Northwest Sicily

Sicily blog No 2

It’s been a while since sending our last blog, what with Christmas and New Year and some frustration with photo software which seems not to want to co-operate with Windows 10. We have also had difficulties with wifi - our usual McDonalds fall-back needs a mobile to enrol, to which a password is sent, except that apparently GB phone numbers are not recognised, and our long-range wifi aerial is not performing either. So from now on it will be cafes and restaurants as and when we visit them on which we will have to rely.

We spent a couple of days in Palermo, which was something of a disappointment. The guide book reads well, but the city is not inspiring, lacking the spacious piazzas and public spaces usually found in major cities here in Italy. Yes, it is full of history and building by its numerous occupiers, often with many styles included in the same building as it has evolved over the centuries. Keen students of architecture will no doubt be able to recognise the various inputs to Palermo cathedral

As can be seen from the next photo, sadly the cathedral doesn’t enjoy a great setting, and the buildings around it can perhaps best described as ‘shabby’, a description which would quite suitable for the whole city.

We visited Monreal, just outside Palermo which is the site of a fabulously decorated basilica. It was all dressed ready for a wedding with the most wonderful poinsettias, which are happy to live outside here.

The Sicilians are obviously love these for Christmas as much as we do, and they were much in evidence

We stopped in a couple of small towns where we experienced Sicilians shopping: there aren’t many supermarkets and Sicilians shop much as we would have done 40 or more years ago.

With the help of a guide book, much good humour, and even some French on behalf of one of the shopkeepers (at last, somewhere where my French rather than Frances’s German has come in useful!) we managed to buy what we wanted except the minced lamb, which they had not got!

We went to Segesta to see the Greek temple and city (which included the remains of a mosque added about 12 centuries later)

Then up to a campsite which opens just for the summer and the month of December, thinking there must be something going on there. Under pine trees – essential in summer no doubt, but not now, and with the company of one German gent we decided to return to Trapani where we stayed by the port and visited the lovely town.

This chap Garibaldi gets everywhere

We haven’t found out how he became associated with the biscuits, but he was presumably a better baker than Alfred!

During our travels we passed by a white marble quarry – it is obviously valuable stuff so they appear to have developed a quarrying technique which produces straight slabs instead of the usual pattern caused by blasting.

Before going to Trapani we visited Erice, a hilltop town, so high it is accessed by cable car (there is a road, but it is not recommended for motorhomes!)

The city walls date back to the Phoenicians, was occupied by the Greeks and later the Arabs and Normans – and others, who left behind a castle of a style very familiar to many we have seen closer to home:

You would think the sheer height of the rock on which it stands would have made the town impregnable, but clearly it didn’t, as many others followed, including most recently I believe by the Allies in 1943 (or thereabouts?!)

The town is also noted, amongst other things, for its beautiful paved streets.

From Trapani we moved on a few miles where we stopped by the salt pans near Marsala, opposite the island of Mozia, which is associated with the Englishman Joseph Whitaker who made his fortune from the (very drinkable from 3.60 euros a litre!) wine from the area.

The salt pans are a WWF reserve and they still have working windmills to pump the water.