I am so very lucky. This Humboldt Award gave me two spells in Europe--last winter/spring and then this one, three months each. Last year at this time, Mrs. Spew visited and we drove around East/Central Germany and then flew to Venice and Milan for a great trip. Last week, my penultimate week in Berlin, she visited again with our daughter joining us. After a couple of days in Berlin with another visit to the East Side Gallery (I notice something different teach time even as the wall remains the same), we flew to Sicily. The idea was to explore Palermo, get a car and see the stuff to the west, then take our time driving to Catania where we would use that as a base to see stuff on the southeast and then dump the car and explore the city. Oh, and have a lot of great food and much gelato and many cannoli.
It was my first non-North American trip with my daughter, so it was great to have that experience. She's not a kid, not by a longshot anymore, but she's still my kid and we had a great time hanging together. I had forgotten how quickly she falls asleep in a moving vehicle--truly impressive. Since she doesn't do this quite as much as I do, I gave her the conn as much as I could--which beach to hit, which restaurants to try, where to succeed in our quest for Arancini. My wife, with her balky knees, kept up with us quite well.
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Mission
Accomplished |
A few basics about Sicily and our trip: like before, I tried to get hotels near the old towns, the old towns can be quite stressful for drivers as the streets tend to be super narrow and the parking lots even more narrow; Italian food is amazing so we didn't dare try anything else (unlike, say, in Germany, where we had great Georgian food and finally ate at a very good Vietnamese place attached to my building); we had way too much desserts along the way; we got a car to see more of the island but didn't want to spend the entire trip in the car; we mostly crashed after dinner each night--my daughter had more of a social life in Berlin than in Sicily. We had some recommendations from friends about places to see and restaurants, and those paid off nicely.
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This place looked interesting,
but we didn't make it back, alas |
Our first stop was Palermo, and we stayed right off the main pedestrian street, surrounded by great restaurants, many gelato places, an awesome cannoli spot, and short distances to key sites--the big cathedral and palace. We could see some prep for Easter as the pic below suggests:
The next morning, I took a super easy to find and use train to the airport to pick up the rental car. I had to get a bigger one since our bags are, well, huge. Overpacking is a Saideman trait. Which provided some challenges later on. I drove back, picked up my family, and then navigated the very narrow streets around the parking garage (
flashbacks to Toledo and fear of getting jammed), with all the proximity alarms going off, and one turn causing me to hit something, which turned out to be a curb and not a parked car (phew!). We then drove to San Vito Lo Capo, which allowed us to see the countryside and the coastline and the heaps of topgraphy--lots of mountains jutting out of the ground. We were in search of their sweet beach, and we found it. The scenery was great, we had more pasta with seafood (very much a running theme on this trip), and we went into the water. It was cool, but it was a fun beach. It had a dip and then a long sandbar so one could just hang and chat and admire the mountain next to the beach. I didn't take many pics on this stop.
We then drove to Trapani, which was a disappointment. It might be a great place, but we got pushed by the traffic to park in a distant neighborhood and didn't really see that much as we searched for a place that was open. It was funny how some towns had most restaurants closed on Mondays, other towns had their closed restaurant day as Tuesday.
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Cliff/mountain with cave and fort
next to Cufelo. |
The third day of the trip was moving day--getting out was easier as the guy at the garage told us left left right right and we wished we had that knowledge the previous day. We drove first to Cefalu, a beachside town with a really neat old town. Alas, it rained, which limited our exploration, as we weren't that well prepared.
Inspired by White Lotus season 2 and by recommendations from friends, we then drove to Taormina, which is on the east coast. We passed by Messina along the way and could see the toe of the boot of Italy quite clearly--a very narrow strait--so I mentioned some WWII stuff that bored my family. The other notable thing along this drive was the number of tunnels, short and long, on the way. I think I drove through more tunnels on this one day than in my entire life excepting the tunnels in Montreal and places like that. Taormina has a gondola that takes one from the street next to the beach up to the town perched on a hill. It was all pretty spectacular.
We then got to Catania where we found the most unusual beds in our rooms:
It was, um, ok. Fine for one person, but for two, we had a problem having our feet on the bed at the same time. Still, a very nice hotel in another excellent location--near the big cathedral and two major pedestrian streets. And again great restaurants and perhaps the best gelato of the trip.
We spent the next day going to Siracuse or Syracuse and walked around the old island and then an old theater, which became a running theme on the latter part of the trip. I think this was one of my favorite days as the scenery was great and the drive was easy once I got the car out of the narrow entrance to the parking garage in Catania (you can tell I am still scared and scarred).
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| Ancient Greco-Roman theater in Syracuse |
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| Temple of Apollo |
Our last day was spent car-less, exploring Catania.
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| Opera house around the corner from our hotel |
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Some great views of Etna. It spewed some lava
one night, but the best pics were on my family's phones |
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| Smaller theater--Odeon--attached to larger one |
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| Big, in great shape, not uncomfy. |
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| More left-wing, anarchist graffiti here than anywhere else |
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| Interesting exhibit we happened across |
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| Last castle of a very castle-filled Eurotrip |
Ranking the places, I'd have to put Taormina at the top--just a spectacular combination of old buildings, hills, beaches, mountain view, then Palermo with a lot of stuff to see and such great food, then San Vito for the amazing views from the beach, then Syracuse for great history, then Catania which was excellent but not quite as excellent as the aforementioned, then Cufelo because the rain limited what we could see and do, and finally Trapani.
In terms of the food, the cannoli were awesome, the gelato was fine but varied and wasn't so special. The pasta with clams was better than the pasta with seafood, but both were terrific. Lots of pizza, and lots of overeating.
It was a great way to finish off my two winters in Europe. I need to come back to see other parts of the continent, and to ask more pesky questions about civil-military relations.
As always, better to be lucky than good.
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