painted shiny silver. Lovely modern and spacious bathroom, and a tiny balcony with a funky multicolored chandelier looked out over a jungle of a lot next door, many red-tiled roofs and a sliver of the sea. (www.bb22.it)
We dropped our bags and looked for dinner ideas in the "things to do" notebook nicely provided by the B&B. We picked out Antonia Fresca's trattoria nearby, and found it by wandering around. Apparently it's a Palermo institution. During the day, there are seats on the piazza by the old church; at night it's kind of cafeteria style. We ended up with a veal spleen sandwich, their specialty, and two other specialties: sardines wrapped around an orange-flavored couscous and an arancina with ham and cheese. Arancinas are big rice balls filled with whatever, Sicily's favorite fast food. Lots of folks in there but not overrun. About $16 including a glass of wine and a beer, Moretti much to Chris's pleasure. Walked back and went to bed.
Jan 18th, 2016, 07:41 AM
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Day 3 Oct 23 Friday PALERMO FIRST DAY
We got up in time for the BB22 breakfast, which was nicely average: yogurt, various carbs, cereal, juices. Met Emanuela, a lovely young woman who would be on duty our entire stay. Chatty and helpful. She suggested restaurants for us and offered to make reservations for the casual one we picked out tonight and the fancier one tomorrow. Then we were off to tour the west side of town, with the highlight being the Norman Palace, at the top of everyone's list in Sicily.
We walked through the Four Corners of the old city, with its four Baroque buildings nodding to each other, a beautiful start. Palermo was fun to walk around, window and church shopping! We admired the racy fountain statues in Piazza Pretoria and toured the Piazza Bellini. Then we made our way to the Ballaro Market, and we were dazzled by all the great stuff that comes out of the sea, particularly those photogenic squid and swordfish. We keep eyeing something orange that looked like a tomato, and finally someone told us it was a "Loti," but in English it's a persimmon. They were in season and we'd never had them before. Once we tasted how sweet they were, we ate them whenever we could the whole trip!
We stopped for a snack at an outdoor Sicilian street-food place near St John of the Hermits church, whose lovely garden we toured. Then it was on to the Norman Palace. Turned out the Palace closed that day at 2; it was 2:30. Not sure why. The guard said to come back "domani." Glad we have a tomorrow! It was our first instance of "prepare for disappointment" with things closing early or not bring open that day for no appreciable reason, etc etc. We learned not to count on anything. So, we headed back toward the hotel, stopping at the impressive Cathedral where we experienced our first beggar garnering money by holding the cathedral door open and proffering a cup. We figured he was a church worker taking donations as people entered. Not so! We had our first taste of Sicily's famous granita at a cafe across the street. Surprise: my lemon granita tasted just like a Del's Frozen Lemonade, which is practically the official drink of Rhode Island, where we've lived for years. I mean Just Like. I guess no surprise as Rhode Island was settled by Italians, including a big Sicily contingent.
We recovered by relaxing in our hotel room with a beer from the honor bar. Then went around the corner to Trattoria Mangi y Bevi at 8:30. Emanuela refused to make us earlier reservations because, she said, we'd be eating all alone! Sicilians eat late. Sure enough even then we were among the first diners at this picturesque restaurant where the stone walls are covered with art and the wooden tables have red-and-white-checked runners.
We absolutely loved our meal. We were glad we had reservations because they were full for the night. Our starters were fabulous, a hefty serving of spring onions wrapped in bacon and a sizzling pan of melted cheese fondue (reminiscent of Greek saganaki). Next we shared the pasta with anchovies, which turned out to be a tasty, mild anchovy sauce atop our first taste of Sicily's lovely chewy pasta. We also shared a firm white fish with a tasty tomato sauce studded with olives. Nice house wine. We felt too full for dessert until we heard a type of carrot cake was available. It looked just like a Whoopie pie with cream in the middle. We didn't think it was really an improvement on the traditional carrot cake, but it was fun to try. When we left, the bar next door was overflowing with twenty- and thirty-somethings, all dressed in black, swarming the street front.
Day 4 Saturday PALERMO SECOND DAY
We got our usual late morning start. Chris blamed the super-comfortable beds. Emanuela called the Norman Palace for us to see about today's hours, but no one answered the phone. So we just started the long hike back there. Naturally, the ticket taker said the Palatine Chapel, which is the must-see, was closed til 1:30 for a wedding. Emanuela had told us brides reserve sometimes two years in advance to get married there. So we wandered around the rest of the Norman Palace, including the room where the legislature meets, with drawings of Hercules and his many adventures all over the walls. Then we hung out at the gate to the area for the chapel, and realized a Bankomat ATM was right there. So Chris tried his card and it worked, but mine didn't. It hadn't worked yesterday either. Uh oh.
Meanwhile the bride and groom, a middle-aged couple, emerged, along with all their guests, most of whom wore black; fun to see. The chapel was worth the wait. Every inch was covered in gold and colored mosaics. The Arab influence was obvious, but it all worked together beautifully. Stories of the Bible were illustrated everywhere, from Adam to Noah to the New Testament. It was fabulous. We were grateful to the reader who posted in Tripadvisor that once he'd seen the Chapel, he didn't feel he would have needed that trip to Monreale. We decided to skip it too in favor of more exploring of Palermo.
After that we walked back down Via Roma to La Rinascente, a department store that has a roof top bar. It provided a great view over the city and out to sea and the mountains. We ordered drinks and split a salmon sandwich and lounged around enjoying the sunny day and the view, especially of the San Domenico church and plaza from on high.
Then we walked down to the waterfront park, where lots of people were strolling and biking and flying kites in the weekend sunshine. We hung out on the benches, watching the passing parade. A big ferry came in, the Grimaldi line, returning from Tunisia. Seemed exotic to us! Everyone watched it. You could see all the way to the Italian mainland.
We walked back to BB22 to rest before our night at Gagini, our "fancy" Palermo restaurant. It was really a treat. The restaurant, just a couple of streets from BB22, is a blend of ancient stone walls and modern Italian design. Lots of candlelight, including tiny candles wedged into the stone walls. Just beautiful. It was a little chilly so we sat inside. Later in our trip we would hear about the Renaissance sculptor Antonello Gagini, and one website said this restaurant is located on the former site of his studio.
We opted for the tasting menu paired with wines, choosing the three-wine option. We each chose two dishes on a sharing basis. The meal started with a tiny amuse-bouche of a delicious soup, then we shared the fried fish with citrus ice. This turned out to be small pieces of various kinds of seafood in a kind of tempura artfully arranged like a sculpture. We also had the Maltagliata pasta with roasted octopus and Nebrodi raw ham, the Nebrodi baby pork with smoked potatoes, and the duck breast with licorice-flavored salt of Trapani and brûlée cream. All were delicious and beautifully presented. We asked the waiter to choose the pairing wines and explain them to us, which he did. So we had our first taste of white Cattaratta, a lovely rose, and a red made of Nero D'Avola and Perricone grapes. We enjoyed learning about Sicilian wines and grapes during this trip. We soon learned to look for Nero D'Avola, which we loved! We ended the meal with ginger and rhubarb cheesecake with honey ice cream, which may have been our favorite dessert of the entire journey. (The only reason I can report all this is that I took pictures of the menu.)
We got up in time for the BB22 breakfast, which was nicely average: yogurt, various carbs, cereal, juices. Met Emanuela, a lovely young woman who would be on duty our entire stay. Chatty and helpful. She suggested restaurants for us and offered to make reservations for the casual one we picked out tonight and the fancier one tomorrow. Then we were off to tour the west side of town, with the highlight being the Norman Palace, at the top of everyone's list in Sicily.
We walked through the Four Corners of the old city, with its four Baroque buildings nodding to each other, a beautiful start. Palermo was fun to walk around, window and church shopping! We admired the racy fountain statues in Piazza Pretoria and toured the Piazza Bellini. Then we made our way to the Ballaro Market, and we were dazzled by all the great stuff that comes out of the sea, particularly those photogenic squid and swordfish. We keep eyeing something orange that looked like a tomato, and finally someone told us it was a "Loti," but in English it's a persimmon. They were in season and we'd never had them before. Once we tasted how sweet they were, we ate them whenever we could the whole trip!
We stopped for a snack at an outdoor Sicilian street-food place near St John of the Hermits church, whose lovely garden we toured. Then it was on to the Norman Palace. Turned out the Palace closed that day at 2; it was 2:30. Not sure why. The guard said to come back "domani." Glad we have a tomorrow! It was our first instance of "prepare for disappointment" with things closing early or not bring open that day for no appreciable reason, etc etc. We learned not to count on anything. So, we headed back toward the hotel, stopping at the impressive Cathedral where we experienced our first beggar garnering money by holding the cathedral door open and proffering a cup. We figured he was a church worker taking donations as people entered. Not so! We had our first taste of Sicily's famous granita at a cafe across the street. Surprise: my lemon granita tasted just like a Del's Frozen Lemonade, which is practically the official drink of Rhode Island, where we've lived for years. I mean Just Like. I guess no surprise as Rhode Island was settled by Italians, including a big Sicily contingent.
We recovered by relaxing in our hotel room with a beer from the honor bar. Then went around the corner to Trattoria Mangi y Bevi at 8:30. Emanuela refused to make us earlier reservations because, she said, we'd be eating all alone! Sicilians eat late. Sure enough even then we were among the first diners at this picturesque restaurant where the stone walls are covered with art and the wooden tables have red-and-white-checked runners.
We absolutely loved our meal. We were glad we had reservations because they were full for the night. Our starters were fabulous, a hefty serving of spring onions wrapped in bacon and a sizzling pan of melted cheese fondue (reminiscent of Greek saganaki). Next we shared the pasta with anchovies, which turned out to be a tasty, mild anchovy sauce atop our first taste of Sicily's lovely chewy pasta. We also shared a firm white fish with a tasty tomato sauce studded with olives. Nice house wine. We felt too full for dessert until we heard a type of carrot cake was available. It looked just like a Whoopie pie with cream in the middle. We didn't think it was really an improvement on the traditional carrot cake, but it was fun to try. When we left, the bar next door was overflowing with twenty- and thirty-somethings, all dressed in black, swarming the street front.
Day 4 Saturday PALERMO SECOND DAY
We got our usual late morning start. Chris blamed the super-comfortable beds. Emanuela called the Norman Palace for us to see about today's hours, but no one answered the phone. So we just started the long hike back there. Naturally, the ticket taker said the Palatine Chapel, which is the must-see, was closed til 1:30 for a wedding. Emanuela had told us brides reserve sometimes two years in advance to get married there. So we wandered around the rest of the Norman Palace, including the room where the legislature meets, with drawings of Hercules and his many adventures all over the walls. Then we hung out at the gate to the area for the chapel, and realized a Bankomat ATM was right there. So Chris tried his card and it worked, but mine didn't. It hadn't worked yesterday either. Uh oh.
Meanwhile the bride and groom, a middle-aged couple, emerged, along with all their guests, most of whom wore black; fun to see. The chapel was worth the wait. Every inch was covered in gold and colored mosaics. The Arab influence was obvious, but it all worked together beautifully. Stories of the Bible were illustrated everywhere, from Adam to Noah to the New Testament. It was fabulous. We were grateful to the reader who posted in Tripadvisor that once he'd seen the Chapel, he didn't feel he would have needed that trip to Monreale. We decided to skip it too in favor of more exploring of Palermo.
After that we walked back down Via Roma to La Rinascente, a department store that has a roof top bar. It provided a great view over the city and out to sea and the mountains. We ordered drinks and split a salmon sandwich and lounged around enjoying the sunny day and the view, especially of the San Domenico church and plaza from on high.
Then we walked down to the waterfront park, where lots of people were strolling and biking and flying kites in the weekend sunshine. We hung out on the benches, watching the passing parade. A big ferry came in, the Grimaldi line, returning from Tunisia. Seemed exotic to us! Everyone watched it. You could see all the way to the Italian mainland.
We walked back to BB22 to rest before our night at Gagini, our "fancy" Palermo restaurant. It was really a treat. The restaurant, just a couple of streets from BB22, is a blend of ancient stone walls and modern Italian design. Lots of candlelight, including tiny candles wedged into the stone walls. Just beautiful. It was a little chilly so we sat inside. Later in our trip we would hear about the Renaissance sculptor Antonello Gagini, and one website said this restaurant is located on the former site of his studio.
We opted for the tasting menu paired with wines, choosing the three-wine option. We each chose two dishes on a sharing basis. The meal started with a tiny amuse-bouche of a delicious soup, then we shared the fried fish with citrus ice. This turned out to be small pieces of various kinds of seafood in a kind of tempura artfully arranged like a sculpture. We also had the Maltagliata pasta with roasted octopus and Nebrodi raw ham, the Nebrodi baby pork with smoked potatoes, and the duck breast with licorice-flavored salt of Trapani and brûlée cream. All were delicious and beautifully presented. We asked the waiter to choose the pairing wines and explain them to us, which he did. So we had our first taste of white Cattaratta, a lovely rose, and a red made of Nero D'Avola and Perricone grapes. We enjoyed learning about Sicilian wines and grapes during this trip. We soon learned to look for Nero D'Avola, which we loved! We ended the meal with ginger and rhubarb cheesecake with honey ice cream, which may have been our favorite dessert of the entire journey. (The only reason I can report all this is that I took pictures of the menu.)
Jan 22nd, 2016, 05:03 AM
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Day 5 Sunday SEGESTA TO ERICE
Daylight savings time was last night so we got a welcome extra hour of sleep but we weren't looking forward to sunlight ending an hour early; it would end up putting a bit of a cramp on our sightseeing. We had breakfast and Emanuela gave us a bit of insight into life in Sicily. She said she was 6 months pregnant, she just got married last year and her husband has been a policeman in Liguria. They don't let you be a cop on your hometown for the first five or six years. So they are hoping his permanent transfer back home goes thru. Today, Sunday, they will have lunch at her mother-in-law's house and dinner at her mothers. Every Sunday. On her honeymoon to Miami and then Mexico she almost did not survive the giant watery American coffees. Every morning they went to Starbucks for a croissant and strong cappuccino.
We packed up and, because we wanted a walk, rolled our little suitcases the 3/4 mile to the airport bus stop in the more modern, elegant part of town. The stop is next to Prada. The bus arrives every half hour on the quarter hour, $12.60 for two. 45 minutes later we were at the airport. (Much better than spending $60 for a cab a few days ago in the dark! We should have taken the bus from the airport to this stop, then a cab to the hotel.) The info lady told us to go downstairs to arrivals and out the door for the shuttle to the rental car companies, or at least to Auto Europe. It came quickly. We got our four-door Fiat 500 which looked pretty big now that we had been in Sicily a couple of days, but I think it was their second smallest rental! It was easy to get on the Autostrada toward Trapani. As soon as you exit the Palermo district, rolling green farms begin. Quite a change!
At Segesta it was free to park right by the site. We bought a ticket and quickly wandered uphill to the famous Doric temple, walls quite complete with a bit of scaffolding up. The best view really tho is from away on high, because it's striking to see it alone in a field. We walked back down and realized you need tickets for the shuttle bus to take you 1 1/2 km UP the road to the town ruins and the theater. The very nice bus driver was supposed to leave but waited for us to come back with our tix. The view of the temple on the road up is beautiful. On the way back I took a picture out the window and the driver stopped to let me out for better pics. So nice! At the top, the theater is in good shape but everything else is simply a well-arranged pile of rocks. Views of the countryside are gorgeous. We stopped for a snack at the visitors center cafe, where we had a wonderful pistachio cookie that we would soon find was in the Erice style.
As the trip went on, we would see more elaborate ruins. These were our first as we were going from Palermo to Catania. If we were going the other way, from Catania to Palermo, would we have appreciated this as much after seeing Agrigento? Maybe not, and time is always limited for travelers. Still, as we found openings and closings somewhat unpredictable in Sicily (we were forced to miss the ruins in Siracusa), it might be wise to see what you can when you can.
We were quickly back on the Autostrada for Erice, which is 2500 feet up at the top of a mountain overlooking the bigger town of Trapani and the sea. We were there by about 4:30, up an extremely twisty 6-mile road. Don't do it in the dark, and dark was happening much more quickly now. We had no clue where our hotel was and the whole town is made of ancient white stone, with some tiny streets just a bit wider than a car. When I dialed the hotel I got a recording in Italian -- clearly I was doing something wrong! In spite of cell towers in great evidence in this high mountain town (kind of a funny contrast with its ancient nature), it took a while for my gps to work as we drove the narrow streets, backing up to make some turns. How big the Fiat 500 seemed! Finally we came upon the central piazza and my gps kicked in. The hotel seemed to be straight down a street off the piazza but it was filled with visitors. On foot, I found Hotel Elimo and the kind staffer Stefan, who came with me back to the square, drove with us back to the hotel, unloaded the luggage and drove with Chris to the parking spaces. Now that it was so late in the season we could park where residents park. Otherwise, it's the main lot at the bottom of town, which isn't at all far from the hotel, as it turned out.
The hotel is eclectic, quite a few floors (a nice lift too) with the first floor full of cozy furniture and antiques. It was dark by now. We headed out to explore. The hotel's restaurant was closed and they recommended The Rusticella in the square. We wandered in and out of the ancient streets, with few people in the dark. It was foggy and cool, and very atmospheric with the lights glowing off the walls. Saw little wine bars and lots of pastry shops tucked into the walls like caves. The Rusticella told us to come back after 7 -- it was 6:15 and they weren't even open yet and here we were worried they would close early on Sunday!
We ended up in the San Domenica Plaza for a drink outside, my first Campari spritz, which turned out to be Campari and prosecco. Not sweet, very good. At dinner at 7:15 we opted for the upstairs dining room because it was chilly. At this early hour we were the only ones there. By 8, people started to arrive, even with children. We had grilled sardine rolls with rice, nice and mild. I had risotto al funghi, not as creamy as I'm used to but very good. Chris had mixed grill. We had the house wine carafe, but others had bottles. We soon learned the wine in Sicilian restaurants is moderately priced -- a bottle is a much better deal than a glass or two.
Day 6 Monday EXPLORING ERICE
We were determined to get up early but we were at breakfast at 9:50! Buffet for 8 euro, not included in room. It was a lovely buffet with the best pastries that Erice is known for, hard-boiled eggs, ham and cheese and croissants, etc. It was a bit hazy for the remarkable panoramic view out to the sea from the breakfast room.
We spent the day exploring the ancient town with its endless churches, taking advantage of the one-price-for-all-churches ticket. Just gorgeous. Very few people around. Met a couple from Brittany (and their little girl) and we all marveled at how little English is spoken in Sicily. Makes it hard for them too, although they said they can often make out signs in Italian. They were surprised we came here just to go to Sicily. Apparently Europeans still think Americans are fans of the "if it's Tuesday it must be Belgium" style of travel. We told them Brittany is on our bucket list, and some minutes after we left them, they tracked us down to give us their email address in case we come! They said they liked practicing their English on us.
About 3:30 we headed down to the tourist bureau, which is also a wine tasting center for the region. We tasted 6 wines -- three whites and three reds plus a dry Marsala -- for almost two hours. A great introduction to the wines of the area. We liked the white Insolia and the red Nero D'Avola best. Included was a delicious plate of tiny hors d'oeuvres and olives. It was only 5 euros apiece. The fog rolled in on our way out, very romantic.
We asked the winery director for a dinner recommendation, and she suggested La Prima Dea for seafood, as well as another for more general traditional Sicilian. La Prima was on our street and it was getting quite windy, so we stopped there. The upper floor was the dining room, and as soon as we sat down we could see a long table of folks near us was celebrating something, a birthday perhaps. It looked like a father, his adult children and his brother. Suddenly, a man with a guitar came in and sat down with them and with much laughing they began to sing. They sang for the entire rest of the time they were there. They were songs they all clearly knew but we'd never heard. A few more people joined their party. Finally a big cake came out but they never sang happy birthday. When they left, we noticed the fellow in charge had the same kind of Walkie-talkie on his belt that we had seen men wearing who were making a movie in town. So maybe they weren't a family but a bunch of folks working on the movie.
I had been feeling queasy ever since my funghi risotto. So I had busiati pasta, the lovely chewy twisted pasta of the region, with a pomadoro pesto. Chris had eggplant rolls and then a stunning mixed fish grill that we were amazed was only 14 euros. Five different kinds of grilled fish, including a whole fish like a sea bream, a cuttlefish, octopus, two large shrimp and a small piece of swordfish. We walked home in the fog; it was cool and damp and I was glad I had a sweater.
Our room, 106, faced the street and I think would be quite noisy in season. You could hear everything on the street with the windows closed. You could also hear your neighbors a bit. Even tho the hotel was not full, we were not upgraded. The hotel had lots of indoor and outdoor alcoves. In good weather the terraces must be amazing. Hot water is great, and everything inside was very modern in this old building. Kind of amazing to see glossy red room doors and shiny white floors in a building that's probably been around since before Columbus sailed to America. Wifi was good.
Daylight savings time was last night so we got a welcome extra hour of sleep but we weren't looking forward to sunlight ending an hour early; it would end up putting a bit of a cramp on our sightseeing. We had breakfast and Emanuela gave us a bit of insight into life in Sicily. She said she was 6 months pregnant, she just got married last year and her husband has been a policeman in Liguria. They don't let you be a cop on your hometown for the first five or six years. So they are hoping his permanent transfer back home goes thru. Today, Sunday, they will have lunch at her mother-in-law's house and dinner at her mothers. Every Sunday. On her honeymoon to Miami and then Mexico she almost did not survive the giant watery American coffees. Every morning they went to Starbucks for a croissant and strong cappuccino.
We packed up and, because we wanted a walk, rolled our little suitcases the 3/4 mile to the airport bus stop in the more modern, elegant part of town. The stop is next to Prada. The bus arrives every half hour on the quarter hour, $12.60 for two. 45 minutes later we were at the airport. (Much better than spending $60 for a cab a few days ago in the dark! We should have taken the bus from the airport to this stop, then a cab to the hotel.) The info lady told us to go downstairs to arrivals and out the door for the shuttle to the rental car companies, or at least to Auto Europe. It came quickly. We got our four-door Fiat 500 which looked pretty big now that we had been in Sicily a couple of days, but I think it was their second smallest rental! It was easy to get on the Autostrada toward Trapani. As soon as you exit the Palermo district, rolling green farms begin. Quite a change!
At Segesta it was free to park right by the site. We bought a ticket and quickly wandered uphill to the famous Doric temple, walls quite complete with a bit of scaffolding up. The best view really tho is from away on high, because it's striking to see it alone in a field. We walked back down and realized you need tickets for the shuttle bus to take you 1 1/2 km UP the road to the town ruins and the theater. The very nice bus driver was supposed to leave but waited for us to come back with our tix. The view of the temple on the road up is beautiful. On the way back I took a picture out the window and the driver stopped to let me out for better pics. So nice! At the top, the theater is in good shape but everything else is simply a well-arranged pile of rocks. Views of the countryside are gorgeous. We stopped for a snack at the visitors center cafe, where we had a wonderful pistachio cookie that we would soon find was in the Erice style.
As the trip went on, we would see more elaborate ruins. These were our first as we were going from Palermo to Catania. If we were going the other way, from Catania to Palermo, would we have appreciated this as much after seeing Agrigento? Maybe not, and time is always limited for travelers. Still, as we found openings and closings somewhat unpredictable in Sicily (we were forced to miss the ruins in Siracusa), it might be wise to see what you can when you can.
We were quickly back on the Autostrada for Erice, which is 2500 feet up at the top of a mountain overlooking the bigger town of Trapani and the sea. We were there by about 4:30, up an extremely twisty 6-mile road. Don't do it in the dark, and dark was happening much more quickly now. We had no clue where our hotel was and the whole town is made of ancient white stone, with some tiny streets just a bit wider than a car. When I dialed the hotel I got a recording in Italian -- clearly I was doing something wrong! In spite of cell towers in great evidence in this high mountain town (kind of a funny contrast with its ancient nature), it took a while for my gps to work as we drove the narrow streets, backing up to make some turns. How big the Fiat 500 seemed! Finally we came upon the central piazza and my gps kicked in. The hotel seemed to be straight down a street off the piazza but it was filled with visitors. On foot, I found Hotel Elimo and the kind staffer Stefan, who came with me back to the square, drove with us back to the hotel, unloaded the luggage and drove with Chris to the parking spaces. Now that it was so late in the season we could park where residents park. Otherwise, it's the main lot at the bottom of town, which isn't at all far from the hotel, as it turned out.
The hotel is eclectic, quite a few floors (a nice lift too) with the first floor full of cozy furniture and antiques. It was dark by now. We headed out to explore. The hotel's restaurant was closed and they recommended The Rusticella in the square. We wandered in and out of the ancient streets, with few people in the dark. It was foggy and cool, and very atmospheric with the lights glowing off the walls. Saw little wine bars and lots of pastry shops tucked into the walls like caves. The Rusticella told us to come back after 7 -- it was 6:15 and they weren't even open yet and here we were worried they would close early on Sunday!
We ended up in the San Domenica Plaza for a drink outside, my first Campari spritz, which turned out to be Campari and prosecco. Not sweet, very good. At dinner at 7:15 we opted for the upstairs dining room because it was chilly. At this early hour we were the only ones there. By 8, people started to arrive, even with children. We had grilled sardine rolls with rice, nice and mild. I had risotto al funghi, not as creamy as I'm used to but very good. Chris had mixed grill. We had the house wine carafe, but others had bottles. We soon learned the wine in Sicilian restaurants is moderately priced -- a bottle is a much better deal than a glass or two.
Day 6 Monday EXPLORING ERICE
We were determined to get up early but we were at breakfast at 9:50! Buffet for 8 euro, not included in room. It was a lovely buffet with the best pastries that Erice is known for, hard-boiled eggs, ham and cheese and croissants, etc. It was a bit hazy for the remarkable panoramic view out to the sea from the breakfast room.
We spent the day exploring the ancient town with its endless churches, taking advantage of the one-price-for-all-churches ticket. Just gorgeous. Very few people around. Met a couple from Brittany (and their little girl) and we all marveled at how little English is spoken in Sicily. Makes it hard for them too, although they said they can often make out signs in Italian. They were surprised we came here just to go to Sicily. Apparently Europeans still think Americans are fans of the "if it's Tuesday it must be Belgium" style of travel. We told them Brittany is on our bucket list, and some minutes after we left them, they tracked us down to give us their email address in case we come! They said they liked practicing their English on us.
About 3:30 we headed down to the tourist bureau, which is also a wine tasting center for the region. We tasted 6 wines -- three whites and three reds plus a dry Marsala -- for almost two hours. A great introduction to the wines of the area. We liked the white Insolia and the red Nero D'Avola best. Included was a delicious plate of tiny hors d'oeuvres and olives. It was only 5 euros apiece. The fog rolled in on our way out, very romantic.
We asked the winery director for a dinner recommendation, and she suggested La Prima Dea for seafood, as well as another for more general traditional Sicilian. La Prima was on our street and it was getting quite windy, so we stopped there. The upper floor was the dining room, and as soon as we sat down we could see a long table of folks near us was celebrating something, a birthday perhaps. It looked like a father, his adult children and his brother. Suddenly, a man with a guitar came in and sat down with them and with much laughing they began to sing. They sang for the entire rest of the time they were there. They were songs they all clearly knew but we'd never heard. A few more people joined their party. Finally a big cake came out but they never sang happy birthday. When they left, we noticed the fellow in charge had the same kind of Walkie-talkie on his belt that we had seen men wearing who were making a movie in town. So maybe they weren't a family but a bunch of folks working on the movie.
I had been feeling queasy ever since my funghi risotto. So I had busiati pasta, the lovely chewy twisted pasta of the region, with a pomadoro pesto. Chris had eggplant rolls and then a stunning mixed fish grill that we were amazed was only 14 euros. Five different kinds of grilled fish, including a whole fish like a sea bream, a cuttlefish, octopus, two large shrimp and a small piece of swordfish. We walked home in the fog; it was cool and damp and I was glad I had a sweater.
Our room, 106, faced the street and I think would be quite noisy in season. You could hear everything on the street with the windows closed. You could also hear your neighbors a bit. Even tho the hotel was not full, we were not upgraded. The hotel had lots of indoor and outdoor alcoves. In good weather the terraces must be amazing. Hot water is great, and everything inside was very modern in this old building. Kind of amazing to see glossy red room doors and shiny white floors in a building that's probably been around since before Columbus sailed to America. Wifi was good.
Jan 23rd, 2016, 08:37 AM
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Day 7 Tuesday SALT FLATS AND MARSALA
The polished stone streets of Erice were slick this morning with rain. The breakfast room was completely fogged in. But as we made our way down the mountain road, it grew warmer and brighter into a nice day. Not at all cold like Erice! We drove into Trapani, but we didn't see much that seemed interesting, so we moved on to the Museum of Salt.
One guidebook fortunately told us to follow the signs to the airport, which put us on the coast road, not the autostrada. We saw no signs for the museum, and when we got to the airport, we realized we must have missed it. Then I re-read the address: It was in Nubia, a town we passed a few miles back. After the turnoff there, we finally saw a sign.
The museum guide was excellent, switching between English and Italian and describing the back-breaking work of drying and then shoveling the salt into piles. The museum has a restored windmill tho it is not connected to mill stones to grind the salt. It's now done by more modern means. The salt is harvested in June, July and August when it's hot enough for water to evaporate. Now they're starting to put clay tiles on the big salt mounds to protect them from winter weather. We bought a bag of salt from the mill.
We followed the tiny road along the waterfront, looking for signs for the ferry to the Phoenician island of Mozia. The ferry turned out to be in the middle of salt flats with a few nice old windmills that you can get much closer to than those by the museum. A salt store was in one of the windmill buildings by the dock where picturesque boats were lined up. A trattoria was open, with visitors sitting in the sun. Piles of salt were everywhere. Very pretty. We hung out for a bit, then followed the coastline into Marsala. We love having enough time to not take the Autostrada. We would never have found this scene otherwise!
We had made reservations that morning at Hotel Carmine (105 euros) in Marsala's old city; this was the only hotel we hadn't reserved before we left, to have some flexibility. We found it just within the ancient walls. Pretty restored old building with a lovely bar and common area. Our room on the second floor overlooked the old convent and bell tower, now the archives. In our room were two glasses of sweet Marsala wine to welcome us. We dropped our bags and went out to walk in the old town as it was now about 4. In the center is the Chiesa Madre, a huge old church with a beautiful facade and a fairly empty interior. We walked more, then settled into an outdoor cafe for a glass of wine to people watch. Briefcases, we noticed, are still popular in Sicily. And fancy footwear on the ladies, in spite of cobblestones. High-wedged sneakers, lots of sparkles. Not a very touristic town, it seemed.
We went back to the hotel around 6:30, and had the obligatory rest til 8, when people start to eat in Sicily. The hotel staffer recommended Luna Rossi down the street when we asked for a suggestion for a pizzeria. Quite a few people were dining inside and the menu was extensive. We each had a great thin wood-grilled pizza, me margherita and Chris Diavolo. I wish my stomach felt better!
We walked around in the balmy night, enjoying the full super moon and the beautiful stone architecture of the old city. Quite a lot of restaurants were open with not a lot of diners on a Tuesday night. But parking spaces in front of the hotel were full, and the lady at reception helpfully said she would move our car from a space that wasn't quite legal when spaces start to open up later.
Day 8 Wednesday MARSALA TO AGRIGENTO
Hotel Carmine provided an awesome breakfast in an elegant room, second on this trip only to what we'd find later in Taormina. Much to our surprise, the buffet offered the loti, or persimmon, and we got to find out just how sweet and delicious it is. The pastries and cakes were abundant as well as fruits, meats and cheeses.
We packed up and were off to take the 11am English language tour at the famous Florio
Vineyards at the edge of town, but off-season struck again: no tour until 5 pm. So we decided to try also-famous Donna Fugata vineyards, only a couple of blocks away. Their English language tour was also at 5 now, but the staffer suggested we take it anyway; he'd give us a brochure that has most of the info. So a lovely young woman took us all through the wine-making process, showed us rooms full of beautiful wooden barrels and steel tanks, and then we got to the tasting room. We didn't need to speak Italian to taste. But the guest sitting next to me said she could translate anything we'd need to know. The table was set for 8, with 4 glasses at each place and little plates of olives, cheeses, sausages, and a sesame cookie. We tasted four absolutely exquisite wines, including a Ben Rye dessert wine (24 euros), which we ended up buying in the shop. I believe the tasting was 20 or 30 euros; we felt like we'd had lunch even tho we hadn't had much food.
We continued to follow a small coast road whenever we could. We ran into plenty of interesting beach neighborhoods, colorful boats, even a lighthouse. A great fun drive. Soon we were into rolling hills with vineyards everywhere; a couple of carbinieri waved us over because we were probably speeding down these country roads and they had set up a little checkpoint, but they let us go when they realized (with some disappointment) that we were tourists. They pointed us in the direction of an entrance to the Autostrada because it was getting late now and we knew the olive farm where we were staying that night was not easy to find in the dark.
We hopped on, stopped for a quick refuel and a cappuccino at an Esso with a view of the sea one side and a mountaintop town on another, and we were off. At Agrigento, the road was being worked on and we ended up detoured and caught in the city traffic, which took a bit of gps to get out of. As we did, we realized we could see beautiful temples on high from the highway. We would see those closeup tomorrow.
It was a short drive from there to just past the town of Palma di Montechiaro where some excellent email instructions and a battery of signs helped us find our olive farm, Azienda Agricola Mandranova (book thru booking.com) where we would spend the next two nights. We were greeted at the gate by Valentina, who showed us to our room in the main building. Our room was spacious and modern (especially the bathroom) and comfortable, tho a bit dark with the only window being up a set of stairs to a tiny desk area. But we weren't planning on spending much time there with a whole farm at our disposal.
With short days, it was now dark, but we wandered where we could. The only guaranteed spot for wifi to work was on a large covered terrace, equipped with lots of comfy furniture for guests to lounge around on. We met Judith and Henri there, from Manhattan, who were really fun to talk with over the next couple of days. They were with her sister and husband, Susan and John, from San Francisco, and this was their last stop before heading home.
Then it was time for dinner in the two big dining rooms of the farmhouse. Off-season, the farm was not full, so each room had their own table, but in-season some guests would appear to dine together at a couple of the large tables. Which I like! The food, meanwhile, was exquisite. So glad my stomach had recovered. We began with a salad of oranges and onions and green olives and fennel. Tangy! I love orange and onion salad but had never thought of adding olives. Second course was tiny shell pasta and cauliflower and pine nuts and some kind of wheat berry. Tangy again. Wine is offered at very reasonable prices. We had a Castello Svevo Bianco local wine from Campibello, a blend of isolati and catterati. Only 11.5 euros. Third course was sea bass with a chunky tomato dressing, a narrow pepper stuffed with potato, and very thin eggplant slices in dressing. For dessert, a sweet cake. Delightful. After email on the terrace, we were off to bed.
The polished stone streets of Erice were slick this morning with rain. The breakfast room was completely fogged in. But as we made our way down the mountain road, it grew warmer and brighter into a nice day. Not at all cold like Erice! We drove into Trapani, but we didn't see much that seemed interesting, so we moved on to the Museum of Salt.
One guidebook fortunately told us to follow the signs to the airport, which put us on the coast road, not the autostrada. We saw no signs for the museum, and when we got to the airport, we realized we must have missed it. Then I re-read the address: It was in Nubia, a town we passed a few miles back. After the turnoff there, we finally saw a sign.
The museum guide was excellent, switching between English and Italian and describing the back-breaking work of drying and then shoveling the salt into piles. The museum has a restored windmill tho it is not connected to mill stones to grind the salt. It's now done by more modern means. The salt is harvested in June, July and August when it's hot enough for water to evaporate. Now they're starting to put clay tiles on the big salt mounds to protect them from winter weather. We bought a bag of salt from the mill.
We followed the tiny road along the waterfront, looking for signs for the ferry to the Phoenician island of Mozia. The ferry turned out to be in the middle of salt flats with a few nice old windmills that you can get much closer to than those by the museum. A salt store was in one of the windmill buildings by the dock where picturesque boats were lined up. A trattoria was open, with visitors sitting in the sun. Piles of salt were everywhere. Very pretty. We hung out for a bit, then followed the coastline into Marsala. We love having enough time to not take the Autostrada. We would never have found this scene otherwise!
We had made reservations that morning at Hotel Carmine (105 euros) in Marsala's old city; this was the only hotel we hadn't reserved before we left, to have some flexibility. We found it just within the ancient walls. Pretty restored old building with a lovely bar and common area. Our room on the second floor overlooked the old convent and bell tower, now the archives. In our room were two glasses of sweet Marsala wine to welcome us. We dropped our bags and went out to walk in the old town as it was now about 4. In the center is the Chiesa Madre, a huge old church with a beautiful facade and a fairly empty interior. We walked more, then settled into an outdoor cafe for a glass of wine to people watch. Briefcases, we noticed, are still popular in Sicily. And fancy footwear on the ladies, in spite of cobblestones. High-wedged sneakers, lots of sparkles. Not a very touristic town, it seemed.
We went back to the hotel around 6:30, and had the obligatory rest til 8, when people start to eat in Sicily. The hotel staffer recommended Luna Rossi down the street when we asked for a suggestion for a pizzeria. Quite a few people were dining inside and the menu was extensive. We each had a great thin wood-grilled pizza, me margherita and Chris Diavolo. I wish my stomach felt better!
We walked around in the balmy night, enjoying the full super moon and the beautiful stone architecture of the old city. Quite a lot of restaurants were open with not a lot of diners on a Tuesday night. But parking spaces in front of the hotel were full, and the lady at reception helpfully said she would move our car from a space that wasn't quite legal when spaces start to open up later.
Day 8 Wednesday MARSALA TO AGRIGENTO
Hotel Carmine provided an awesome breakfast in an elegant room, second on this trip only to what we'd find later in Taormina. Much to our surprise, the buffet offered the loti, or persimmon, and we got to find out just how sweet and delicious it is. The pastries and cakes were abundant as well as fruits, meats and cheeses.
We packed up and were off to take the 11am English language tour at the famous Florio
Vineyards at the edge of town, but off-season struck again: no tour until 5 pm. So we decided to try also-famous Donna Fugata vineyards, only a couple of blocks away. Their English language tour was also at 5 now, but the staffer suggested we take it anyway; he'd give us a brochure that has most of the info. So a lovely young woman took us all through the wine-making process, showed us rooms full of beautiful wooden barrels and steel tanks, and then we got to the tasting room. We didn't need to speak Italian to taste. But the guest sitting next to me said she could translate anything we'd need to know. The table was set for 8, with 4 glasses at each place and little plates of olives, cheeses, sausages, and a sesame cookie. We tasted four absolutely exquisite wines, including a Ben Rye dessert wine (24 euros), which we ended up buying in the shop. I believe the tasting was 20 or 30 euros; we felt like we'd had lunch even tho we hadn't had much food.
We continued to follow a small coast road whenever we could. We ran into plenty of interesting beach neighborhoods, colorful boats, even a lighthouse. A great fun drive. Soon we were into rolling hills with vineyards everywhere; a couple of carbinieri waved us over because we were probably speeding down these country roads and they had set up a little checkpoint, but they let us go when they realized (with some disappointment) that we were tourists. They pointed us in the direction of an entrance to the Autostrada because it was getting late now and we knew the olive farm where we were staying that night was not easy to find in the dark.
We hopped on, stopped for a quick refuel and a cappuccino at an Esso with a view of the sea one side and a mountaintop town on another, and we were off. At Agrigento, the road was being worked on and we ended up detoured and caught in the city traffic, which took a bit of gps to get out of. As we did, we realized we could see beautiful temples on high from the highway. We would see those closeup tomorrow.
It was a short drive from there to just past the town of Palma di Montechiaro where some excellent email instructions and a battery of signs helped us find our olive farm, Azienda Agricola Mandranova (book thru booking.com) where we would spend the next two nights. We were greeted at the gate by Valentina, who showed us to our room in the main building. Our room was spacious and modern (especially the bathroom) and comfortable, tho a bit dark with the only window being up a set of stairs to a tiny desk area. But we weren't planning on spending much time there with a whole farm at our disposal.
With short days, it was now dark, but we wandered where we could. The only guaranteed spot for wifi to work was on a large covered terrace, equipped with lots of comfy furniture for guests to lounge around on. We met Judith and Henri there, from Manhattan, who were really fun to talk with over the next couple of days. They were with her sister and husband, Susan and John, from San Francisco, and this was their last stop before heading home.
Then it was time for dinner in the two big dining rooms of the farmhouse. Off-season, the farm was not full, so each room had their own table, but in-season some guests would appear to dine together at a couple of the large tables. Which I like! The food, meanwhile, was exquisite. So glad my stomach had recovered. We began with a salad of oranges and onions and green olives and fennel. Tangy! I love orange and onion salad but had never thought of adding olives. Second course was tiny shell pasta and cauliflower and pine nuts and some kind of wheat berry. Tangy again. Wine is offered at very reasonable prices. We had a Castello Svevo Bianco local wine from Campibello, a blend of isolati and catterati. Only 11.5 euros. Third course was sea bass with a chunky tomato dressing, a narrow pepper stuffed with potato, and very thin eggplant slices in dressing. For dessert, a sweet cake. Delightful. After email on the terrace, we were off to bed.
Jan 23rd, 2016, 11:49 AM
#14
Great report! I loved Sicily, and on our visit we did not have time to see Erice and Marsala, so I'm taking notes for a return.
However, I must respectfully disagree with the poster on TA; the Palatine Chapel is gorgeous but Monreale is spectacular. There is indeed a lot to see in Palermo, though, so I understand just choosing to hang out and see the sights in town.
Looking forward to more of your impressions.
However, I must respectfully disagree with the poster on TA; the Palatine Chapel is gorgeous but Monreale is spectacular. There is indeed a lot to see in Palermo, though, so I understand just choosing to hang out and see the sights in town.
Looking forward to more of your impressions.
Jan 23rd, 2016, 01:45 PM
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Day 9 Thursday VALLEY OF TEMPLES AND COOKING CLASS
Woke up to sprinkling rain. A breakfast buffet was laid out on a big farm table in the dining room. Four cheeses, sausage with green peppercorns, yogurt, hard boiled eggs, Loti, bread. Bottomless coffee, serve yourself, so I could pour in as much milk as I pleased. The wifi worked in our bathroom this morning!
Then we headed the 25 km back to Agrigento to see the Valley of the Temples in the rain, aargh. We couldn't even use the Disneyworld excuse that the rain will keep the crowds down, because there are no crowds at this time of year. We found a parking lot at Gate 5 that we hoped was the right one. Some taxi drivers in the parking lot tried to explain to us that for 3 euro a person they would drive us up to the Temple of Juno which is 2 km away and we could walk the valley back to our car. This is a perfectly sensible plan but we didn't understand their Italian or their German, so we didn't know what they were talking about. The deal is that you can walk past all the ruins down to the last temple, and then walk the same route back again. Or you can let the taxi drivers drive you to the entrance by the last temple, and you only have to walk one way. When it's hot, this would be the way to go! There's not a lot of shade there.
So we started off on the path which would take us past numerous temples. We saw ruins everywhere, columns tumbled down and piled up. This is not a valley; this is the top of a hill, and the temples are high over the sea. It's a dramatic site. It was only sprinkling, but suddenly it began sprinkling pretty hard, and we ducked under some olive and twisted evergreen trees and waited it out with everybody else. There were a few small tour groups, but mostly individual tourists.
When it let up, we started down the path to the temple of Zeus which had not too many walls of columns but was incredibly gigantic. The rain had stopped. By the time we got to Temple Della Concordia it was looking so perfect it seemed like a movie set. Turns out this barely needed to be restored: there's soft clay under the hard rock it sits on so it survived every earthquake for centuries intact. We stopped at the Doric cafe for a cappuccino, a coke and an arancini. The staffer let me taste some cactus fruit gelato, not sweet at all. I didn't even know they ate cactus fruit, much less made gelato out of it.
The sun was shining on the Temple of Juno at the end, quite dramatically perched on high, with easy viewing for sailors coming home to Sicily. Beautiful views of Agrigento sprawled out in the hills above the temples, with farms below on the hilly countryside. Signs for a shuttle bus (3 euro a person) were everywhere but apparently it was out of season (maybe that's why the taxi drivers were offering?) so we walked the two easy downhill kilometers back. This would be brutal in hot weather tho. On our way back, we noted it seemed crazy to be able to look up from the main highway around Agrigento and see these ancient temples.
We had to put the pedal to the metal at this point, arriving back at Mandranova with just 10 minutes to spare before Sylvia's cooking class. Five of us were in the class, including John, Judith's brother-in-law who loves to cook, and a young couple from Sacramento. I had emailed in advance to ask if we could attend a cooking class while we were there, and Sylvia responded with the day and time. Sylvia says she does the classes "very frequently."
Sylvia speaks great English and is a model of efficient cooking. We would be making the whole dinner for all the guests tonight. We began by starting a flourless chocolate cake, which would be my favorite part of the meal. We separated the eggs and chopped up the chocolate blocks. Sylvia provided useful tips all along the way. She had asked us what we'd like to make for a main course, and we'd chosen beef rollups. Chris got his hands greasy kneading the ground beef, which we separated into chunks and shaped into rectangles. We sprinkled on thinly sliced carrots and carmelized onions. One of Sylvia's best tips is that she boils sliced onions, then carmelizes them in some water and olive oil, then stores them in olive oil in the fridge and uses them in everything. We rolled up the rectangles and wrapped them in parchment paper to bake. We also made eggplant tapenade and eggplant croquettes. For pasta, we made a sauce of almonds and cheese. The pasta was rigatoni, which looks a lot like penne but Sylvia feels is completely different. That was my second favorite dish.
Along the way, at our prompting, Sylvia told us her story. The farm has been in Giuseppe's family for five generations. In 1987 his father died and he and Sylvia took it over. They lived in Palermo where Giuseppe was a banker. They came to the farm, where the main crop was grapes, every weekend, which was a little hard with kids. Eventually they switched over from grapes to olive trees because they thought they'd be easier to take care of without living there full time. But in 2005 they moved here and started to take in guests just as the agrotourism business was being born. Now they are open March 15 to November 15. It is hard, she said, because it is seven days a week.
Of course everyone loved the dinner and was totally amazed that we had made it!
Day 10 Friday OLIVE MILL TOUR and RAINY ROUTE TO MODICA
We started out with sunshine for a change. I took an early morning walk up to the pool for the views. Lovely cactus landscaping. Had breakfast al fresco. Giuseppe gave us a tour of the olive oil operation, with the bright green olives moving up a ladder into a de-stoning machine and coming out in olive mush. We were lucky to see it because olive picking ended two days ago and this was their last day of pressing. He is retired from banking now and does this "on the side" tho Silvia pointed out they work seven days a week from March 15 to Nov 15 just with the hotel. Bought some olive oil and hope to find out where in the U.S. we can get it.
We took off for the inland town Piazza Armerina to see the unusually well preserved mosaics at Villa Casale. But when we took a wrong road and came to an unexpectedly gorgeous spot to turn around, I realized I'd left my big camera at the farm. We would have to go back for it. It had taken 90 minutes to get this far, north of Gela, but we found a truck route through some stunning, dry Sicilian mountainside that avoided the Gela traffic, so we made it back in 1 hour. The Mediterranean Sea was a stunning turquoise blue here; we never saw this light color when we were sailing it on the Turkish coast years ago.
We found another way, up Route 626, that we hoped would cut off more coast traffic, and it was a beautiful journey through the mountainous countryside, especially with lots of sunshine and gigantic puffy clouds heaped up like whipped cream. Some parts look like Colorado, wide open and grassy and golden. Near Barrafranca we ended up on a tiny potholed road and we could see a rainbow in the distance. Was it raining ahead? Yes, just as we got to the Villa Casale. But not much. We toured the ancient hunting lodge, a virtual art gallery of Roman mosaics that had been buried for centuries under a mud slide. Interesting to see the story line of going to Africa to get wild animals for the Roman circus. And the bikini girls, who are really athletes. Must have been incredible in its heyday with floors covered in tiled pictures and frescoes on all the walls.
We grabbed a pistachio gelato and an apricot pastry and were on the road at 4:30, very late. We noted that while a sign said the villa closed at 4 or 430 at this point in the season, people continued to straggle in as we we walking down the hill, and nobody seemed to be turning them away. We had to drive through the town of Piazza Armerina to get to the highway, and it is quite a funky Sicilian town. Some narrow streets were a tight squeeze and this was the main tourist road! Might have been worth a night there but we had already paid for a room in Modica. I called ahead and said we were going to be late (the desk supposedly is not manned all the time) and they said no worries, they would be there.
Now it was really raining. We had a white-knuckle 2-hour drive over the mountains in the dark and pouring rain. Chris was a great driver as usual. We tucked in behind a big truck because we could barely see any lines in the roads, some of which didn't drain well. We were grateful for the iPhone gps. We finally arrived at the Modica Center exit and we hadn't really focused on the directions about where to park at Casa Talia, our inn. Ended up on its impossibly narrow street with the inn staff out on the street calling to us to stop. We had passed the little car park, oops. Chris did an heroic job of tight backing up. In the dark, Casa Talia looked Baroquely amazing, all white stone and balconies on a hill overlooking the town. www.casatalia.it (I booked it through www.charmingsicily.com)
The staffer suggested a nearby (only down a zillion stone stairs through a maze of tiny streets to the main thoroughfare) restaurant called Osteria del Sapori Perduti. I felt like we'd need to leave a trail of bread crumbs to find our way back but Chris has a great sense of direction. Without him I probably would have eaten a chocolate bar in the room!
The restaurant had a menu book with all its dishes photographed and then described in four languages (English represented by the British flag, Americans are scarce) tho everybody in there was speaking Italian, or Sicilian. We had a lovely bottle of white insolia and cattaratta. We shared a salad of oranges, onions and sliced fennel. Chris had the mixed roast meat and I had a bowl of small pastas with pork and sausage tomato sauce with fabulous meat flavor. Dessert was not good, that kind of gelatinous stuff. We had a long climb back to the inn -- at least we found it! -- and fell into bed. Oh, and my ATM card hadn't worked AGAIN on Main Street. Just said declined. Chris's did work.
Woke up to sprinkling rain. A breakfast buffet was laid out on a big farm table in the dining room. Four cheeses, sausage with green peppercorns, yogurt, hard boiled eggs, Loti, bread. Bottomless coffee, serve yourself, so I could pour in as much milk as I pleased. The wifi worked in our bathroom this morning!
Then we headed the 25 km back to Agrigento to see the Valley of the Temples in the rain, aargh. We couldn't even use the Disneyworld excuse that the rain will keep the crowds down, because there are no crowds at this time of year. We found a parking lot at Gate 5 that we hoped was the right one. Some taxi drivers in the parking lot tried to explain to us that for 3 euro a person they would drive us up to the Temple of Juno which is 2 km away and we could walk the valley back to our car. This is a perfectly sensible plan but we didn't understand their Italian or their German, so we didn't know what they were talking about. The deal is that you can walk past all the ruins down to the last temple, and then walk the same route back again. Or you can let the taxi drivers drive you to the entrance by the last temple, and you only have to walk one way. When it's hot, this would be the way to go! There's not a lot of shade there.
So we started off on the path which would take us past numerous temples. We saw ruins everywhere, columns tumbled down and piled up. This is not a valley; this is the top of a hill, and the temples are high over the sea. It's a dramatic site. It was only sprinkling, but suddenly it began sprinkling pretty hard, and we ducked under some olive and twisted evergreen trees and waited it out with everybody else. There were a few small tour groups, but mostly individual tourists.
When it let up, we started down the path to the temple of Zeus which had not too many walls of columns but was incredibly gigantic. The rain had stopped. By the time we got to Temple Della Concordia it was looking so perfect it seemed like a movie set. Turns out this barely needed to be restored: there's soft clay under the hard rock it sits on so it survived every earthquake for centuries intact. We stopped at the Doric cafe for a cappuccino, a coke and an arancini. The staffer let me taste some cactus fruit gelato, not sweet at all. I didn't even know they ate cactus fruit, much less made gelato out of it.
The sun was shining on the Temple of Juno at the end, quite dramatically perched on high, with easy viewing for sailors coming home to Sicily. Beautiful views of Agrigento sprawled out in the hills above the temples, with farms below on the hilly countryside. Signs for a shuttle bus (3 euro a person) were everywhere but apparently it was out of season (maybe that's why the taxi drivers were offering?) so we walked the two easy downhill kilometers back. This would be brutal in hot weather tho. On our way back, we noted it seemed crazy to be able to look up from the main highway around Agrigento and see these ancient temples.
We had to put the pedal to the metal at this point, arriving back at Mandranova with just 10 minutes to spare before Sylvia's cooking class. Five of us were in the class, including John, Judith's brother-in-law who loves to cook, and a young couple from Sacramento. I had emailed in advance to ask if we could attend a cooking class while we were there, and Sylvia responded with the day and time. Sylvia says she does the classes "very frequently."
Sylvia speaks great English and is a model of efficient cooking. We would be making the whole dinner for all the guests tonight. We began by starting a flourless chocolate cake, which would be my favorite part of the meal. We separated the eggs and chopped up the chocolate blocks. Sylvia provided useful tips all along the way. She had asked us what we'd like to make for a main course, and we'd chosen beef rollups. Chris got his hands greasy kneading the ground beef, which we separated into chunks and shaped into rectangles. We sprinkled on thinly sliced carrots and carmelized onions. One of Sylvia's best tips is that she boils sliced onions, then carmelizes them in some water and olive oil, then stores them in olive oil in the fridge and uses them in everything. We rolled up the rectangles and wrapped them in parchment paper to bake. We also made eggplant tapenade and eggplant croquettes. For pasta, we made a sauce of almonds and cheese. The pasta was rigatoni, which looks a lot like penne but Sylvia feels is completely different. That was my second favorite dish.
Along the way, at our prompting, Sylvia told us her story. The farm has been in Giuseppe's family for five generations. In 1987 his father died and he and Sylvia took it over. They lived in Palermo where Giuseppe was a banker. They came to the farm, where the main crop was grapes, every weekend, which was a little hard with kids. Eventually they switched over from grapes to olive trees because they thought they'd be easier to take care of without living there full time. But in 2005 they moved here and started to take in guests just as the agrotourism business was being born. Now they are open March 15 to November 15. It is hard, she said, because it is seven days a week.
Of course everyone loved the dinner and was totally amazed that we had made it!
Day 10 Friday OLIVE MILL TOUR and RAINY ROUTE TO MODICA
We started out with sunshine for a change. I took an early morning walk up to the pool for the views. Lovely cactus landscaping. Had breakfast al fresco. Giuseppe gave us a tour of the olive oil operation, with the bright green olives moving up a ladder into a de-stoning machine and coming out in olive mush. We were lucky to see it because olive picking ended two days ago and this was their last day of pressing. He is retired from banking now and does this "on the side" tho Silvia pointed out they work seven days a week from March 15 to Nov 15 just with the hotel. Bought some olive oil and hope to find out where in the U.S. we can get it.
We took off for the inland town Piazza Armerina to see the unusually well preserved mosaics at Villa Casale. But when we took a wrong road and came to an unexpectedly gorgeous spot to turn around, I realized I'd left my big camera at the farm. We would have to go back for it. It had taken 90 minutes to get this far, north of Gela, but we found a truck route through some stunning, dry Sicilian mountainside that avoided the Gela traffic, so we made it back in 1 hour. The Mediterranean Sea was a stunning turquoise blue here; we never saw this light color when we were sailing it on the Turkish coast years ago.
We found another way, up Route 626, that we hoped would cut off more coast traffic, and it was a beautiful journey through the mountainous countryside, especially with lots of sunshine and gigantic puffy clouds heaped up like whipped cream. Some parts look like Colorado, wide open and grassy and golden. Near Barrafranca we ended up on a tiny potholed road and we could see a rainbow in the distance. Was it raining ahead? Yes, just as we got to the Villa Casale. But not much. We toured the ancient hunting lodge, a virtual art gallery of Roman mosaics that had been buried for centuries under a mud slide. Interesting to see the story line of going to Africa to get wild animals for the Roman circus. And the bikini girls, who are really athletes. Must have been incredible in its heyday with floors covered in tiled pictures and frescoes on all the walls.
We grabbed a pistachio gelato and an apricot pastry and were on the road at 4:30, very late. We noted that while a sign said the villa closed at 4 or 430 at this point in the season, people continued to straggle in as we we walking down the hill, and nobody seemed to be turning them away. We had to drive through the town of Piazza Armerina to get to the highway, and it is quite a funky Sicilian town. Some narrow streets were a tight squeeze and this was the main tourist road! Might have been worth a night there but we had already paid for a room in Modica. I called ahead and said we were going to be late (the desk supposedly is not manned all the time) and they said no worries, they would be there.
Now it was really raining. We had a white-knuckle 2-hour drive over the mountains in the dark and pouring rain. Chris was a great driver as usual. We tucked in behind a big truck because we could barely see any lines in the roads, some of which didn't drain well. We were grateful for the iPhone gps. We finally arrived at the Modica Center exit and we hadn't really focused on the directions about where to park at Casa Talia, our inn. Ended up on its impossibly narrow street with the inn staff out on the street calling to us to stop. We had passed the little car park, oops. Chris did an heroic job of tight backing up. In the dark, Casa Talia looked Baroquely amazing, all white stone and balconies on a hill overlooking the town. www.casatalia.it (I booked it through www.charmingsicily.com)
The staffer suggested a nearby (only down a zillion stone stairs through a maze of tiny streets to the main thoroughfare) restaurant called Osteria del Sapori Perduti. I felt like we'd need to leave a trail of bread crumbs to find our way back but Chris has a great sense of direction. Without him I probably would have eaten a chocolate bar in the room!
The restaurant had a menu book with all its dishes photographed and then described in four languages (English represented by the British flag, Americans are scarce) tho everybody in there was speaking Italian, or Sicilian. We had a lovely bottle of white insolia and cattaratta. We shared a salad of oranges, onions and sliced fennel. Chris had the mixed roast meat and I had a bowl of small pastas with pork and sausage tomato sauce with fabulous meat flavor. Dessert was not good, that kind of gelatinous stuff. We had a long climb back to the inn -- at least we found it! -- and fell into bed. Oh, and my ATM card hadn't worked AGAIN on Main Street. Just said declined. Chris's did work.
Jan 24th, 2016, 01:26 PM
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Just read thru your report SO far. A million thanks for taking the time! We are going to be in Sicily from April 20 to May 11 and also renting a car. Palermo is our last stop and we will drop it off at the airport beforehand.
Our first stop is Taormina......2nd is Ortigia........just may not pick up the rental until we are ready to leave Siricusa.
I'm type A......so i will need to read your advice a gazillion times about BEING LAID BACK....and be ready for disappointments. Actually, travel is about THE PEOPLE you meet.........NOT the sites you see.
But your descriptions are wonderful and feelings sincere. Can't wait to read about Taormina AND Rome.
We will be flying Palermo to Rome(5 nights) and then off to Chania,Crete to stay w/friends.
I, too, will rent from autoeurope. I'm looking at the compact category....not the economy.....but YOU just may make me change my mind.
Safe travels.
Our first stop is Taormina......2nd is Ortigia........just may not pick up the rental until we are ready to leave Siricusa.
I'm type A......so i will need to read your advice a gazillion times about BEING LAID BACK....and be ready for disappointments. Actually, travel is about THE PEOPLE you meet.........NOT the sites you see.
But your descriptions are wonderful and feelings sincere. Can't wait to read about Taormina AND Rome.
We will be flying Palermo to Rome(5 nights) and then off to Chania,Crete to stay w/friends.
I, too, will rent from autoeurope. I'm looking at the compact category....not the economy.....but YOU just may make me change my mind.
Safe travels.
