Club Costa Verde Cefalu

partie de palermo pour aller a monreale! nous avons vue la cathedrale de cette petite ville. les murs et le plafond sont couvert de mosaic faite en grande partie avec le l'or. puis de cette ville on avait une belle vue sur la baie de palermo.

ensuite, de retour a palermo pour se rendre a l'aeroport puis prendre un vol pour rome. ou nous somme maintenant.

... eu un service incroyable, on doute meme que le personnel soient italient tellement ils etaient fin!

finalement, a la tomber du jour, ou l'heure de l'apero et des tapas en italie la ville commence a vivre, nous avons gouter au marons chaud puis a quelques tapas avant de rentrer !

... Palermo. Saw some cool local markets with more varieties of olives than I'd ever seen and home jarred anchovies.

Went to Bar Touring which is famous for it's Arancini Bomba (huge arancini)... I had a mushroom and cheese one which was delicious and then one of their ginormous roast pork rolls.
Walked across the road to Terrazza a Mare park for some great views across the ocean despite the drizzle and overcast weather.

Checked ...

... the hot sun and also from a couple of rain showers! The local pizza was to die for!!


We had time after lunch to saunter thru more picturesque streets before finally meeting up with Marco for the 2.5 hr drive back along the northern coastline to Palermo. Another wonderful day, finished off by 45 minutes of peakhour traffic from city outskirts to our hotel! A real shame that our time in Sicily was at an end....4.45am wakeup call arranged for tomorrow morning departure.

... is famous for being the final resting place of Santa Rosalia, the Patron Saint of Palermo.....it was also the place where someone found her mortal remains back in the 1600's and in a vision that same person was supposedly told by Santa Rosalia to parade her remains through the streets of Palermo which was to be a huge benefit to the place. At that time, the Spanish had just arrived and unfortunately brough the dreaded plague with them, killing some 60000 towns-folk! As soon as ...

... inlet of raw sea water to eventual harvest takes almost 2 years!) Trapani also produces a lot of vineyards & olives.

Not far from Trapani, we commenced our ascent of a very large & high mountainous outcrop, atop of which sits the medieval town of Erice....stunning views over Trapani & the surrounding coastline!! Old Norman castles (around 11th century) sit precariously at the very edge of the cliffs as you approach on foot.

The old town looks ...

arrived around 8pm at airport & sped (120kph) to hotel by recent model Mercedes! checked in & walked down street to Trattoria for late tea of authentic pizza (delicious!)



Next Morning, we were picked up by our personal giude for the morning, Valentina. Well educated, spoke excellent English plus great knowledge of history & architectural styles made for a fascinating morning around the old city.



Valentina drove ...

Greetings from Cefalu....a beautiful city by the sea. And the best part is that they tell us our hotel is on the sea so we will have pool AND the beach!! Yesterday we did Mt. Etna and it about did us. We climbed to about 8-9,000 feet and part of it was up the slippery lava rock. Now that wasn't too bad, but THEN we got to come down the slippery lava slope! It was great and we felt good that we had done it ...

... over the couscous to your taste. At the end I'm full as a goog, but there's a great selection of cakes on the sideboard and I can't resist - I have cassata (which traditionally is a cake, not an icecream) and a sponge drenched in wine (Malvasia, I think), and accept the waiter's recommendation of a glass of Malvasia to go with it.
During my meal I've heard an Australian accent at the far end of a table near me - there are 8 people and the ones down my end are speaking Sicilian. The ...

... when the tourist-speak doesn't work. Kiki tries with Italian all the time and she and Jessica come to the rescue of MOC when he manages to use his very limited Italian to talk himself into a linguistic corner. Our rental car is a Fiat Punto, which compares more or less to a VW Golf. It cost 500 Euros for 11 days and includes all insurances. It is peppy and handles well in the tight traffic. It is small enough to be driven in and around the frequent traffic jams and up and down ...