Italy Day 8

Today I started early again but this time I wanted to make sure I was after 7am on the road to get gas. I suspect it is possible to get it earlier but I didn’t want to have to hang around for 20 minutes on the off chance I was wrong. I figured that they would be open by 7 and if they weren’t I would sit and cry or something. I chose to use the gas station down the street and it turned out the man was polite and quick and even spoke a bit of English. With a full tank of gas my idea from the night before was to visit Erice and assuming there was not much to that I would visit Segesta on the way back.


Fortunately I will be visiting Segesta on day 9 instead of visiting it today because I really really liked Erice a lot. First off it was clean with only one mark of graffiti I found very deep into the labyrinth. Second the town is at least Roman age and possibly older and the structures are mixed between Roman on up to medieval.

Before I start talking about the town itself I guess I need to mention the drive again. The majority was motorway of course, but the last stretch was up the mountain that the town sits on. They use the slogan The Mountain of God. This again meant lots of switchbacks and steep drops. I was sure the GPS was trying to really screw with me when it brought me to a dirt road. Shortest path… There are no rules to exclude dirt roads on the thing. It is a Tom Tom and though my namesake, I would never recommend anyone buy one. The one that was stolen from me was a Garmin and it was much better. First off it was more accurate as to where you are. The Tom Tom is terrible when it comes to roundabouts (rotaries for those of you from Massachusetts). I guess it is doing its job well enough but I don’t appreciate the sense of humor it has. Anyway, I basically did a U-turn and it recalculated a different path from the dirt road and I made it up the mountain relatively unscathed. It was early by Saturday standards so there was little traffic to contend with. I parked in pretty much the first spot I could find which was well out of the main area of town down near the Real Duomo. I didn’t mind the walking at all.

The town has a castle. I arrived at 9 to find out that until the last Sunday of October it does not open until 10 until 7. Starting with October 31 it goes to Saturdays only from 10 to 4. So it would be opening anyway I was just very early. I walked back to the street I came in on and found a bar and had a coffee and a apple turnover. Both were very good. First coffee I have had since the espresso after dinner in Rome. It was press coffee of course, that is all they do in Italy. Not my favorite but it was good nonetheless. Not as chalky as the British version.

After breakfast I walked through the town to get my bearings. I was still early of course but all the little tourist shops were starting to open. I have not seen a ton of tourist shops in Palermo so to find a bunch was very nice. Along the way I found one of the many churches that are open to visit and found you could buy a full set pass for 5 Euro so did that. In the long haul of the day I visited almost all of them. A couple never opened up. Oh well. There were no rules against pictures, just no flash. I think I visited about 8 or so in the course of the day. There was also a bell tower that was very cool. Of course when it was just past 10 I tried yet again to visit the castle but it was still closed. I figured that something that I was finally thinking was a truly cool place to visit in Sicily was still going to throw me the zinger but I hoped as with most Italians that the people who opened it were late. So I continued around the town visiting churches and gift shops and basically had a good time. I had only worn a short sleeve shirt and it was a bit breezy up there. I didn’t bring the long sleeve along like I did when going to Etna. I probably should have. Anyway, the family now has a new hooded, zip-up sweatshirt because I bought one and wore it for the day to cut the breeze out some. It worked very well actually.

Not long after buying the sweatshirt I made a 3rd run at the castle and this time it was indeed open. They date the castle’s foundation to Roman times where it was possibly a temple dedicated to Venus if I read everything correctly. The castle ruins that make up the site now are apparently medieval period or older and rebuilt many times over to what would last be a Norman castle. It is called the Castle of Venus, I presume due to the Venus temple. They think there were hot bath from the Roman period as well that had been excavated. In any event it was a very beautiful site and exactly what I tend to go for when I am traveling. It is much bigger looking on the outside than in but that is because there is a separate tower that is not open the public that was later part of the castle was well. Inside the walls is basically ruins and there are no buildings standing aside from the entry building which may have been rebuilt. I cannot say, but probably. Still there is a lot to see inside and there are some beautiful views of the surrounding country-side. The entry was 3 Euros and so far I think it is the best 3 Euros I have spent in the trip. They do give you a nice pamphlet and I took a ton of pictures.

There is also a broken lower defense tower or something like that a bit down the hill on the north side of the mountain (I think, my sense of direction is horrid) and I saw someone standing in it at one point. It looked precarious to get to but I figured I would take my chances. After finishing the actual castle I found the path that led to the towers and the location did get a bit much for my fear of heights. There were some sort of unkempt stairs around the structure and I walked down to see what was down there but I had to stop when the railing-less steps really started to look steep. I came back around to the main path and found what apparently was the door to the building but first off it was half closed and I could see all sorts of loose debris right inside the doorway. But the reason I didn’t go in was because the door was basically on a ledge where there was but a small lip of rock jutting out rather than something that looked solid. Think Wile E. Coyote on a mountain cliff just before it breaks and that was what I saw. No it probably really wasn’t that bad but I figured one of two things would happen, I would slip and no one would know until it was time for me to check out of the hotel or second and the more probable, that ledge would break as I stepped on it. So, yes, I chickened out and did not go into it. Sorry.

After returning to civilized land I wandered a bit more because I was looking for someplace to eat. I couldn’t really make up my mind what to do. I don’t think I was the only person not sure where to eat based on a couple families in the same confusion. I guess when you get down to it, Panini shops seem as fast food as McDonald’s and it wasn’t really what I was in the mood for. Nor pizza at this point. So after doing circles for quite a while I decided on a the Ristorante Venus. I had grilled lamb with roasted potatoes. The lamb was done in olive oil, lemon and some herbs including oregano and parsley. Unfortunately it was small chops that were mostly fat and the meat was cooked a bit more than I would like but it was still very tasty and enjoyable. It was a guarantee I had to get an oil spot on my cream colored shirt. No wine or beer for this due to having to drive and I was expecting to head out right after I had eaten. It was already around 2 to 2:30 I would think by that point.

In some respects I suppose it is a touch sad that I have less to say on the place I enjoyed the most than on some of the other stuff, but I think a couple things are happening here. First I visited a ton of churches. I am not religious and one church is like another in as many words to me. I don’t think I could tell you the names of any of them without looking at the various paperwork I got along the way. Second, Though the climb with the car was a bit trying, I didn’t actually stall at all. I did get stuck behind a truck that stalled but I didn’t act Sicilian and blast the horn at him continually, instead letting him fight with it to get it started again and get going. If it weren’t for the GPS putting me to the dirt road the drive might have been an almost nothing thing. I am not by any meaning of the word going to say I am good at driving manual shift, probably not even passable, but I can survive it all at this point. Additionally, I think it is easier to explain the details when it is out of sorts rather than something you enjoy. I would say mainly that I enjoyed it and would advise anyone I know to visit Erice if they got a chance. I would not say the same for Palermo, say. Palermo feels worse than Lawrence honestly. Part of the fun of good places is discovery. Discovering bad places is not quite as enjoyable and perhaps it is best to capture why you think so. Erice was well within my bounds to taste. I think over the course of my travels and blogging I have shown a defined set of rules of what I enjoy and that should be explanatory enough. So yes, the good times are shorter than the harder times.

Now on to the harder times of the day. After I got done with Erice and it was past 2:30pm or so I had to get back down the mountain. I was curious if the GPS was going to try to send me through the dirt road again but it did not. Nor did it choose the way I went up the mountain though that was a valid two way road. Instead it found this really steep and instant switchback to instant switchback road that was mindbogglingly tight and had no field of vision as to whether there were any vehicles coming in the other direction. Again, this is a road that David would have loved. I was basically horrified and switched between 1st and 2nd gear the majority of the way. I probably looked like a prototypical old woman driving down this mountain. In any event, if you’re reading this David, Sicily is for you. Just don’t stay in Palermo and you will love it. I think it took me about 45 minutes to an hour to go what amounted to less than 5 miles (not really sure what the distance was but I bet it wasn’t that much). I only stalled when the GPS had me take a sharp left but then said, no not that sharp left, though what it meant I cannot say and I had to try to reroute at last second down another road that was incredibly steep and on me before I realized. I stalled before I turned in and it wasn’t much to get going again. Still, that was my stall story for the day. I will say I was terrified of the idea of stalling while coming down the sharp and steep hairpins but I managed to not do that, probably by driving 5 miles an hour. I am sure I let out a sign of relief when I realized I was in the clear of the mountain after all that. The GPS did me one more trick when it came to a roundabout and I had to do a U-turn to get back on track but overall the rest of the drive back was fairly uneventful. I pulled into Palermo a bit before 4pm and only had to suffer a small bit of traffic. I am not sure if I mentioned this but the A29 motorway becomes not a motorway through Palermo. It has traffic lights that allow people to walk across the highway by stopping traffic. I am not a genius by any stretch but I can’t understand what is so difficult or expensive about building flyover bridges for the pedestrians to use to cross the street. Worst case dig a tunnel. I am sure they can make one or the other handicapped accessible if needed. It seems more sensible than creating fake traffic on a motorway.

Now that I am on slight rant mode I should point out a couple things about Italy and Sicily. First of all, no one rides bicycles at all. In Europe I have gotten very used to the idea that everyone bicycles around everywhere. The only people I have seen riding bikes have been Arab immigrants. No Italians at all. I bet more people own cars than do not. So that leads into the question of the European green movement. It does not exist in Italy so far as I can see. No bikes, everyone drives, fewer windmill turbines, nothing resembling recycling of bottles or cans or any sort of trash that could be, and so on. In a couple of places I have passed through I have seen large piles of garbage bags filled to the brim just stacked along the side of the road. It does not appear that there will be any removal any time soon. I know I have already compared Italy to Peru but I really have to say that whether they are part of the EU or not they really feel as much like a third world nation as Peru was. This from a country that used to be the seat of culture for the whole world. Take all of this as you will. I am just disappointed they are not cleaner and more well kempt than they could be. At least Erice was very clean and stood out for that reason. I should expect that had some bearing on my opinion of the city.

Anyway, at 4pm or so I started writing this before the day became too tangled but there was still some time to use up in the day. With that in mind I realized I could go for a walk and probably get out more money. I still had a bit but gas is expensive and I would have to purchase at least one more full tank before I returned the car to the rental place. So I walked down to where I last got money to wait in line for a few minutes and find out the ATM was broken. I decided I could walk back down to Macqueda and try the one I saw there and it also wasn’t working. It appeared that there was something going on with the ATMs for the Bank of Sicily. This meant I would have to range even further, as if deep in Macqueda wasn’t far enough. I took a gamble and moved down to the next main street which is Via Roma. This was my first time on Via Roma and it seemed like the nicer shopping area for the locals or something. I was correct in believing it might have a bank machine that was not Bank of Sicily. There was one from BNL which is a European chain. I was able to get some money from there then for the sake of it I walked back up the street that had the cathedral to the Norman Palace and back around to the hotel. From there I just decided to watch some videos and call it a night.