Italy Day 7

I started off early again and was out the door about 20 minutes before 7. I can tell how bad the main street gets later in the day and I want to be able to make the U-turn I need to make before it becomes a fight to the death. Plus I had the intention of reaching Etna for my birthday. I figured there probably isn’t a better treat in Sicily (at this point a bit disenchanted with Sicily) than to stand on top of an active volcano and once again tempt the fates.

Etna is near Catania and is about a 3 hour drive away. In each direction about 2 hours is highway and then there is an hour of cutting through farmland, city and eventually mountain roads. Obviously, you start out with that on the way back. I have to say the one major plus is that I am not really that far from the motorway in this hotel and the car is actually protected in the garage. I have somehow managed to get the car in and out as needed so far though it is indeed a scary process. I am not sure if I pointed out that the car is a Fiat Panda. I probably did but she and I got really acquainted over the past couple days so I guess it is fine to repeat it. It is light blue and a boxy looking thing (not as bad as those Scion things but still not exactly attractive). I suspect it is probably a sort of equivalent to a mini-van for the Italian family since parking spaces are so tight.

Motorway driving is basically very easy. Once up to speed it is 5th gear and hold the accelerator pedal. I am sure the Panda is a 4 cylinder at best (maybe 3? Probably 4) and going over the longer hills was often an issue. The rules of the road appear to be right lane for travel and left lane for passing. You are only supposed to be in the left for passing. I think the Sicilian (and probably Italian) mind believes that if the right two tires of the car are in the right lane then they are in the right lane and it is cool to travel in that position. I would say about 50% of the people drive that way. The trucks, like in Denmark appear to have lower speed limits than the rest of the vehicles. It appears they have an on average 100-140 or so speed limit in kph. That equates to 60 to 80mph or so. The majority of my day was taken up in this endeavor so there really isn’t a lot to talk about otherwise. I can say the countryside is very pretty to look at and there are huge swathes of the A19 that are raised structure highway. By that I mean it is a lot of bridge over the terrain rather than built directly on the ground. It ultimately means there are tons of expansion joints and what might be a peaceful motorway ride is taken up by the flop flop flop of the tires passing over the expansion joints. Anyway it was still not that terrible a ride. The traffic was light once outside the Palermo perimeter except for a couple road work areas which also weren’t even that terrible.

I did start out with a stop at a gas station, the first service plaza on the motorway. I was at half a tank and figured it was a long drive and best to just get the gas as soon as possible. The guy at the station forced me to take Super rather than regular unleaded gas. I couldn’t speak Italian and he was taking me for it no matter how much I protested. I don’t care what kind of gas the car gets, it is not mine. He then had the nerve to try to take a tip from me. I told him no in simple terms that he understood so he got none of that. If he had given me the cheaper gas I would have been happy to oblige. It might mean I cannot use that station again. Ah well. After gassing up I pulled a bit forward and parked and grabbed some chocolate chip cookies and a bottle of water for the ride. I was again skipping breakfast and had only eaten one time in the previous day so it made sense. After about 80 or 90 miles or so I found a place to pull over on the highway and take a picture of Etna from a distance and ate the chocolate chip cookies. There were mass produced stuff that appear to be made in Spain but they hit the spot anyway.

Not long after that it was off the highway and through a crowded city where I had to climb a hill in stop and go traffic for what seemed an eternity. This probably wouldn’t have meant anything to me except I stalled at least 3 times on the way up as people kept stopping unexpectedly. I had managed to only stall starting up the car on the way out of the hotel this morning to that point. Fortunately once clear of that hill it was mostly empty of traffic and indeed the further up I got the less cars there were. David would again have loved driving the windy roads up the mountain. I should point out that I took the granny approach and made it to the top relatively unharmed going say 3rd gear most of the way.

There was a touch of clouds at the stopping area when I got there. Etna is about 11000 feet tall at its peak. I suspect the area of the Silvestri Crater is about 7000 feet or so. There are a bunch of souvenir shops and snack shops. I checked out all the souvenir shops and then walked up to but decided not to ride the cable cars into the now thickening clouds. I have an affirmed fear of heights and I will tell you for certain that the inability to see below is actually worse than the ability to see it as I later found out. Instead I walked some of the paths that appear to be used for the Land Rover treks through the mountain. They weren’t giving any due to the weather and the state of the volcano I guess. I saw the excursion place turning people away. I might have tried that otherwise. While hiking I saw some people off in the distance standing on some form of path. That was the Silvestri Crater apparently. I was curious how to get there but realized it was not from the path I was taking. I turned back at that point and then found a place to have lunch consisting of a luke warm slice of pizza and a coke. It was ok food and the place had a bathroom which I needed at that point so it worked out.

By now the clouds which appeared to be fog since ground level is in the clouds at that point had really rolled in thickly. I was torn between heading down or trying to wait it out. I decided to explore a bit more and I found the path to the crater and decided to take it. It said 20 minutes. I am not sure how long I took. The first view of the crater is from its lower side. I have to say with the lava rock and the fog a lot of it gave the semblance of what many people might think the upper tiers of hell might look like. The fog was constantly giving off a prismatic rainbow just at the edge of sight that I am sure was not caught in any of the pictures I took. It was a really neat effect though. As I walked around the crater I found a path that went to the higher side and against my better judgment I climbed up it. I got probably very close to the highest point to look at it but skipped out the last 20 yards or so because well it looked like a darned narrow path and I could already feel the height and with the extra thick fog I couldn’t really see how far down was on either side. We all know the greatest fear is the fear of the unknown and the fog basically created that for me. I took some pictures from height of course I am not sure what people will think of them, there is little to see but cloud filled air. Anyway, the way down was loose volcanic soil (so was the way up I suppose but it bothered me less) and I had a time trying to keep calm and to keep my footing at the same time. There are some narrow stretches of that path that are fairly steep. I must have looked the worst sissy in the world mincy stepping my way down. At least I didn’t drop to my butt and worm down, though the thought did cross my mind. Finally the path widened out again and I was able to make it to the base of the trail a few minute later.

I am not sure which was worse the trail or the driving down in 10 foot visibility. I recognized there was no end off the clouds in sight and that the mountain was only getting more crowded. The GPS had me go the wrong way down one of the roads and I tried to avoid it three times but eventually gave up and went with it because I couldn’t figure out how to get the proper way. Maybe you are supposed to go higher then loop around and down. I could believe that. Either way I was fortunate that no one was coming up when I went through their way down. No harm no foul I guess. From there it was the tight turny roads for about 3 or 4 miles I think before I finally got out of the clouds. It was strictly 2nd gear until then when I upped it to 3rd in the visibility. All in all it was a nice visit though I would have stayed longer without the vapors about me. Of course I knew I had to contend with a 3 hour return drive so I guess it was a reasonable 2 hour stay. By the way, it was indeed in the colder state up there. I think it might have been in the low 50sF or so. I wore a long sleeve and short sleeve shirt for the occasion. I was less inclined to think the people in their winter clothes were overdoing it up there. I was the only one so lightly dressed though. The clouds did rewash my hair and beard though.

The drive back apparently took me a different way than I went in. Not a big deal but at one point it had me try to take a road that was obviously closed. Chiasura means closed and that is what the sign said. I did a U-turn and continued on the road I was on before that and it seemed to understand that the road was closed and reset right away rather than trying to route me through it no matter what. I was surprised at that. Anyway after that the majority of the ride was uneventful for the most part. I tried to get gas at the last service station before Palermo but unfortunately it was mostly being remodeled and they had one pump open and 5 cars waiting. I drove right back out and opted instead to just get gas on day 8. The car is at a bit less than half so it will need more. All in all the driving amounted to say 250 miles round trip, maybe a bit less. Effectively I had again doubled my driving time with manual transmission but with so much of it highway I am pretty sure it doesn’t count as much. I got back into Palermo at about 3:45 and got into the garage with only 1 stall.

After getting back I started to write this for a bit and then went for a walk. I asked the man at the desk was there a good place for dinner and he said yes but it opens very late like everything else. I asked where it was for the heck of it and he said it was near the Teatro Massimo. I figured I could walk there and take a look anyway. I did just that. Down Tukory and onto Macqueda. Moving down Macqueda I found the Praetorian Palace and Fountain and took a couple pictures of them then continued on because the theater was still a fair bit further up. Upon reaching the theater it was obvious it was closed for any visiting (if it opens for that other than for performances) and I walked all the way around it and did find the restaurant he told me about and it was abysmally dark. I had sort of expected that it be closed but perhaps people were inside and preparing stuff or something. Not the case. It probably does open at 8pm like everywhere else. It was about 5:30 or so then and I knew two things. I didn’t want to wait two and a half hours to see if the place did indeed open and the more so I didn’t want to walk back to the hotel presumably at 9pm or later after having eaten. So I chose to walk back to the room instead figuring I would just have my birthday dinner at the restaurant at the hotel one way or another. I did devise a plan to purchase some biscotti on the way back to the hotel and managed to do that. I have no idea what was in what I bought but they tasted good. One had a green jelly type stuff that I couldn’t place the flavor at all. The second looked like it had chocolate in it but had a taste of allspice more than anything and had some chewy bits to it. The last was a standard almond cookie so far as I can tell. I ate them with the rest of the water from the afternoon before.

Now that we are speaking about eating, I know that most Europeans eat much later than we Americans do but to not even open for business until 8pm is something that completely blows my mind. In the northern European countries they at least have service available in the main cities. I would have to consider Palermo a main city if it is the capital and largest city on Sicily. Anyway, they don’t. Also they don’t really have a lot of restaurants per se. It is really a lot of snack shops and pastry shops and “bars” which serve Panini and sometimes pizza. I saw more restaurants in Rome but they realize they are catering to a foreign clientele I guess. I am sure it is off season for tourists here in Sicily. Everyone must come in the summer when it is 40C out. Bleh… I am sure they are instead going to beaches, probably not near Palermo too. Just a guess. I didn’t research traditional visits to Sicily at all.

So I watched a video on my computer until 8 rolled around and then went down for dinner. An elderly couple with their granddaughter got on the elevator from two floors below me and it turns out I sat next to them in the restaurant. I thought it was going to be a quiet dinner until lo and behold a massive rush of kids form some sort of group thing showed up all over again. I guess I should have expected that. Two visits to the place, to gaggles of Italian kids. One was a girl that looked like Harry Potter. Another was a boy that looked like a very very young Tom Baker version Doctor Who. The scarf over the T-shirt didn’t help him. Anyway I ordered set menu number 1. It involved a spaghetti with some form of tomato based sauce that was named specially but I couldn’t say what it was supposed to be. The secondi was grilled sausages and fried potatoes. Both primi and secondi were very good and very filling. I was stuffed by the time the fruit came around. It was a choice of uve or melo (if I got it correctly). I chose melo which was a pair of apples instead of the grapes. The meal also included a ¼ bottle of wine. I chose red which was a Sicilian variety that was decent and a bottle of mineral water along with the customary bread. All in all it was a good but noisy meal. And very late by my standards. Can’t see doing that on purpose much.