OK. So we got up, checked out, had some breakfast and were driven down to the docks to await our ferry. Yes I know the order sound a little off, but just go with it. Two ferries arrived at the same time, late, or at least ours was. So which do we get aboard. The PA is worse than useless in that it sends half the people in queue 1 to queue 2 and half the people in queue 2 to queue 1 and the half remaining in each queue looking perplexed. I asked a Mooring hand which was the boat to Milazzo, he asked what time was the boat supposed to leave, I answered 8:15, he pointed to the first boat. Off we headed, as we settled into a normal Italian queue brawl the man at gate 1 said in an exasperated yell that Milazzo was leaving from gate 2 and that gate was was gonna close. We did finally get on a boat, and it did go to Milazzo and we did not even drown.
We found our car still parked in the long term car park and off we headed, through the crazy Milazzo traffic. People parked wherever they want, guys doing work on a car with their legs sticking out on a street, people who just drive right out of side streets and then decide to look if there is anybody on the main road, normal stuff. Marjan was stressed, after a day of no traffic she found the change of pace a challenge to her sense of personal safety and if she could would have murdered every Sicilian in Milazzo. That is when Jaimie Lee decided to help, she ordered us to take a turn which was contrary to the signs, a novelty for Sicily, pointing in the direction we knew we wanted, we ignored her and she proceeded to keep wanting us to do U turns at every opportunity. We switched her off and followed the road signs to Palermo. Monday morning traffic though this road was a joy. Half the intersections appear to be unsigned, and what appears to occur is that whoever really wants to cross gets their way. So at a major five way crossing, I just went through, everybody kinda waited assuming I must have something important going on, Marjan looked agog at me, but her eyes appeared to hold an admiration for my crazy audacity. A few intersections later we had a four way stand-off, we just went with the pedestrian pushing his father, an assumption, in a wheelchair through the intersection. Now he was not on a footpath, as those were clogged with parked cars, he was on the road an just pushed out into the intersection. Marjan in a voice that came from you and me said "Hide behind the man in a wheelchair!" and began to laugh uncontrollably. We did and get across. It was that kind of a morning.
We drove in and out of tunnels for most of the rest of the way. Not a lot to report, long tunnels, high bridges, people doing crazy speeds. We switched Jaime Lee on just before Cefalu, and apart from one mistake of mine we made it to the car park without incident.
Cefalu is an old town on a peninsula backed by a big rock with a lovely arch of beach. It is tourist Mecca for sun seekers.
We lunched. It was OK but a bit overpriced. Then we explored Cefalu. Interesting little streets, some running up the hill, some to the bay, the view from the pier was lovely. I wondered if the man fixing his fishing net was a tourist prop.
Some signs are a scream.....w chose a different ice cream shop.....
We eventually made it up to the cathedral. Perhaps our favourite building in Sicily. Norman, 12th century, with an amazing 12th century mosaic, very Byzantine, above the altar.
I was trying to take a tourist free pic, but the bastards kept getting in my way. It just gets you down.
We had a very nice ice cream and slowly worked our way back to the car and a supermarket for supplies.
That is when Jaimie Lee struck again. We were trying to get to a bar to meet our host. Jaime Lee insisted on taking us in what was palpably the wrong direction. We stopped, recalibrated, same result, then the phone just started to do stuff we had not asked it to do. Steve Jobs, what happens to your stuff in Sicily? It is crap.
We eventually managed to find our way back, on the tollway, back past where we wanted to go, do several loops and find the bar required. Alban, our host, was there and took us to our beachside lodging, down an amazing incline, along the beach and Oh My!
About five minutes after Alban left we, or should I say I, managed to lock us out. Marjan's face was a picture.....one of those awful Hieronymus Bosch pictures with death and destruction everywhere. Alban came right back and was lovely about it.
It took a bottle of wine and a barrow load of lovely ante pasta to put us back on track......mostly.....don't even ask about the washing machine.......
We plan to do as little as possible tomorrow. Apart from bread we have no external needs. Hopefully a 20 minute run to the local little town for some bread will be all we do apart from contemplate the ocean and each other without thinking of Bosch....or God forbid that Goya one.........
1 comment:
Lovely photo of the two of you
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