Giro turistico, mangiare, nuotare, ripetere

Sight see, eat, swim, repeat. Pretty much our Sicily holiday rhythm.

We woke, late, to overcast skies. Headed into Sciacca fo a look see, pronounced Shiaka. A town of 40,000 people. Half the size of Ballarat and less density according to wikipedia, hard to align with our experience. We arrived and parked near the thermal springs that helped establish this place around 500BC. Brutal concrete arts centre car park was filling fast.

We essentially did the tourist route up one road to the old town gate back along a parallel one. The place is a chaos of cars parked higgled piggledy, no footpaths, collapsing buildings, gorgeous ceramics and the occasional opening to the Mediterranean. We had morning tea of hot, fresh bread and grapes $(assume euro)1.9 well spent. We sat for a while in a shady spot, not many to be found, they seem to like their seats in the glaring sun, and watched a couple of municipal police raid a bar, have a coffee, argue with various people on the pavement whilst having a ciggie, ignore the car that drove onto the piazza to do a u turn....you know normal chaotic Italian life.

Italians seem to feel that you can park anywhere you want if one or more of the following conditions are met:

• you leave the car running;
• you have two wheels on the pavement (bye bye pavement);
• you are in a rush;
• you really want to.

Seriously, the cars are choking the city.

We really liked the ceramics, even the local school had some on the external wall. Some beautiful stuff being made in the shops. They called them laboratorios if they actually made stuff on site.

We ended up in the La Madre church where two gentlemen were carrying on an animated though quiet conversation. But under a watchful eye.

Eventually gravity dragged us down to the harbour. Sciacca may have been a spa town. It is now a major fishing port. It has a significant fleet bringing in fresh fish every day.

We walked along the harbour and eventually we both got totally fed up. The effing rubbish everywhere is an utter disgrace. The pier and water is littered with stuff, every wayside stop is piled with rubbish, a seat overlooking the sea is surrounded by a sea of debris. The beach is dotted with as many butts as pebbles. Do they NOT see it? It is driving us a little nuts. We love a lot of what we are experiencing, but the litter, and the rubbish dumping, is taking its toll. Sorry, had to get that off my chest.

We then walked around the docks area, the normal Italian contrasts, pretty sights, piles of rubbish.

We walked around to the recreational marina, where we were not let into private clubs that have restaurants along the pier looking back to town. Oh well,  we found a trattoria that we had heard was good value for money. Again we feasted on sea food. Marjan could not quite bring herself to bite off the baby octopus' head, but everything else was very nice (misto da mare, pasta a la sarde, calamari a la griglia). The grilled radicchio lettuce may be an acquired taste.  A family place. Nonno sat at the front table, joined by son and a salesman for some business, son waiting tables, Nonna in the kitchen, Mamma came in at lunch with the three girls, proceeded to rearrange the place and order her husband around, the girls sat with Nonno and had their lunch while he doted. We ate and watched and the rubbish was forgotten among the taste of our food and the aromas around us.

Back up to the car with an icecream for company...it was a hard climb back with full bellies and hot sun. If we stay here too long they will need to ship us back by boat.

Marjan drove, which meant the chatter was NSFW. Suffice to say she is not a fan of Italian drivers....regardless of the direction they are coming from. She is particularly not a fan of bus drivers who pass her and stress her out with their shenanigans.

Of course we found a beach, and had a swim  (bloody butts) and felt all cool and relaxed.

We are currently cooking some fresh vegetables grown on site and presented to us by Pino on our arrival. A simple dinner will have to do, we are too undressed to go out again.