Trip Report

October 5, Thursday

We enjoyed our picnic of ham and cheese last evening. I dropped ham and cheese down to the cats who devoured it but they had no idea where it was coming from! Until I made a noise that is, which attracted their stares.

Cat family	Dining on the rocks in Cefalú

During the night I heard thunder. It rained quite a lot. Today it is overcast. We planned to explore Cefalú today and just take it easy. Maybe we would walk up to the top of the Rock (big giant rock above the town).

We followed a walking tour of Cefalú. We finally got to the Piazza del Duomo. We visited the cathedral which was started in 1137 [See picture - left]. It had some quite nice mosaics inside and a wooden ceiling. The Piazza was full of tourists mostly.

We wended our way up and down the streets, sometimes it sprinkled rain on us. We went to the Museum of Art, which was small and quiet. It was supposed to have some paintings by Messina but for some reason it just had copies.

We continued on our way and I bought panne and sausage for our picnic lunch. We continued to the 17th century battlements. Next we visited the old Medieval Laundry [See picture - right]. It was down steps and powerful spurts of water from springs came from two sides. It was dark and vaulted and the water ran into about seven or eight square holes in the stone with one side slanted so you could scrub the clothes. It was said that it was used until only recently!

We got a cold bottle of wine and two newspapers and some post cards and headed back. We had a nice picnic and a nap and I wrote my cards. I walked down to the beach and waded in the surf which was quite strong, maybe because of the storms. It was cool and refreshing.

It had started to rain pretty steadily when we started out for dinner. We planned to go to La Botte for our final dinner in Cefalú but it was not to be. It was closed for that evening. We played it by ear and headed for the restaurants on the seafront. We went to a pizzeria/restaurante (I forget the name). We sat on a covered terrace. The surf was just beneath it and very loud and wild and the rain pounded on the roof.

We had a smoked fish antipasto which we split. I had spaghetti con vignole and Luther had spaghetti with all kinds of seafood on it. Then we split a cheese plate and had espressi for two. We had some white wine to start and a nice red.

When we left the rain had not let up so we hiked back in our raincoats. We got pretty soaked. We could still sit on our balcony, however, because the wind was not blowing in. Not a terrific end to our visit to Cefalú. We are off to Siracusa tomorrow.

October 6, Friday

Not a great day. It started out OK. Cloudy with some sun. The world looked clean after the rain overnight and the air was crystal clear. We got underway at about 8:30. By 10AM we were in Piazza Amerina. We toured the roman villa and saw the awesome mosaics. It was the home of a well off Roman. It was also the administration center for the operations of the agricultural activities.

Baths in the Roman villa.	Mosiacs in Piazza Amerina		Prickly pear cacti were everywhere. They distill a liquor from them.

The rain began in earnest after we got started again. I saw a dog walking along the side of the road that was no more than a walking skeleton. There were no houses or towns nearby. It really upset me to see it. We got lost several times. We generally like to stay off the main roads and use the small ones but in this area the signage was really bad. Finally we kind of gave it up when we found a main road and stayed on it until we got to Siracusa.

With no trouble we found Residence Lakkios, our new home. They had asked when we'd arrive and I had guessed between 4 and 5 PM. We arrived at 3PM and no one was there. We called and they came. Of course it was still pouring rain. They spoke no English at all. Luther was going to get his Italian workout. The proprietor was Marra. She was a pretty lady and her husband was there too. He just stood behind her and smiled indulgently. I got the impression that it was her thing. She was quite cute.

View from our room across harbor.	Mara and Sophia.	The card.

After moping around in the room for a while and with no end in sight for the rain we donned our raincoats and ventured out. We were situated on the harbor and could walk to Ortigia from our hotel. Ortygia (2 spellings) is the oldest part of the city and a small island that is now connected by a bridge. It has very small streets, some roman ruins and lots of shops and restaurants. We did get good and wet. It was pretty awful. I had a bunch or restaurant recommendations on the island but no addresses. This was not good. We wandered in the rain until it finally stopped. We did not find any of the restaurants. We bought some wine for our room. Luther asked the nice older gentleman at the wine shop where we could dine well and have good wine. He recommended Don Carmello. Turns out that was one of our recommendations. He told us how to find it. We walked there and we couldn't get in because of a private party but we did make reservations for the following night.

We still had the problem of getting ourselves fed that night. We wandered and tried to follow up on a recommendation for La Medusa. We found it but it was closed. Finally we found two of the ones we were looking for right near each other. One was Da Mariano with lots of negative reports and the other was La Foglia which to me was plain weird. We were so tired and hungry by then that we went to Da Mariano. It turned out to be pretty good, if quirky. No menu, no wine list, no coffee. We were seated outside and it was pleasant now with a full moon. The waitress just came out and gave us recommendations. So we had an antipasto to share and then two pastas which we also shared. We had no idea what we were ordering but it was all good. One of the pastas was creamy and the other was not. Both had chopped almonds on them. We had little pitchers of white and red wine and they brought almond brittle and sugared ginger with an unknown bottle of almond flavored liquor for dessert. Really all was very nice and pretty off beat. There were lots of locals there too so that was a plus.

We walked back and watched bad Italian TV. I should describe our rooms. It is a three room B&B. We are upstairs. The building is nicely renovated with high-beamed wooden ceilings and stone walls showing through in patches. There are two big rooms - one a bedroom and the other the kitchen with a tiny fold out kitchen, a nice table and chairs and a day bed. All quite nice.