Highway to heaven

Bella Sicilia

I live in a country which is mostly untouched by human hand, and the wilderness of nature is overwhelming.
Still, I can't help being impresesd by this piece of land the rest of Italy forever will be kicking mercylessly.
There is something old and wild about the island even though it has been civilised in a lot of different ways since ancent times.

Thousand years ago when Scandinavians still lived in caves, big politics were going on in Sicily. Everyone wanting the place gave it a big cultural diversity and a development we didn't even have big enough brains for understanding.


It is hard to tell what happened, but it seems like it somewhere along the way lost track of time and ended up like a stange mixture of wild nature, highways, olive groves and castle ruins.
In a way it doesn't seem to fit together. You see modern cars navigate in and out of sandycoloured cities from before year 1000 and blinking commercials hung up on Byzantine city walls.
There is a castle about every kilometer along the road, unkept and left to their own, but they will remain. They look like they have grown up of the red, rocky ground, and are a part of the landscape just like the neon yellow flowers, the olive trees and sharp cliffs cutting into the blue crystal surface surrounding the island.

Wednesday we went on a roadtrip along the northern coast with Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto as the goal.

That's how we roll. Sicilian highway, me being unresponsable and mapreader at the same time.

They say that over half of the cars that drive into Palermo will be damaged. Even though the highway goes outside the city center, it was a traffical mess I can't compare to anything. A miracle that they even get anywhere.
We didn't crash, luckily.

Time was killed by playing games like "Who is X" (including accusations about confusing answers because I answered "Yes" to the question "Is it a real person?" about Santa Claus), studying the map and enjoying the shifting landscape.

Enchanting sky, but my camera didn't really understand

Capo d'Orlando. Once again, check out the colour of the water...

 

Fancy stones. The stripey ones look like some expensive design

After a few distractions along the road as a walk on the beach or looking for food, we came to Terme Vigliatore, a town near Barcellona where a friend of Sergio's family was kind enough to lend us his huge, empty villa for as long as we wanted.

 

A sunny street in Terme Vigliatore on the way to the supermarket

 

 

Not an unusual sight in Sicily. Simply abandoned

Then he took us to a friend's house in a nearby village, Castroreale - a beautiful town clinging to a mountain top. And that house was something to talk about. Like a medieval castle of 600 square metres including rooftop terrasse and roman bath. Whoa.
Nice to know people with money.

And very nice indeed to have a house all by ourselves. And a dark bedroom, and no salesmen with megaphones shouting out their amazing offers outside your window at 8.30 every morning. I slept like a baby. We had a late Italian breakfast - biscuits - and went to Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto to meet one of Sergios friends, Davide.

150 years of Italy

This great guy showed us a bit of the area around the city, and it is so beautiful.

 

Capo di Milazzo into the Tyrrhenian sea.

 

Guardians of the chapel

 

A small, empty chapel in the mountainside

 

No one there, but the candles are still burning 

 

Stairway to the chapel. What a way to praise your god

 

Friends

 

My absolute favourite.
Stairway to heaven

 

When I am alone, when I am at home. When I go training.
It always seems like something is missing.
The trust is that in every moment,
I'm missing you.

 

Perfect place for a love declaration

 

Wow.

 

Everything is yellow in Sicily now

The western Sicily is very different from the area around Castellammare di Golfo, where I have my base.
In the east, it is more dry, with sandy, rocky ground and a bit harsh vegetation. In the west, is it green. VERY green. The landscape is a bit softer and reminds me of Toscana.
I have a feeling that this part of the island is richer, because houses are more fancy and wellkept and you don't see that much of the abandoned buildings just falling apart.

 

Sergio was ecstatic to find his first four leafed clover.

 

I topped it to find one with two. Naturally!
Have you seen that before?

After a beautiful afternoon we returned and had dinner and went to bed.

The next day just disappeared into nothing. We were planning on leaving early, so we could visit a lot of places on the way, but after having heart shaped chocolate biscuits and milk for breakfast out in the sunshine, we kind of got stuck. It was an amazing day. Hot sun, splendid blue sky and a fresh breeze.
We stayed on the terrasse for hours.
Just feeling the sunshine and listening to cars and birds, still feeling all alone.
Well grilled we finally managed to move and hit the road back home.
For a change, we took the strada statale (state road) instead of the highway, as this winds up and down the hills along the coast and through all the cities on the way.

 

Coastal cities

 

 

Modern castle

 

Green and blue and sunshine

Eventually we found out that we had spent three hours to get nowhere on the map, and we could have been almost home.
At Capo d'Orlando we bought bread, meat and cheese (ooh, il formaggio italiano, what a wonder), and headed for the beach.
I said "hey, I just had a déjà vu! I feel I've been here before!".
That was true.
We recognised the place when we parked on the same parking place as two days earlier, and went down to sit fifty meters from where we first had a break.
And we didn't plan it!

Dinner in the sunset.
Then highway back to Castellammare.

 

Our dinner table at Capo d'Orlando

Saturday was nice. We got up, had breakfast and went to the beach.
A bit chilly still, so almost no Sicilians out, but way warm enough for me. I even got fairly sunburned.
IN APRIL.

 

Shy Italian? No, just kidding, those don't exist

 

Good life

 

Despite my facial expression, I was loving my life in this moment.  

Great lunch with handmade, fresh pasta and swordfish. The food might not be the best, thinking of my weight, but it is so good. Yum.
We took a stroll along the harbour, watching people - kids playing, young girls who think they are grown ups, group of boys encouraging each others to do something (probably not reasonable) and old men with hats sitting in their cars reading a newspaper, probably to get peace from their wives.

 

Castellammare del Golfo

There are very few women in the streets of Sicily after a certain age.
You almost never see old ladies out, and if you see a woman, she is mostly with her husband or boyfriend.

I was in extreme need of something yummi and unhealthy, so we picked up Matteo, friend, and drove to Alcamo, a nearby city, to have a frozen yoghurt and consume it in a park while watching old men playing check or cards as the sun went down.

 

Castle in Alcamo before they threw us out

Then my last supper and some weird discussions at the dinner table. I think I disagreed with almost everything (of course), but I was happy, because someone had slipped a Babelfish into my ear and I understood every single word that was said.
Mi piace!

In 7 weeks I've passed five languages, and I can understand at least 40% of all of them. Yuppi!

Early to bed and even earlier up.
4.35 my alarm went off, and I got dressed and had a quick breakfast, and Sergio made me a (really amazing, I found out in the plane) sandwich.
Highway to Birgi, which now is partially reopened, then time for goodbyes and check in and a lot of boring waiting time.

The rest is nothing to tell about.
I slept on the plane, and it took me exactly four hours to get from Beauvais airport to my hostel in Montmartre.

 

First impression of Paris: CONFUSING.

And it was cloudy and chilly and raining sometimes.
My mood wasn't too good.
I hated myself for only staying on Sicily for six days.
It is the best period to be there now (for me, as I am allergic to high temperatures), and I already missed Sergio more than what was pleasant.
And then I went out to check out the area. Sacre Coeur was crowded, it started raining, tourists everywhere, nasty glares from men.

 

Tourists and rain.
And Paris in the back ground

I had to shout "Shut up!" to a stupid salesman who wouldn't leave me alone with his stupid bracelet.
That made me feel slightly better.

Then I got lost and hated my Lonely Planet book for saying that "central Paris is not very big". Not true. At least not yesterday.

All in all, I was in a bad mood, got home and made some food and went to bed early.

 

My wonderful hostel bed. 

 

This is how sunburned I was yesterday.
Today I am worse.

Today was much, much better, but I'll tell you that later.