Trapani

After Monreale, we headed back to the hotel, picked up our bags, walked directly to the new bus station and took a bus to Trapani. This part of the itinerary had changed many times even when we were planning at home. Since John is under the weather, our choices became easier.

Trapani has a lot fewer tourists than Palermo. We were surprised to find that the half-a-dozen small B&Bs that were taking reservations online were completely unmanned. I felt awful that sick John had to trudge around town, but the happy ending was that we ended up in a top floor apartment in an old palazzo.

We loved Trapani. It seems such a pleasant and livable town. We saw fishermen sitting around fixing nets in the evening. The town is surrounded by water. It reminds us of Nafplio (Peloponnese, Greece). Best of all, we found popular eating places adored by local people!

One of the reasons to come Trapani is to visit the hilltop town (~750 meters) of Erice. Our landlady warned us to watch the weather, as we could easily be heading into a cloud with no chance to enjoy the spectacular views. Neither of the two days we had looked good, but Tuesday seemed better, so we took the bus up. We were under darkish clouds, but could clearly see down and around. The town of Erice seems sparsely inhabited. Not too many things were open, which was no big deal for us. However, by the time we left, the clouds had descended, visibility was about 5 meters!

Even though John wasn't 100%, we stuck with our original plan of walking the 7 kms back to town. On the way back, we had very rewarding views, but we also had every kind of weather: sun, rain, mist, fog, wind, clouds, hail, lightening, thunder, and a water spout!!! I realized Accuweather and Google weather are not adequate, and found out from our landlady that ilmeteo.it is the one to use.

Looking east from Erice.


Looking west with Trapani below. Check out the salt pans to the south (left). Supposedly on a very clear day, one can see North Africa form here. Tunisia is just 125 miles to the west.


The clouds roll in on Sun-Ling.


And John.




And some views from the walk down.




Trapani.
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Twice we ate lunch at this self-service cafeteria near Piazza Vittorio Emanuele.




The Art Nouveau Post and Telegraph Office. No photos allowed inside.




The waterfront at night.


Some shots from around the Old Town.