Road Tripping

After spending 6+ weeks in the South of Italy, I’m in exactly the same room I posted from this week last year. My last-minute efforts to arrange an exciting last week have proven successful so far, thanks to host families. Hopefully my plans for the next several days will also work out.

On Thursday morning I’ll go to Florence to meet a Canadian tutor friend from last summer, and we’ll explore there until Friday afternoon. I saw Florence for a few days last May, but there are a couple things I missed that I really want to see. Friday afternoon I’ll head to Cinque Terre (5 beautiful coastal towns) to meet another Canadian tutor friend from last summer. Cinque Terre was #1 on my list of things to see this summer (I have so far crossed off Sicily, Pompei, and the Amalfi Coast –Sardinia, Ostia Antica, the rest of Tuscany outside of Florence, and the Dolomites remain), so I’m reeeeeeeeeally looking forward to it. Monday I’ll go to Milan, and I fly out from there the next morning.

But on to the past. On Sunday at 11 pm I was on the southern coast of Sicily. On Monday at 6 am I woke up on the northern coast of Sicily. On Monday at 11:30 am I was outside Milan, the biggest city in northern Italy.

Following the emotional show on Friday night, I spent the weekend road trippin’ with my host fam. On Saturday we went to Segesta, Erice, and the salt part of Trapani (the largest sicty on the western coast). Segesta is an ancient Greek town that has a beautiful incomplete temple and a small amphitheater with a view of both mountains and sea. We were there pretty early in the day, so there were very few tourists, and I get the feeling that in general its an overlooked destination because it’s not really near anything.

Erice is a Lonely Planet favorite. It’s a small town on top of a singular mountain near the west coast of the island. The town itself was a bit disappointing, nothing was particularly impressive, but the view was incredible. Because there’s nothing nearly as tall anywhere around, and the clouds actually seem close to hitting your head, it feels like half of Sicily is visible.

Our last stop on Saturday was the salt manufacturing part of Trapani’s coast. There were a couple cool looking windmills (if that’s the accurate name for them), and some of the pools of water were brilliant red. In the picture you can see a singular mountain way back, that’s Erice.

Sunday we took it easy until about 6:30 pm. Our destination was Agrigento, the largest city on the southern coast of the island, and about 1:45 away from the house. My host parents insisted on visiting the Valley of the Temples there at night. My host mom cooked a big dinner before we left and said we’d eat it when we got back. I was confused because we were leaving at 6:30… the place was 1:45 away… we’d probably spend a couple hours there….

The temples were beeeeeeeeeautiful, and I’m really glad they decided to go at night. There were only a few other people, the temperature was perfect, and the temples’ glow was amazing. We saw three of the ancient temples there, and each was very noticeably different. I’m always really thankful for host families that do their best to show you their favorite places nearby, and I think this was my host parents’ favorite place in Sicily (at least at night).

But then it was time to go. I was already hungry when we arrived (we’d last eaten around 2:30 pm), and my little host brother was complaining very loudly, as I’m sure I would have been in his position. We drove around the city for a little while, but it was Sunday night, so we didn’t see anything open. My host mom said that we’d just wait til we got back home (which would be 12:30 am) and eat the dinner she had made. Luckily, as we were turning to find the highway entrance, I saw a sign for a self-service restaurant that was open, so we got a pizza for the road. However, we did indeed have dinner at 12:30 am when we returned.