We were up and active early, getting ourselves downstairs with luggage and other peripheral baggage, mostly electronic, which makes it all a little bit clumsy. We trundled the 600 metres back to the Politeama bus stop between soft rain showers and sun patches, realising that we had hardly spent any time in these more 'modern' parts of Palermo which appear to have all the usual designer shops that most other cities have. On the bus back to the airport, where we were to pick up our hire car, we paid more attention to the dense peripheral suburbs of rather ugly blocky concrete high-rises that fill the kilometres: occasionally one has boulevard coffee shops and a cafe society in full suburban swing. But all are fairly architecturally challenged, compared to the historic centre, which really needs to lift its game to properly showcase its beautiful ancient buildings.
We had booked a VW Automatic online, but, as is always the case, don't get what you book. We ended up with an automatic Toyota, from the same class, I think: which emitted odd signals in Italian every couple of minutes for the first few kilometres. It even alerts you if you drive too close to the white line on the right. And notices if the back seat belt is not working. The trunk fitted two of our trundle bags, and had it been just an inch or two longer, it would have fitted three: but as we had to lay them in sideways one ended up in the back passenger seat. But, the seats are really comfortable and after a little orientation we were off and away, on light traffic roads from the airport, exploring the rest of Sicily by car.
And thanks to our sat nav purchased a day or so ago, this was very easy.
As it was a Sunday and only the rare supermarket appears to be open at all on a Sunday in Sicily we found one, online, that said it was, so set our sights for that as a first stop, and there collected breakfast, lunch and dinner for our stays in self-catering places for the next day or so. All done and packaged away we headed for the sights of Scopella, stopping at this wonderful viewpoint overlooking Castellammare del Golfo and finding a bench for lunch at the viewing point we had a delicious picnic of still hot bread rolls, freshly sliced prosciutto and sharp cheese. Peter's favourite lunch, so his choice prevails most days. Which doesn't worry us as the flavours of the delicate slices of dried meats in Italy is always such a surprise, and always so very different.
The water is now a sensational colour all around the coast, going from aquamarine, to greenish blue, to navy in places. But further out on these very waters tuna have been fished since primitive man sought to master the inhabitants of the sea, peaking with the tuna mattanza of our times: herding tuna, commercially, deeper and deeper into massive netted traps until the fish have nowhere to go but into a death chamber. Here they were harpooned, and the sea ran red with their blood, in this massive slaughter.
The fat rich 100kg tuna which used to run happily every spring from the Straits of Gibraltar to lay their eggs along the coasts of the Mediterranean, have long lost their commercial use as their numbers are so depleted. That intensive fishing has now been stopped. Still, the fisheries, the factory, the tonnara, from those days still sits here on a plateau of land at Scopella. Beside a blue blue sea.
We were not allowed in. The owners have lowered a boom and today it is all barred. They are apparently finding it more lucrative to rent it out as a film set -- Oceans Twelve was filmed here, along with many other atmospheric movies -- so the old relics of the old fishing days can no longer be easily seen.
We could still see the outline of the tonnara, guarded by ancient torres, built in long ages past. And the stacks, the pinnacles of rocks rising up all around it. It is well guarded in the rear; well guarded in the front.
From here we headed to our house in Calatafimi, and arrived at the time we had predicted, but took at least a half an hour longer, attempting to find a way into the tiny lanes in the heart of this little rural village, that would allow us access to our place for the night. With much u-turning in tight spaces, and ignoring the sat nave screaming at us to take sharp rights down stairwells and footpaths, we finally managed a tight park on our tight little lane-- where we still had to leave room for other cars to pass. There we met our host, were shown around the house -- all in Italian, albeit with a little help from Google translate --with its two bedrooms and ensuite on one level, and the kitchen-living room, and master bathroom on the next level. All seemingly brand new, and just lovely: albeit a bit chilly as the afternoon was now closing in, and there was moisture in the air, and the stone of the building kept in the cool.
We made great use of our provisions for dinner, then slept soundly under warm fat doonahs, and crisp ironed sheets -- even the tea towel was ironed-- till morning.
Ready for another adventure tomorrow.
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| Overlooking Castellammare del Golfo |
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| Old tonnara, guarded by ancient torres |
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