Day 11: Trapani (1st night)

 IF READING ON YOUR PHONE, TILT SIDEWAYS FOR THE BEST VIEW:)

September 28, 2023: It's Tom's birthday today! Happy Birthday!! 💗  

**Sicilian driving tip #267: A two lane road can actually accommodate 4 cars and 2 scooters across...

Our 1hr and 20 min drive was uneventful from Selinunte to Trapani. Our initial focus is always to go to the B&B/hotel/resort first to drop the bags so that nothing we've purchased might be ruined in the hot vehicle. As it turned out, our room was ready, but the first one they gave us smelled like cigarette smoke. It was no problem getting another room and this one had a partial water view, which was nice. 

All in all, this resort was nice in some ways in that it had a pool as was directly on the ocean. And that is where my positive comments will end!

The weather by this time of year is very much like California with low humidity and very cool nights. In fact, during the day, 80 degrees is barely warm enough with a breeze blowing!

The plan for today: Erice. It was time to get a little more historical sightseeing in and what better place than Erice, full of narrow streets and small squares, every one seeming to contain a church or a palace. The churches in particular really stand out with Erice being known as the "City of a Hundred Churches" (but not really 100). The town sits on a mountain about 2,500 feet above Trapani, overlooking the city and ocean below. 

Which brings me to the topic of how we got up there. On any map application, it appears there are 3 roads up to Erice. Great! We took the closest option near our resort and made it less than 1/2 a mile before the paved road turned to dirt and then a rock-strewn wash-out with some ravines and fallen boulders for good measure. Tom wanted to go on, saying we had cell service and could just call if we had an issue... call who? AAA? We turned around.

I took the next road and got about 1 mile up this time before the road once again ended in a narrow dirt slalom of a donkey path. Ugghhh!! Then I remembered a YouTube we had watched about Erice and the Funicular that went up! It was actually quite close to our location so we drove down, parked (we had discovered an Italian parking app that really saves the day) and boarded for 11 Euro, no problem. 

The beautiful 22 minute ride up deposited us at the foot of the town. We had purchased a 12 Euro pass to see all of the museums and churches we could want and headed off. The first video shows our first stop. You can hear the bells of the church ringing and see the beautiful surrounding courtyard. Next is a pic of the inside of the church with this gorgeous vaulted ceiling and high pillars.

We wandered up the streets and as it was close to lunch, allowed ourselves to be pulled inside of one of the many restaurants along our path. It happened to have a view overlooking the ocean far below and was a nice rest before continuing on. 

We saw the Monastery of 

Candle for Bea

Santissimo Salvatore which was given to the Benedictine nuns in 1290. They
had some Gregorian chant music playing for effect (see video) which was actually sort of nice. We also visited a museum, the church of St. Francis (where I lit a candle for Grandma Bea) and decided that the last stop would be the Norman Castle of Venus (Castello di Venere) at the far end

of the town with spectacular views of the city below. Unbeknownst to us, there was a fence around the entire castle and we couldn't go in, but still you could see the magnificence of the structure and the importance of its location to protect the city. 

If these stones could talk!

I bought a beautiful vase for display on on the new kitchen shelves and that concluded our history lesson for the day! It was Tom's Birthday and we headed back down the mountain to clean up and head out for an 8pm reservation (very early in Italy!).  

I had chosen a restaurant called Front Villa in downtown Trapani. Just wow... beautiful spot, very good Sicilian style food and picked a fantastic (luck) bottle of wine as well. I was amazed that the wine was made by Dolce and Gabbana! Does anyone else know they make wine??? Additionally, we had ordered something I'd seen a number of times and is particular to Sicily: Swordfish roll with citrus fruit, olives and capers. Very, very good, though the picture might not do it justice. We also had spaghetti with fish egg, shrimp tartare and pistachios..! Super yum. Of course there was dessert. A chocolate concoction of some kind that was wonderful. 

Swordfish

And so ended our first night in Trapani with an 8 hour boat trip around Favignana Island tomorrow!