I basically had to get over the issue with not having a GPS one way or another so I got up at 6am and started to get ready nice and early so I could at least exit Palermo before it got far too full of traffic. I had no idea how to get around and some zen was going to have to happen. I managed to get the car in reverse and back out of my space and turn it around and get out the gate all in due course. It took two tries at having them open the gate to get out but I did manage it. Of course getting out of the garage requires climbing a steep incline to get through the timed doors, though on the second look it might actually have sensors to stay open as long as something is inside it. I hope so anyway. I am still not good at driving a manual transmission. By that point in the morning I had 2 hours under my belt. I was hoping it was going to have sensors that open up the doors automatically on the way out, but no, you have to call them to do it then get in the car and get up the hill. I am not good with it under pressure that is for certain so only 2 tries I guess counts for something.
Of course once I got out of the garage it was a question of where I was going. My intention was to get to a town called Caccamo to see the castle there. Their information claims it is one of the largest medieval castles in all of Europe. Of course I got lost and instead of heading west I believe I started heading south. I really just decided to go with the flow for a while and see what signs came about. Eventually I was certain I was very far south but I found a sign that said this way to the A29 which would bring me to Palermo. I decided that at least I could find the A29 and make my way on to Caccamo if I could sort that out. Then along the way I saw that the signs also were pointing the way to the airport. No I wasn’t thinking of flying back to Rome, I wasn’t packed and had none of my stuff… I was thinking maybe I could rent a GPS from the rental company. So I decided to drive there and it wasn’t too bad to do. I found a reasonable parking space for the few minutes I would need. Of course I don’t think anyone ever gets tickets or towed in all of Sicily for all the signs that say so. So many people violate parking laws that the police would have no chance to get everyone. I guess no one fears the retribution at all.
Inside the rental place it was obvious a large flight must have just come in because there were a lot of people in line at my rental place. I guess it is not just Dollar/ Thrifty but also AutoEuropa. Anyway after a few minutes in line I managed to get a different girl than the one that had “helped” me the other day, although she was there and recognized me. With some pointing to signs and a bit of effort I explained I had already rented the car and wanted the GPS. It took a bit but they realized it could be done and she found one in the back of the booth but it was not powering on. She took me out to the car and we powered it on with the car running and it did actually work. Going back in I had to sign an agreement to pay 10 Euro a day to rent it and then I was on my way. This did make me feel a lot better. I was able to change the language from German to UK English for speaking and to American English for writing with a bit of guesswork. I think it took me less than 5 minutes.
Set up properly I put in a course for Caccamo city center (not knowing exactly where to go for the castle though I knew it was on a mountain top and likely not near the center of the town). This took me back through Palermo and on past, say about 40 miles or so. I cannot be certain. I managed to get through the ugly parts of Palermo with only one minor and one serious stall (the second I thought I was in first but must have shifted to 3rd by accident. Anyway, the rest of the motorway was not so bad and it was a bit of learning what gear for what speed. I am sure I am not at all fuel efficient when it comes to all of that. I started the day with about an 8th of a tank used and finished with half a tank left. I am sure some of it is the amount of driving I did. Anyway getting back on to the trip at hand I was able to make the correct turns according to the GPS but it decided a shorter route was through a tiny 1.5 lane road that goes up the mountain a slightly different way than the main SS258 route. It was squishy and steep and every time a car came in the other direction it was rather tough to make the both of us fit. I did manage a major stall because I hadn’t realized how steep it was getting and didn’t manage to get into lower gears fast enough. All the same I was able to get moving through some strange pass of fate that allowed me to not drop back down the hill and then have to contend with the 2 cars that were coming when I had just got through to the top. This put me on the actual route and it was a full 2 lane road from here. I think maybe it was 20 more minutes of driving to site of the castle. I could see it from the car and there was a large unused parking area so I chose to use that rather than search too hard because well I had to get out and walk by this point. I think it was probably around 11 or 11:30 by this point and I had been driving since 7am. That is certainly a lot of driving for me, especially in the manual. I guess I did increase my driving experience by 200% though so that was nice. I should give the recognition that every road I was on aside from the motor was 100% up my brother David’s ally for driving. This went in both directions. They were all windy mountain roads with lots of sharp drops, hairpin turns and steep inclines and declines. I am amazed I made it through it honestly. I suppose I wouldn’t think twice about it if the car was an automatic but it was a feat for me.
Caccamo Castle was about a 3 minute walk from where I parked. The whole town looked deserted except maybe a couple locals. I walked up to the gate expecting it was closed on Thursday but indeed it was not and I could enter. The ticket counter was inside a side building, I think just above the stables. It cost 4 Euro to enter. None of the people there spoke English of course. I might have been the first customer of the day. I walked around the outside areas that were allowable and also found the main building which was apparently above the ticket counter. It is nice looking from the outside when you can see it. I suspect I would have to have driven down to the lake to see the castle on the mountain in spectacular fashion but I had decided already that was not going to happen. It appears the castle was lived in until the 1960s or so when it was sold to the Italian government to be made into a historic landmark. Having been used to then it had electrical and the like installed and there was obvious modern stuff that they were probably trying to keep out of sight poorly. I should point out that no one was inside the main building at all. If I was not supposed to take flash pictures there were no signs and no one to tell me not to. There was also no one to tell me not to go here or there and checked out everything I could. I could tell there was another floor above the one I was able to get into but I wasn’t going to break their barriers anyway. So while it is probably a fairly big castle it felt small due to the limitations of where you can go on the grounds and inside. I walked around everything 2 or three times to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Just as I was deciding to leave some new guests did show up so at least I wasn’t the only fare for the day. It is obvious some renovation work was done on the castle and the grounds. The walkways would be treacherous for someone with weak knees or ankles though.
After seeing the castle I thought I should walk the town a little and see if there was any place to get decent pictures from. I wandered a bit, found a couple of the churches (yes, every town has 20 or so churches, probably more churches than residents). I found a couple spots to get some decent pictures, got stuck in a dead end then backtracked and headed to the car. It was about 1pm or so and the GPS said it would take half an hour to get back maybe. I figured on longer but it was not really too far off. In leaving the parking lot I forgot the parking brake again. I did manage to rectify that of course.
I should point out that I broke the suction thing that attached to the windshield trying to take it off. Not really sure what happened but it came down in 2 pieces. I had to wedge it in the stuff slot above the radio for the trip back. That seemed to work though I had to watch it sway back and forth on shaper turns and the sun sort of washed out the screen a lot in that position. Anyway it worked. I also didn’t mention the weather conditions. It was probably 65F or so all day. There was a hint of cool in the breezes that were coming in but not anything that would really make me think that I was going to need a jacket at all. Everyone was staring at me though because I was in a short sleeve T-shirt and they were all bundled up in their fullest winter clothing. This went for tourists as well as the locals. In fact when the girl from the rental place went outside to the car to test the GPS she put on a big puffy winter coat for the less than 5 minutes we were out there. I was wondering where she had gone when she came out with it on. I was able not to laugh but I do think I smirked because I just do not get the idea that 65 is cold at all.
The GPS guided me into the hotel very easily and it was not very confusing at all coming from the west. At about 1:30pm it was not too traffic-filled either so I was able to get to the hotel reasonably easily and even lucked out that some guy in a moped was leaving the garage as I came in so I didn’t have to stop and run through the nightmare of getting started and into the gate before it closed. I went up the desk and fortunately the man there spoke English very well and I was able to borrow some super glue to fix the GPS bracket while I ate lunch in the restaurant in the hotel. It appears to have held and I am not using it until tomorrow at this point so perhaps it will continue to work. Won’t know till I try it. At the least if I can fake fix it to give back to the rental company I will be happy. For lunch I had an eggplant lasagna that was made with spaghetti-Os instead of lasagna noodles. Ok, they weren’t really spaghetti-Os but they were O shaped pasta that looked a lot like them. It was tasty and enjoyable. I bought a gigantic bottle of water not knowing what they meant when they said grande. I brought that up to the room after I was done. I honestly didn’t know what I was ordering as the menu was in Italian only. I just pointed at something and hoped for the best. I think it worked out. I was full when I was done. I think the water did remind me I hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before though. There are really no other restaurants around the hotel so far as I can see. Oh, not minutes after I sat down at the restaurant the entire crowd of noisemakers neighbors I had the night before showed up to have dinner also. It was obviously something tour provided and they were having a family style setup that actually looked very nice. It meant that the 2 people serving were overwhelmed and of course the nice quiet lunch I was hoping for was anything but quiet.
After lunch I dropped some stuff off at the room and aimed for the Catacombe Cappucini which are a few blocks away from the hotel. The claim to fame of the catacombs is that the local Cappuchin order used to mummify their dead and many of the locals and display them in the catacombs. There are a lot of mummies in there. They do not allow you to take pictures so I had to buy a pamphlet that shows some of it for those who are interested. There are people there of all ages and from times as old as at least the 1500s to 1920 when the last mummy was made. Apparently the Italian government outlawed the practice around then and people that did it moved on to elsewhere or died. The 1920 mummy is that of a 2 year old girl and is, no surprisingly in the best shape of the bodies. The truth is that most of them really don’t look so much like mummies anymore. There are a few that still have skin, especially on the face, but most are bare skulls honestly. The one thing that you can see immediately is how short these people were. I am thinking 4 feet and very little in general. I assume the mummification shrunk them some, but at 5’7” I would have to have been a giant among them.
I can’t say that it took a ton of time to go through the catacombs but it must have been at least 45 minutes or so. I was not rushing. It was 3 Euros to get in and 1.50 Euros to buy the pamphlet. I detoured my route back to the hotel to find a bank to take some more money out for the future and got back to the room by about 4:40 or so. Kind of an early stop but still a very full day. Due to the hotel restaurant not opening until 8 for dinner I have been avoiding eating that late and I haven’t the will to try to scour until I can find someplace else to eat so I have been subsisting off 1 meal a day. I think my stomach is shrinking a bit when I expected it to be growing. I don’t believe in stress but I guess I may be feeling it because I have not really been hungry most of the time anyway.
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