Thursday Oct 23 2008
Today, we drove to the airport in Palermo to pick up Mary Ellen’s sister, Jane who flew in from the states to join us for the last week of the adventure. This was also a chance to practice for our dash to the airport on next Wednesday when we catch a morning flight to Milan for our return on Thursday. The airport is on the opposite side of the Palermo from Cefalu’ and about 60 miles away. The problem we found is that the local powers (and we can all speculate on who they might be) have never followed through with the idea of building an Autostrada through or around Palermo. The limited-access road ends at one end of the city and another begins on the other side. You take a boulevard through the city and this tends to slow you down. We will see how it goes early next Wednesday.
Today, we drove to the airport in Palermo to pick up Mary Ellen’s sister, Jane who flew in from the states to join us for the last week of the adventure. This was also a chance to practice for our dash to the airport on next Wednesday when we catch a morning flight to Milan for our return on Thursday. The airport is on the opposite side of the Palermo from Cefalu’ and about 60 miles away. The problem we found is that the local powers (and we can all speculate on who they might be) have never followed through with the idea of building an Autostrada through or around Palermo. The limited-access road ends at one end of the city and another begins on the other side. You take a boulevard through the city and this tends to slow you down. We will see how it goes early next Wednesday.
Jane came through her flight over in good shape so we decided to do some sightseeing and headed for the western town of Erice. This is a town founded by the Greeks on a small plateau about 2500 ft above the sea with beautiful views of the coast. It is a walled city with a medieval atmosphere and quite enjoyable to just walk around. We spent a few hours there and then decided to return to Cefalu.
We got back to the car just before a rainstorm began and felt quite lucky to be under cover. Then we tried to start the car. Our rental car comes with an alarm system that keeps you from starting it unless you press a button on the key fob. The button was no longer working. After trying a few times, I called the Hertz office in Italy and said we were stuck. They asked a few questions about the rental and then said they would be back to me in 10 minutes. They texted back saying the had sent a truck, it would be there in an hour and if the car did not start, we should get a cab back to the Airport in Palermo (about 50 miles). This from a fogged-in medieval town on top of a mountain! As promised and to our great surprise, the truck arrived exactly (as the bell tolled) an hour later. Unfortunately, our only common language with the mechanic was Italian so communication was less than smooth. But he took one look around and said that the problem was that the nearby mountaintop cell phone tower was interfering with our alarm system. He rolled the car a few hundred feet down the hill and it started immediately. What next?
We got together with our cousins this evening and had another great family time. For the Brits, the weather is a definite upgrade and Brian really enjoyed Cefalu’s fine beach and even went swimming this afternoon! I’d venture to say that the sea is probably too cool for us desert rats, but for a Londoner or Adirondack Mountain lake swimmer, it seemed warm.
Although the weather has been somewhat-to-very cloudy since we arrived on the island, it’s been warm and the occasional heavy rains have occurred either while we were driving home or overnight. We realize that Sicily is a beautiful place and look forward to seeing more of it. Tomorrow we will head east to Siracusa and other places along the East coast.
Ciao!
Tom
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