Our Sicilian Celebration
England, particularly Shropshire, can be a little bleak in December. Lots of rain, some flooding and no sun to speak of. That is why a trip to Sicily for Scott’s post-Christmas birthday was a high point in our year.
A couple of things we wanted to experience on this, Scott’s second trip to the island and my first:
For Christmas, I gave Scott a handmade ‘watch box’ from Stinga, the company based in Sorrento, which has been making exquisite inlaid woodwork marquetry boxes for the past three generations. My mother brought back a music box from Stinga for me in the early ‘60s from her trip with her father to Italy.
Scott and I tried unsuccessfully to visit the shop whilst in Sorrento for the scant 50 minutes we were allowed on the bus tour. (Never ever take a bus tour to the Amalfi Coast. It’s insulting to the tourists and insulting to the residents.) So I bought the box online.
Scott has been collecting antique watches ever since he began visiting Italy, Turin in particular. He has found an excellent little shop specialising in small bijou antiques: watches, rings, silverware.
When the Stinga watch box arrived, I decided to include in the box a number of addresses in Palermo that sell antique watches.
That was the first experience we didn’t.
Let me explain: our early morning flight to the island was cancelled. We had left our hotel nose-bleedingly early in order to make the flight (out of London City Airport) and found that the new flight was not for another four-plus hours. We finagled our way out of security to catch a taxi back to our hotel to wait in relative comfort rather than in the airport. After returning, the second flight was late, and we ended up arriving in Palermo well into the evening, six hours after our expected arrival. Our car and driver were there to meet us and whisk us off to …
One of the most beautiful, elegant, exquisite villas we have ever experienced: the Villa Igiea, on the Palermo Coast of Sicily. It’s a Rocco Forte hotel so that gives one a clue about the level of luxury and commensurate price.
Having been up for 16-plus hours on two plane journeys, we were greeted by truly beautiful people who made us feel as though we had just come home.
Indeed, after the nasty weather in Shropshire and in London, the balmy evening on the coast enticed us to linger on the terrace at the hotel’s Terrazzo Bar, under the stars and under a welcome space heater.
After a good night’s sleep, we wandered down to breakfast, overlooking the sea, for a pleasant meal. Yes, it was a buffet, and with cooked specials as one wanted. But it included an amazing array of fresh fruit: raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, red currants, cantaloup. I was glad to see they offered mimosas. Of course I took advantage.
Later, we walked through the extensive gardens, deciding, finally, not to go into town to look for watches, but just relax and enjoy this haven from the real world.
Yes. We ate, drank and slept in this oasis the two days we were in Palermo. It was just what we had dreamed of.
Now. Onto the west of Sicily.
We booked two nights in a town called Castellammare del Golfo, again on the north coast. I have a very good friend (I’d say old friend but he’s not old, just our friendship is old) whose family is from this town. He is a first-generation American, his parents both immigrants from Sicily. Greg turned me onto Castellammare and told me he has more family here than in the U.S.
To get there, Scott was happy for me to book a rental car - he drives, I no longer do.
Our taxi driver from the Villa to the airport (where we expected to pick up our car) was a great tour guide on all that we passed on the way to the airport: a couple of guys were extracting sea urchin gonads and selling them by the road for Euros 25 a cup - four pasta meals’ worth.
That’s like buying a bottle (or three) of Barolo whilst in La Morra - can’t get it in the UK for less than 60 quid a bottle, even if you can find it!
So, past the road-side sea urchin merchants, my first mistake was to book a car rental through booking.com. Unh-uh. They’ll give you a good rate, but you’ll have to be picked up in a van and driven miles from the airport to some back-water location with an unknown car rental. So no. Go for Avis for god's sake. They’re in the airport!
After the car rental refused to alter the contract (they had me as driver), we escaped with an Uber guy who took us all the way to Castellammare for a mere 60 Euros. It’s only about 45 kilometres from Palermo anyway.
I backtrack a little: when I happened to be speaking with the Concierge at the Villa Igiea, he wanted to know: “Why are you going to Castellammare?” in a manner that made me question why indeed? Well, because my friend’s family comes from there!
In the back of my mind - really, for all of us who watched the Godfather and wondered about where is really safe in Sicily (yes, typical American fantasists) - in the back of my mind, are we really safe gallivanting around the hinterlands of Sicily??
Well, yes of course. Duh.
Greg didn’t actually tell me to stay in the town of his parents’ families, but I was intrigued, so I booked a hotel on the coast again: the Marina di Petrolo Hotel and Spa.
The hotel suffered in our minds, only because we’d just left the most idyllic spot in all the world, the Villa Igiea.
Coming down from heaven, the hotel was actually just fine. We had a small balcony view of the coast and the sun shone on us the entire time.
We could walk everywhere, enjoy the historic town centre, the sea. We could sit and watch the people. We could watch the cats! It was a holiday weekend so many of the restaurants were closed, go figure.
This was New Year’s Eve.
We were fortunate to find a restaurant that still had a table free for the evening so we booked it. This was Sunday and the church bells rang in that very European style - loud, atonal, clanging and joyous. Not at all like the precise change ringing bells we have here in Shropshire every Sunday morning. We caught the last few minutes of mass in the large, old cathedral (Scott likes to listen to the Italian for his studies) then meandered around the old Norman/Arab - influenced fortress castle guarding the harbour. Then a nice lunch on the waterside before climbing back up to the historic town centre.
When the sun goes down, families come out for their nightly passeggiata, strolling along the pedestrian areas with grandparents and children in tow.
It’s a wonderful sight.
Our restaurant, Egesta Mare, presented a feast consisting entirely of fresh seafood. It was amazing. We dined with many of the multi-generational families we saw along the avenues.
Happy New Year!
And we found a very nice, local car rental guy who rented us a hybrid which Scott drove from Castellammare to the west coast and Trapani, another harbour town with some semi-famous salt flats.
We detoured from town to first see whether we could glimpse the elusive flamingo. This is the second experience we wanted to have whilst in Sicily. And we found them! We couldn’t get close enough for photography without a super zoom lens, but we saw them just the same. They are really amazing to watch.
Our hotel in Trapani, the Palazzo Gatto Art Hotel & Spa, was just a few steps away from the pedestrian part of town. Not exactly a palazzo, and we saw more cats in Castellammare, but the hotel was pleasant enough.
After joining the families of Trapani in their evening passeggiata, we stopped for pizza before heading back to the hotel and bed.
On the morning of the second of January, Scott drove us back to Castellammare to drop off the rental car. The nice guy agreed to drive us all the way back to Palermo. He was good practice for Scott's Italian, and he was a real fan of American wrestling. !
Arriving back in Palermo for our last day, we found ourselves once again in Eden (the Villa Igiea) for one more luxurious evening.
We returned home to rain, flooding, and a sunless January in Ludlow. Oh well. After a week of beautiful sunshine and the mountainous terrain on the north coast of Sicily, we were ready for the change.
We enjoyed our time in Sicily enough that we want to return. We’re thinking about this late spring for a couple of weeks back in Naples (that’s another adventure! I’ll share later) before taking the ferry down to Sicily for another week or so.
We’re enjoying it while we can!
