Day 12 & 13: Trapani (2nd/3rd nights)

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

September 29, 2023: Yay, boat day!!! Following our mediocre breakfast buffet (ah, nothing beats that farmhouse B&B so far) we headed over to our meeting point for the all day boat trip, just 15 minutes away at the marina of Trapani. No problem find it with excellent directions. 

We parked the car for free (!) and met with the Egadi Tour people who were so polite and professional.

Had about 20 minutes to kill so we ordered an Aperol Spritz and settled in, watching the other fellow prospective boaters and wondering who we would be stuck (ha, ha) with. There was a particularly loud, I mean confident, older woman with 3 of her friends who I thought, "please God, no..."

They called our name, along with 8 other people (yes, the confident woman too!) and we boarded, ready for the beautiful waters and warm day ahead. We handed over our shoes and sat at the bow of the boat with 4 others: a man and wife from Belgium and 2 young women from Liverpool. We really hit it off with all of them and again, I found it so enjoyable to hear their various stories. 

The English girls, in particular, who I thought might be in their mid-20's but were actually 31 years old, were so funny and nice. They had known eachother since age 11 and were off on this adventure together in Sicily. One of them was so amazingly well-traveled and had been all over the world already at this point of her life. It took me a minute to remember that I had also been a world traveler by a much younger age, but she had spent months in each country staying at hostels and exploring. In Thailand, she had worked at a bar making about $1/hr which paid for her room and board for 3 months. Pretty adventurous!

We headed for Favignana which is the larger of the Egadi Islands off of Sicily. My original idea was to rent a boat and head over here ourselves, which would also have been cool, but it's always nice to have someone else do the 'work!'

We stopped at 3 different swim areas all of which were stunning. 2 of the spots had man-made caves (video) that some of our fellow tourists swam over to and walked throughout, but the current was powerful enough that we passed. One lady from another boat who was not a particularly good swimmer, simply gave up and they had to throw her a life ring and pull her in! That wouldn't have been us, but I was happy to swim near the boat. 

The water was absolutely clear, but I'd be lying if I said it was warm! We got in at 2 of the 3 spots before they took us into the Favignana marina at 1pm. We were given free-reign for 2.5 hours for lunch and to walk the island. We had a simple but awesome lunch of fried sardines with a lime dipping sauce. Then we walked for quite awhile, enjoying the island atmosphere and imagining living in such a beautiful place. In keeping with my 'animals on scooters' theme from Palermo, see the cat on the scooter here:)

Some kind of wonderful thing with cannoli filling

It was back onboard for 3 more stops including a second island of Levanzo. More caves for adventurous swimmers and beautiful waters. At this point, the sun was getting lower behind an island hill and, though we jumped in at 2 more spots to snorkel and enjoy the water, we were happy just to lay in the sun and nap!

In one of the last spots we swam in, I saw a tiny jelly fish while wearing my snorkeling mask and swimming near Tom. I poked Tom to alert him and we both quickly made our way to the swim ladder to extricate ourselves from the water. Once onboard, we heard one of the older ladies saying she was stung and though relatively mild, still hurt!

They served up Prosecco, beer and water onboard during the entire trip. It was really enjoyable and even the 'confident woman' was manageable --largely because she was in the after end of the boat with her friends!

As we headed on the 30 minute ride back to Trapani, they played a lot of late 70's American music, including Hotel California which felt a little surreal being half way around the world, but still nice (see video)!

Loving the clear water

The cruise ended at 6 pm at which time we collected our shoes and high-tailed it to the bathroom to

change into dry clothes! Then we walked to our car and made it
to the dry cleaner/launderia where we had dropped off our dirty clothes the day before to be cleaned and folded for us...they were ready and it seemed such a luxury to have a full suitcase of clean clothes again!

The next day was a 'free day' that we took advantage of to relax and do a little shopping around the cute downtown streets of Trapani. There was lots of high-end stores, but also mom and pop places that we ducked into. We had a simple lunch and went back to the resort for a swim and a rest before venturing out for drinks and a light dinner ---

And just when I was going to make a sarcastic comment titled "Sicily Tip # 301: Craft cocktail 

locations....there are none", I did find ONE place for pretty yummy drinks! One, mind you. In 3 other spots I made the mistake of trying to order a dirty martini which is a seemingly simple drink that instead resulted, 3 times, in a drink that closely resembled a Lemon Drop in flavor...with olives served on the side...no joke.

The place I found, called Wineat, was just great. Small with outdoor seating and no exceedingly fancy drinks with 8 ingredients, but still very good. We had a nice time and it was a good way to finish up our time in Trapani. 

Tomorrow: San Vito Lo Capo!