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.

Bumpy road from vampires to paradise

I saw my first vampire on metro line 5 in Brussels.
I almost had a heart attack.
At around 9 o'clock I sat down in a free seat in the metro in front of a man with long, blond hair in a plait and beard.
First strange thing:
He was wearing rouge on the pale cheeks.
That was the only makeup, and there was absolutely nothing gay or dragqueen about his appearance apart from that.

Long, dark coat, black clothes.
He was looking out the window, biting his long nails.
Then he looked at me.
You know this kind of eyes from horror movies that give you an impression of being blurry, but not because they are blind?
As if the pupils are not completely black.
He had a sort of just grey-blue eyes with a strange shine, and I felt all dizzy when he looked at me.
Then he returned to biting nails.
This forced him to open his mouth.
His corner teeth were abnormally long and pointed.
I almost fainted, and didn't dare to look at him again, in case he would feel the urge to suck red, pulsing life out of my arteries.

 

Live all people

At Schuman I left the horrors of Brussels' metro for international bureaucracy.
Buildings of shining glass and metal and stars on every door or decorated surface in  are silent witnesses of the political importance of the place.

 

European Union


Street art in the heart of Europe


The shining, cold and hard heart of Europe - the European Parliament

What a place to have a house.


Artsy photo of the Parliament. Civilisation versus nature?

Apple flowers

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU

Gender equality above the entrance of the European Parliament

 

Creativity at the parliament building

After one hour of enjoying the feeling of political power that seemed to leak out from the tall buildings, my hyperactive bladder convinced me to continue my discovering in the center of the city.

 

Brussels' old town

The old town of Brussels is very charming, but already in the end of March there are too many tourists to enjoy the city in peace.
I found out when I had a real Belgian waffle and had to pay over 6 euros for it.

Expensive. But delicious!

I don't like tourists.
They are everywhere.

 

Tourist thing. Chocolate elephant

I was lucky to only have one couple of tourists in the picture

I walked around in the narrow streets and found Manneken Pis, Brussels' most famous monument.
It is about 40 cm tall in real life. What a disappointment.
Japanese, Spanish and Italian tourists seemed to think it was a miracle, and pressed from all sides to get a picture with the pissing boy.

 

This is what the city is most famous for!

Grand Place/Grote Markt is a square surrounded with magnificent buildings, also crowded with tourists and people making money of those.

 

Grand Place

Some holiness everybody wanted to touch

The most interesting thing that happened there was that the my compassion was stirred by a beggar with "I'm hungry" - sign.
I don't like giving money to beggars, because I'm not going to pay for what brings them a step closer to complete ruin.
Instead, I went to one of the 163 Greek pitta shops in the neighbour street and bought two pittas with falafel, and went back and gave him one.
The good deed of the day, and he really seemed happy to get mercy from one of the thousand bypassers.

Bachelor party, collecting 1000 kg of women. I gave him a good start

Being in Belgium, I had to go to the Chocolate Museum. 

 

Why is Norway not on the list? 

t 

Old publicity

I tried the best chocolate I have ever had, and I met the highest holiness of my life.

 

Say no more


God. I love him

 

Fresh chocolate

Dark passion

 

He stole my heart

The sun was shining, and I walked to the very impressive cathedral, which really is a highlight of the capital, according to me.

 

Very convenient chairs outside the capital

As I entered this magnificent building, some blessed person started playing the organ.
I nearly converted.
The music flowed out of the beautifully constructed pipes, and made the whole cathedral vibrate with divine tones.

  

Beauty

Normally I find organ music okay, but nothing more.
This time I spent half an hour listening with open mouth and goosebumps all over me to what turned out to be THREE amazing organists playing at once.
They played like the Ainur played for Ilúvatar in Silmarillion , and created a whole world of magic and sunshine and dramatic landscapes.
And they did it for no reasons. The tourists stopped and listened big eyed to this miracle.
I don't remember how long I stayed.
Until they stopped and casually left like nothing special had happened.

 

This is EUROPE


Good life

Already in the mood, I headed for the museum of music instruments.
Funny how many weird things people through the ages have used to create music.
I would like to have at least 50% of all the things in there.
Daaad?
Heheh

 

You sing and I play fish, okay?

 

Harpitar?

Pocket violin or something. I want one!

It was only around three o'clock when I was completely exhausted and decided to turn back to the hostel and relax.
I think I had too much intense travelling in very short time, and I also accused my body for having diabetes, because I was completely out of energy.
After two hours of lying on the bed doing nothing, I decided to take a shower to feel better.
My arguments for having diabetes lost their basis when I realised that I hadn't lost a lot weight in short time, which often is one of the symptoms.
Ups.
I stayed under the hot water until I realised that I by then had killed around 10 square meters of rainforest.
Later that night I found out that it was the day of Earth Hour.
Good job, Julie.

I went to the center again.
The cravings I had for kebab in Holland were suddenly satisfied when I for the second time that day had kebab.

 

Kebab overkill

Took a beer in Little Delirium Café, a part of a beerhouse that is in Guinness Records for most beer types.

 

Beer, beer beer. 

Saturday evening in Brussels, and I could do whatever I wanted.

 

Guess what? TOURISTS.

And a nice street

 

Grand Place by night

PARTY!
Or not.

 

Artistic Brussels

Very artistic indeed!

At half past nine I was back in bed and relaxed. What a terrible tourist I am.
No, wait, I'm no tourist! Hah.
I had a great Skype conversation with Irene and Sunniva, and it really made my evening.

Next morning I was a wreck. Still no energy.
Because of the change to summer time, I had to be out of the room at 9 o'clock in my head instead of 10.
I showered, packed all my things in a hurry and dragged myself down to the lobby.
They hadn't even changed the hour on their clock.
Thanks.
I stayed there surfing the wireless while I had some breakfast.
After two hours I figured it would be time to get moving.

I

I bumped into a Sunday market under the highway. Random location.

Destination: Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Italy.
Easier said than done.
Hostel -> 20 minutes walk to the metro (with 378 kg trunk) -> metro for 20 minutes -> change of metro -> metro for 10 minutes -> walk to the shuttle bus at Gare du Midi -> longest 50 minutes of my life from Brussels to Charleroi Airport -> 3 hours waiting in Charleroi -> 2 hrs 50 min flight to Palermo.

Bye bye Brussels

And all this when all I felt I had energy to manage, would be lying in a flower field, looking at clouds.

Big challenge.
Especially when I fell asleep in the plane, and wake up after what I thought was an hour, but I didn't have any clock as my phone was turned off. Now I can calculate that I slept for around 3,5 minutes.
And I was so extremely ready to arrive.

Plane landed, and the passengers gave a big applause for surviving the flight.
I was the first one to enter the airport building, and my suitcase was on the belt almost immediately, so I would be the first to get out into the arrival hall.

Oh, not so quick this time.
Happy, I picked up my suitcase and was ready to soar into a big hug, the Sicilian air outside, and pasta for dinner.
"Mi scusi, lei parla italiano?"
One very strict-looking uniformed man came up to me.
I looked over my shoulder, believing he was talking to someone else. Why should a guard approach me?
Well, that is what he was doing.
"Uhm, sí, un poco.. Perché?"
-A dog has reacted on your luggage. We would have to control it for narcotics, so come with me please.
"THIS IS NOT HAPPENING"
Yes it was.
He seemed very strict, and guided me into a small room on the other side of the luggage belt and closed the door.
I started trembling.
"If you give us the drugs now, there will be no problem. If you refuse and we find it searching your things, you'll go straight to jail."
I was flabbergasted.
One of the most absurd situations in my life so far.
I said: "I haven't got any", but I hesitated because I was looking for a more convincing answer than that, because that is what everybody would say.
The strict man said: "Well, we have to go through your luggage then. And if we find something..."
Four other guards came into the little room with a little merrier mood than the first one.
That didn't improve my state of mind.
I was at that moment trembling so hard I could almost not open my bag for them. I am an expert in catastrophe thinking, and was already seeing myself in a dirty, Sicilian jail because some drug dealer had used my luggage as storing place, like they do in the movie. It wouldn't have helped to say it wasn't mine, that I knew for sure.
In a bright moment I understood what was going on.
I had been in Amsterdam.
We had entered three coffeeshops, and I hadn't washed my clothes since then.
Phew.

I was trying to explain why I was in Sicily and that I had been to Amsterdam.
My brain was still filled with cotton, I was dizzy from being tired, fear, the effort of having to explain myself in stottering Italian, foreign men looking through my underwear and knowing that I was SOOO close to my goal...
I started crying.
Very mature of me.

But I learnt something interesting, despite all my misery.
In between whimpers I managed to explain that I was going to Castellammare.
"Castellammare? That's where I live!", said one of the guards.
Suddenly the situation changed. He was overjoyed to hear me saying that it was a pretty town.
I told who I was going to stay with, and he could happily claim that he knew someone with that surname.
They started making jokes, and he said we should meet in Castellammare during the week, and everything was okay.
I had to laugh between the tears, because the situation was so ridiculous, and because one of the men were checking my toothpaste tube for narcotics.
The whole thing changed.
They did - of course - not find anything in my suitcase, and I could go and sign the paper about the control.
This one guard/police wanted so badly to meet  Sergio that he ruined the awesome welcome we had planned.
I have heard that connections are very important in Sicily, and I can now, a bit shocked though, confirm that this is NOT a myth.
If you ever happen to find your way down to this island, be sure to know some people of an old family.
And learn Italian well enough to be able to communicate with people.
I thanked higher powers for having developed my language thus far, because even officials don't speak English, and I have a feeling that if I had done just that, I would still be under investigation.

Well, it was all resolved, and Sergio and me could hit the road to Castellammare in the yellow Fiat Panda, and I could feel it all coming back to me.
Nothing changes down here.
Time is so unimportant that it doesn't work normally.
The people are the same, house is the same, food is still good.
And the weather just better than last time.

 

Mother and child taking a stroll on the road

My first whole day in Sicily was spent in the nature reservate Lo Zingaro, on small beaches getting sunburned or walking on red pathways through a myriad of flowers.

Nice bush

 

Amsterdam, Munich, Brussels, you lost the competition

 

Green. Warm.
I love this place.

I feel like I haven't seen flowers for ten years.

A few ones in Germany and Holland, but here they are everywhere, penetrating your eyes with bright, mainly yellow colours, making you want to just sit down right there in the sun and never get up.

 

Some rainbow dust

I had my first swim in the sea the 28th of March this year. Near my old record. It wasn't even really cold. Well chilled, but nice enough to swim in, and clear enough to make you want to dissolve into a thousand crystals instead of breaking the shiny surface with your body.

 

Lo Zingaro

 

Mediterranean sea at it's clearest. What a colour!

 

 

I'll drop my future plans and move out here in the caves instead.
Vagabond paradise

 

Premium photo

I have had a terrible cold these days - isn't that ironic?
Tuesday we went to Trápani because Sergio had an oral exam, so I visited his aunt. He came back forty minutes later with top grade, and we went to enjoy the sunshine and the sea.
The only thing disturbing the idyll was a huge military helicopter heading for the airport.
Apart from that I haven't seen anything to the situation in Libya. Sometimes at night one can hear army planes cutting through the air to or from the bases, and in the news they speak a lot about Libyan refugees in Lampedusa in the news, but the rest of the island seems unaffected.

No military, no weapons, no war, no worries

 

"Ghadaffi? Who's that? Get out of my way, you are blocking the sun"

Sicily is, as they express it, a "casino" - an endless mess.
Politically, economically and sistematically a casino so big that it would eat Las Vegas without problems.
But all this disappears into old houses with small, round mammas on the balcony, the mildness of the air, sunshine, a sea so clear and blue that your eyes get watery from looking at it, small men with belly and mustache, the smell of dinner in the narrow streets, wild mountains shooting up from the water surface, green and blue lizards relaxing in the sun and the ability to make you feel like the only people in this wonderful world that was created just for you.

 

Sicilia

 

Heaven is a place on earth