Fern e Mike Erice a Palermo Giorna 5 Sept 5 2013

Una lunga giornata. A long day (two days)

Hi –

It’s about 6 pm here in Palermo (I’m writing before we head out to dinner in Mondello — to a recommended restaurant that serves meat! We have had so much fish I feel as if I am growing gills).

Woke up in the Not-So-Moderno-Hotel which is full of the family’s kitsch displayed everywhere (except in the rooms which are just stark and filled with mis-matched furniture… Not sure why hotels feel the need to fill rooms with furniture anyway, since people are not staying for any long period and unlikely to be putting lots of things into dresser drawers). Had simple breakfast and headed out to walk some more in the town — made it away from the hordes of tourists (mostly Italian) who seem to descend on the town in the morning and spend the day there… These tourists are in large groups brought to the town in huge buses for which we discovered a different access road was created a few years ago — a very different road than what we used to drive into town yesterday (the one with the 70+ hairpin turns and so narrow as to require pulling over if a car comes in the opposite direction).

Erice is one of those delightful (if the tourists and the shops that they support selling lots of trinkets, disappear — yes, yes, I am aware that we are tourists, too) hilltop walled towns that are distinct from the surrounding countryside where the heat is strong and where olive groves and vineyards abound. Here you end your day in a cool, foggy mist. Erice is a totally stone town… with narrow, winding cobbled streets and alleys edging stone houses, stone churches, and stone courtyards .. with small stone piazzas popping up periodically. The streets are all paved with stones which have been smoothed and polished with centuries of feet walking over them… It’s totally clean — no litter that I could see.

Stopped to photograph inside one old church and I thought I saw an apparition — a strange light showed up in the center of my shot, but when I put the camera down I couldn’t see the light or its source.. I showed Mike and he, too, laughed… Finally we could see a crack of sunlight coming between two pillars onto the floor of the church which was magnified somewhat by the angle of my shot.. OK.. I’m back to being a non-believer! All is explainable.

The Trapani region (of which Erice is a part) has some unique culinary touches — pistachio pesto on pasta (naturally they mix in olive oil and tomatoes and garlic.. but there is a distinct pistachio flavor); they also use a lot of sweet additions to fish.. and pastry reigns supreme (but we worked hard to ignore the dolci as the pastas are already more filling than we are accustomed to.) We purchased some pestos (including the pistachio one) and some Sicilian spreads for bruschetta… En route back we will check baggage (a rarity for us) so we have new freedom to purchase liquids!

Then we headed out of town — initially on the road the buses use so that the number of switchbacks was decreased significantly. We decided to head to San Vito lo Capo — sort of the north-western-most point of Sicily.. It was an interesting drive (a bit white knuckled as motorcycles darted around us and as cars crept up to bumper level.. ) going through many small villages.. eventually winding up on the beachfront of the “cape”… We strolled a bit and ended up having (of all things) pizza at some seaside resort — pizza with fish naturally. Then we headed toward Palermo on a very small road … that hugged the northern coast. Our goal was to get to Monreale by about 3 pm.. but the road we took was extremely winding and meandering.. and took about twice as long as we had planned. In any case we followed the signs to Monreale — no easy task as the signs and our GPS were not always in sync.  Then it started to drizzle and also traffic just swelled making finding the streets a bit more challenging. Eventually we climbed and went through many switchbacks again.. the whole drive one lane in each direction… and there was a sign to turn for Monreale (we were already in the town)… that we just missed. By then we decided that we had seen many many cathedrals in many countries in our time, and that even though this appears to be a gem and certainly the star of Sicily.. we just weren’t up for back tracking to get back to the road.. So we were in Monreale — or at least circled the town — but never saw it or the cathedral. I’ll put it on the bucket list for next time!

Arrived — miraculously — at the Europcar office at the Notarbotare Train Station to return our Fiat Panda… (after filling up the tank — just half-tank for the equivalent of $50… ) and reunited with our friend who talks to himself constantly.. which he did the entire time we were filling out the paperwork. Then we hopped a taxi to the hotel.. did some work.. and taxied to the very elegant and very very hip Bye Bye Blues Ristorante in the Mondello section of Palermo. It was definitely pretty special. They initially brought out a little trio of bite-size antipasti (gratis — well not really if you look at the prices).. of tuna tartare; meet with some kind of mint and cheese; and a very yummy bite-size pizza. .. along with a platter of mini “stuffed” breads — with eggplant, with capers, with lemon, with pepper, with tomato, etc. Presentation of each dish was “over the top!”

We ordered a vegetarian appetizer with quinoa followed by (Mike) an incredibly tender pork sitting on a sort of caponata of vegetables and a mint sauce (Fern) an amber jack encrusted in pistachio sitting on a bed of vegetables.. followed by an amuse buche of berry yogurt.. and then an unbelievable dessert — a jasmine panna cotta sitting in a watermelon gel and fresh mint… and then they brought a gratis platter of teeny cookies, biscotti and assorted mini truffles… We rolled out of the restaurant which clearly was filled with yuppies and upscale Palermoites.. and us.

Taxied to the hotel.. and that’s it for the day. It’s a wrap! It’s about half past midnight…

A little time tomorrow to stroll (maybe to see the Anti-Mafia store?) and then it’s off to the airport (probably by public transit) to Rome to meet up with Mike’s brother and sister-in-law.

Ciao for now. Back in Oakland on Thursday.

More from Rome.

Fern