Sometimes I don't research a place enough, this was that time. Trapani looked a good option on Instagram but in reality, it wasn't. We arrived to a town that looked forlorn and empty but I think the Italians had moved somewhere cooler. The heat here was vicious. We had a big room in an old palazzo with so many stairs that they brought our bags up via a pulley system. For lunch we chose a restaurant based on the cover charge price which was overpriced even by Venetian standards but the wine was cheap which made up for it slightly. Maybe we would drink our way through this strange town. We had a lasagna made with fennel sausage which lightened our mood somewhat.
That night we sat down at a restaurant that we thought looked ok only to find out there was a service/cover tax but it didn't say what it would be. We asked a friendly waiter and he said it was dependent on what you ordered but wouldn't tell us how that worked so we up and left and found another one. This was not the end of this story after the daughter left a bad review on TripAdvisor. To be continued....
Breakfast at the hotel was sumptuous, fresh orange juice, good croissants, pods of nutella and deadly machiatos.
Today we took the funivia or lift up to Erice, a mountain town; it was a ten minute ride over some dizzying heights then we walked up to the castle which began it's life as the Temple of Venus, was built over by the Saracens and then the Normans came in 1167 and added onto it. The views were stupendous, even Trapani looked good from up here.
Wonderful ceramics shops lined the quiet, tiny streets and I bought a Xmas decoration, the first of many from countries I visited after that. They're portable and fantastic memories. Arabic cuisine is prevalent still in Sicily, we had a seafood couscous for lunch flavoured with garlic, tomato and cumin with a chilli sauce and good rustic bread.
But getting back on a Sunday was another issue, we got back to the outskirts of town on the funivia but there were no buses until late so dripping with sweat and having walked forever, we ended up finally finding a taxi. Then on the way to our room, we saw the waiter from our aborted restaurant running up the street after us. He asked if we'd remove the Trip Advisor review as his boss had seen it and he would not be paid for a month if it wasn't taken out! We argued that that would be illegal but he said he was here from Africa illegally so they could do anything. The daughter took the review out and we hoped he would be paid. He said he thought the mafia was still running Sicily. Trapani did have that feeling about it.
The next day we went on a cruise to Favignana, which is where my husband had a caravan for many years and where he took me on my first visit to Italy. I didn't last long in the caravan, how spoilt was I way back then? After 30 years, I thought we should revisit this famous tuna fishing island but arriving there I know why I wanted to leave. This had beautiful swimming beaches but it was desert-like, almost treeless and baking in the harsh sunlight. We wandered and consumed expensive granita and were glad to get back on the boat out of the heat.
They served us a great lunch on the boat made by the staff; a pesto made of basil, parsley, oregano, almonds and fresh tomatoes with home grown olive oil brought by one of the sailors on board, tossed with rustic pasta and slathered on bruschetta alongside plentiful jugs of wine. Then we swam in 10 metre deep water until someone said: Medusa! And everyone started to get out of the water. Medusa is Italian for jellyfish, the stinging variety. We were back on board within seconds.
One more day trapped in Trapani. It's too hot to go out. I breakfast early and having emptied my coffee cup, I see clearly a girl dancing on a mountain peak; free. I am single and free and dancing could be on the agenda once we're out of this weird town.
The next day we're on the bus to Palermo to another refurbished palazzo for a night. It's badly decorated but cheap and must have been so beautiful in 1500 when it was built. It started to rain and we were so relieved after the Trapani heatwave but the Sicilians were surprised as it never rains in the summer here.
We had an amazing lunch in an old traditional trattoria, eggplant stuffed with bread and spices in a chilli tomato sauce whilst the daughter had an amazing turmeric flavoured bun stuffed with pulled pork.
That afternoon, I found the Ballaro market with it's amazing vegetable displays. Then, fascinated by the amazingly beautiful occupied and abandoned palazzos, I kept on walking and ended up in a part of the city that didn't look safe, lots of guys sitting on battered motorbikes yelling at each other, smoking furiously and eyeing the young women who walked seductively by. I ended up following some other lost tourists back into the main part of town. Then we went back to our favourite restaurant for spicy anchovy pasta and a salad but we are done with being on the road and eating out. I've been on the move now for 2.5 months and ready for home away from home tomorrow via plane, bus and taxi.
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