The Three Islands tour. Sicily.

Indulge me for a moment please.

A quick excited paragraph that’ll mean nothing to those who don’t write:

I often take notes, and write more personal thoughts on a little phone app that had no functionality whatsoever. It was what made the app attractive. You couldn’t send it anywhere, you couldn’t publish, you couldn’t copy, you didn’t even have a spellcheck (sometimes a blessing).

But it was on the phone, and the phone is always in my pocket. That made it gold.

WordPress (the tool that the blog is written on) is clumsy on the phone and so I only blog on the laptop. That means many thoughts are lost by the time I next get the machine out.

I noticed this morning that after an update the phone app now has spellcheck. A bit of prodding produced a copy function. Then a leap of genius that I didn’t expect even in this mad tech world allowed me to copy from the phone and drop the text directly into the blog on the laptop.

Result!

If that means nothing to you don’t worry. But I hope it’ll improve these posts. Phone typing tends to be more immediate, more concise and possibly more like I think (perhaps that’s a bad thing, there are far too many thoughts in this skull).

Back to the day job…

Grimaldi Lines. Cagliari – Palermo.

Ferrys are dangerous places. When it goes wrong people die, often in their hundreds.

Yet the lack of organisation at Cagliari is amusing, frightening. 

Queue here. Queue there. Go when you feel like it. 

Get checked in. Don’t get checked in. No one seems to care. 

Fortunately we weren’t reversed on. Drive from blinding daylight into the black box dark depths of this noisy steel hell. There’s shouting and sharp whistles everywhere. The ramp to the fifth deck was huge. Big enough to take massive trailers. Once almost in place we were spun to face the right direction. Easy.

Snug cabin. Bigger than the van, but only in width. 

Huge portions of slopped out pasta for dinner. Full paper cups of wine. Good wine. It wasn’t pretty, but it was still exciting. Of all our meals away, the ferry dinner is the one we get most revved about.

Brittany Ferries wakes you with gentle Celtic pipes. Grimaldi wakes you, at 4am, with bangs on the door followed by oft repeated announcements to join the scrum on the seventh floor where the coffee queue resembles an afternoon at Twickenham, everyone is grouchy, and the dogs all hate each other (dogs travel as freely as children on this boat). 

Tyre trouble.

But before we got to the ferry…

Last Sardinia morning. Rear offside tyre’s looking soft. 

We fuel up. We hope to check the tyre. No air line at the garage. 

The next garage has a Gomista (a tyre man). The old guy directs Archie through a super narrow gap to get to his air line. He gets us up to the required 4.5 bar (65psi in old money). Waves us on our way. 

Nora.

Visit the ancient settlement of Nora. 

Founded several centuries BC by Phoenicians. Succeeded by Greeks. Succeeded by Romans. Smashed up after a few centuries by the Vandals (naturally).

Brilliant. Easy to picture a city here.

Four public baths in a small town. Elegant temples. Fountains. Mosaic flooring laid over 2000 years ago, long covered, now exposed. Will what you’re standing on last as long?

Did they really wear togas?

Super.

Visit the supermarket. It’s like Christmas at Tescos in there. 

Bang!

15 minutes from the port. 45 minutes in hand. 

On track. On time. Heading in the right direction.

Bang.

Woosh.

Thump. Thump. Thump. 

Bollocks. 

Puncture. 

On that newly filled tyre. 

When driving a car with low profile tyres you’ll hardly notice a puncture. 

When driving a big van, laden, every rotation of the wheel feels like something is about to break. 

There’s a bus stop. A potential refuge. It’s the wrong side of the busy road.

We cross the traffic to the bus stop against the ire of the oncoming cars. Horns. Shouts. Sweet gestures of love. Vaffanculo!

We’re across the big road. We’re safe. But what now?

40 minutes until we have to be at the ferry. It’s only 15 minutes away. 

Get the jack out. 

It’s hydraulic.

The hydraulic jack is the only way to lift the van.

I’ve never used a hydraulic jack (man’s man? not me. Fair skin, delicate boned wrists, fine golden hair).

Stare at the jack. 

Try it. 

Yep. We can do this. 

Each pump of its long handle raises the back offside of the van an infinitesimally small amount. 

Pump for five minutes. 

Pump for ten. 

Minty’s pumping and I watch. 

I’m sure it raises, then slips back. 

Our ignorance. My ignorance. 

The valve isn’t tight closed. 

15 minutes of pumping. No gain. 

We start again. 

Calm. Sort of. In a bus stop. On a main road. Heavy traffic too close for comfort. 

20 minutes. Not wasted. But gone. 

This time it rises faster. 

Nuts off. Including the awkward locking one with its unique key. 

Lift the crazily heavy spare into place. 

Nuts on. 

10 minutes to get to the ferry. 15 minutes away. 

Pack everything away (throw it all into the back for later). 

Check we have everything. 

Pull back across the traffic against the ire of the oncoming cars. Horns. Shouts. Sweet gestures of love. Vaffanculo!

Late for the ferry. But an hour earlier than some of the Italians. And everyone gets on. 

Palermo – leaving the ferry.

Queues are anathema to Italians. 

If the guy in front isn’t moving drive around him. 

It’s still only 5.30am and there’s chaos as a Dutch van refuses to start. Cars, lorries, vans all try to squeeze around it in the confined dark dangerous space of the ferry. 

This causes a break in the sheep-following pattern of traffic through the largely unlit labyrinthine dock. 

The guy in front takes a wrong turn.  There’s lots of whistling and shouting from the guys hanging around smoking who are probably paid to direct the traffic and avoid poor ignorant foreigners going wrong. 

Reversing into the pitch black. Horns. Fear. Docks are scary during the day. They’re hell (but exciting) at night. 

The streets of the town are the worst I have driven since Manchester. Car swallowing potholes. No signs. Fortunately the hour, and the post war grid pattern, made it possible to find the empty motorway and feel the love flood back as the sky pinked behind us and the bays opened up to a glistening magnificent view. 

Our first hour of Sicily has sheer mountains on our left falling to a crowded with development coastal plain, edged by the Mediterranean, fiery in the reds of dawn.

Sweet tooth and cigarettes.

I have called out several European countries as the last bastion of smoking. I used to think it was Germany, then we got to Bulgaria whose love of the weed trumped all. Recently Belgium has topped the list. But the new chart topper has to be Sardinia. 

Young. Old. The beautiful ones and those beyond redemption. Many stand outside the Tabbachi so as not to get caught short come the fateful last fag in the packet. 

The ferry smelled as if everyone was smoking indoors, yet it was only their clothes freeing the tobacco.

And their sweet tooth. A plain croissant will be glazed in sugar, but most are filled with a super sweet cream. I’ve just been offered marmalade, pistachio, chantily, or just straight cream. 

Blue Zone.

Yet Sardinia is the original Blue Zone where data defying numbers of people live beyond a hundred. 

Pope.

As I typed Minty read that the pope has died, only hours after delivering his Easter address. That’s willpower.

It’ll change the air here for a while to come. Liberation day is the 25th April (celebrating the end of WWII for the Italians), Labour Day is 1st of May.

Preparations for conclave, speculation and an outpouring of grief.

I’m not religious. But I’m fascinated by religion. The Argentine Pope Francis seemed to me to work to unite faiths and offer his hand to those considered undesirable. I dislike the overuse of the phrase “reach out”, but Pope Francis, he reached out.

Trapani.

Our first stop at Trapani is a couple of kms out of town.

An enterprising soul has created a truck-stop, camper stop and car park from a few acres of land. He has put in a toilet (a daunting concrete box with a huge clanging steel door on the outside, but it’s a smart tiled shower room on the inside). He has a guard in place. He charges a reasonable fee, and even offers shuttles to town. Well done.

As a port with an airfield Trapani fared badly in WWII when the allies attacked Sicily from North Africa on their route to taking Italy from the Axis forces.

This was evident this morning as I strolled out to find a bakery among the post war flat developments.

The area is only mid-rise, generally five or six floors, but wide streets after wide streets of flats stretch out, with no green space in a grid pattern that’s convenient for directions, but intimidating and disorientating to navigate.

There are smart shops here, I found a great bakery, a shop selling hugely expensive coffee machines (I was looking for a café), and several motorbike retailers, but the feeling is still somewhat grim. Even though I’ve lived in flats in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh I’ve never experienced these developments first hand.

I enjoy modernism, design stripped of ornamentation. In its place it can feel calming and beautiful – John Pawson’s Life House in the Brecons remains the most memorable place we’ve stayed. But put two modern buildings together and you may start to feel a lack of interest. Encounter fifty, a hundred, or several hundreds and you’ll feel on edge, you’ll lack the essential interest the curious eye craves.

Old town.

Fortunately the surviving old town, including several great churches and other buildings, is extensive. It’s where the interesting hotels, restaurants and bars are. It’s where you sample the speciality arancini, pastas and fish.

Here we notice detail that shows the love (and money) of those who built this city however many centuries ago. Not only are the balconies ornate beyond any practical need, the undersides are often decorated in a manner that would have required huge patience and skill. The doors. Make an entrance! These people knew how.

We also noticed the prices. Good wine is double the price per glass of anywhere in Sardinia. It’s almost English price! I’m sure that will drop again when we’re out of the tourist area.

Erice.

Trapani, our first stop on Sicily, is on a deep plain out of which Mount Erice thrusts skywards. 

Flat for miles, except for this mountain. 

On top is the village of Erice, 750m up. 

It’s often in the clouds. It was when we made the climb. 

The climb is another that you want to do in your Alpine 110 (fast car). On an empty road it was pretty good even in the van. 

Minty had had two coffees (unheard of) and among her chatter she gave a rally navigator’s style commentary on the road ahead, a run down on all the gorgeous flowers, as well as frequent calls to look out at the view. 

The view. It came and went as the cloud swirled around us. When it was there it was utterly arresting. 750m drop in less than a linear kilometre. That’s similar to gazing off the highest cliff you can imagine. With the Mediterranean and the Sicily coastline filling your vision. 

Up in the town we met our first tourist crowds, including those noisy ones. I wonder how it feels to be American in Europe these days. 

It’s a curious thing Erice. 

750m up a mountain is easy to defend. But bloody inconvenient in pretty much every over aspect. Today it’ll take you 25 minutes to get down to the Conad supermarket in Trapani on your scooter. Back in the Middle Ages your donkey would have given up before you even got half way down the hill. There’s no way you could have brought a crate of beer and a week’s shopping back. 

Nonetheless every tribe to have held the island over history had a part to play in the town. Its current format is largely medieval. 

It’s worth the climb.

Mama Collette’s.

It’s morning at Mama Colette’s. 

Colette was drinking with an old friend last night and perhaps there’s an angry bear rampaging in her head this morning. 

Instructions to the three guys doing work here are a conflicting chaos of shouts that only the calmest could stand. 

The phone rings every ten minutes. You’re never sure who’s being spoken to. 

Guests are barked at seamlessly in Italian, French and English, all are concerned that they’ve been told off, none are sure of why. 

This is the reality behind so many exciting hosts. 

You have to accept it and live with them for their better side. 

She calls to mind special now departed friends like Rosanna at Tregiffian, and Minty’s gran, Bee. Wonderful on form. Veritable battle axes when crossed. 

Her house on the salt flats south of Trapani sits on a normal plot that she has optimised for hospitality. 

You can come here for dinner. 

You can stay B&B. 

Or there’s room for six small vans. 

She has other rooms nearby. 

She’ll coordinate whatever anyone needs. 

People come for the night and stay on, and stay on, returning year after year as friends. 

Her four dogs are generally calm, but go running out into the road to chase motorbikes (scary for everyone) and to tell other dogs. 

Last night the young helper went out to retrieve some of the dogs that were barking at the dogs of a couple walking by. The couple berated the poor fellow saying that it’s all very well apologising but it happens every night. We believe them. 

Dinner last night was at seven. When it was finally served at eight thirty it was worth waiting for. Busiata, the local pasta, with a spicy fish sauce. 

An hour later Colette sat and held court until way past my bedtime. Wine. Marsala. And a strong sweet almond liqueur. Her friend this evening is Swiss so conversation is French. 

There’s a dominance dynamic here. People love her, but don’t tell her what’s wrong for fear of her reaction. 

25 euros to stay in someone’s garden is expensive, 55 euros to stay in someone’s garden, with dinner for two, wine, digestives, and a washing load done is great value. This is a wonderful entertaining place and if we ever come back to Sicily we’ll come back here.

Marsala and its wine.

The instructions on the bottle read “Marsala. Enrich your cooking experience with a taste of Sicily.”

It certainly worked, but my head was banging afterwards. 

Perhaps I poured it into the wrong hole. 

In the town of Marsala a large supermarket obliged with parking for vans. 

There are the urban castles of successful wineries all around. My first glass of Sicilian red was a delight. 

There are also the crumbling low-rise blocks of badly built flats from where concrete falls frequently to the road below. Mind your Fiat Panda. Mind your head. 

Marsala is a brandy fortified wine giving richness and extended shelf life. It’s mainly used in cooking, but that seemed a waste to me. 

Its town has a compact old centre among sprawling modern flats that stretch for miles. The centre is a delight. The rest is exhausting. 

24.5 degrees on the temperature gauge today. Still plenty of Italians in puffer jackets, fur coats, full length greatcoats. 

Mazara del Vallo.

Down the road at Mazara del Vallo the island’s biggest fishing fleet is based, but it’s best known for its Arabesque streets. 

Much of Sicily is built on a grid pattern, especially the post war throw-it-up-quick flat developments. Not Mazara del Vallo. 

It’s like wandering through a medina (except for the lack of noise, smells and snake charmers). And beautiful too. 

We were there during the afternoon when the Sicilians are either eating or sleeping. This made it easy to imagine we were in Morocco. The amazing gelateria we gorged at gave the game away. 

Mazara’s campsite, Il Giardino dell’Emiro, is immaculate. Clean site. Clean facilities. Hot water. And several neighbours we’ve met already. 

The site is run by Marco, big muscled, gently spoken, sweet smelling Marco. He deserves to do well. 

He charges a reasonable €20. He runs a shuttle into the town. He has delivery deals with his friend’s restaurant. And he’s determined to educate people on how to get recycling right. 

When it was time to move on he recommended another excellent site down the road.

Agrigento.

Back to the old shit.

Agrigento is old, really old. Akragas, as it was known, was founded by the Greeks around 2600 years ago.

An island in the Mediterranean wasn’t a peaceful place back in those times and there was always someone who wanted a bit of what the locals had.

The Carthaginians from across the water in Tunisia had a pop at the city now and then, largely destroying it in 406 BC, but it was to rise again under later Greek colonists, and then the Romans. It remained prosperous under the Romans until the late 4th century AD. It all sounds a long time ago and hard to get your head around, but 800 years is a pretty good run for a frequently embattled city.

Today the massive site gives insight to the scale of the builders’ ambition all those centuries ago. What we see are the remains of the most important buildings, but between these the day to day homes of the people can be imagined from their foundations.

The Sicilian Queue.

No one can spend time here without witnessing the fascinating phenomenon of the Sicilian queue.

It’s Independence Day and pretty much everyone is on holiday. The queue to go through security at the ancient site is already chaotic early in the morning, but as we watched people slid into the front at various times, not catching anyone’s eye, getting away with it.

The queue at the main entrance carpark was far more exciting.

Here people exhibit the same behavior, but they’re in their cars.

No one seems to consider the disruption they’ll cause by their own stupidity. If there’s a gap in the oncoming traffic they’ll fill it, blocking the way for scores of cars who immediately erupt onto their horns until they can wind down their windows to scream insults relating to the antics of the driver’s mother.

A stream of taxis created a new lane that bordered on lunacy and increased the volume further.

This charade went on for perhaps 20 minutes until a guy from far back in the queue took charge, marching forward then standing in the road and balling instructions at the cars coming at him from three directions. It worked. And no one but us thought it strange.

That aside, Sicilian driving is remarkably calm, much more so than on the Italian mainland.