Home from beautiful Sicily
Thursday morning at 9am, I went with Wes & Alyssa to the Greek temples just down the road from our hotel. Dee didn't go because it was going to involve too much walking for her current status -- no need to push it, particularly on a trip. It was already hot and humid, so we were glad to get there early. We spent about an hour, seeing the main temple Concordia that is in amazing condition, having later been a Christian church for a long time (which is probably why it is so well preserved). It was quite a sight, and it really deserves a guided tour, but we didn't have time. It is the best-preserved Greek temple outside of Greece, as Agrigento was a Greek colony about 2500 years ago. The crowds were starting to show up as we left.
We went back to the hotel long enough to finish packing and then headed out at 10:30am. On the way back we took a brief detour to see the Step of the Turks, a very impressive white rock formation right on the beach. To get real close to it would have required a huge hike down to the beach level and back up (not something Wes wanted to do, and Dee is not ready for that right now), so we just admired it from a few hundred yards away. As we neared the location, we got pulled over by two policemen who checked my driver's license. It was a bit scary, as we hear about police shakedowns in remote places in Italy, but they let us go in just a minute or two after we told them where we were going.
From there we drove to Chiusa Sclafani, the town from which Dee's great-grandfather Vincenzo Martorano emigrated to Colorado in the late 1800s. Dee & I had been there once before in 2011. The 90-minute drive was lovely though a bit scary, on very windy mountain roads for much of the way. We arrived from the upper side of town, and Google took us to a little teeny dead-end road, with many narrow turns -- not sure why it chose that spot when we just entered the name of the town. Finally, after a bunch of very tight squeezes for the car, we figured out how to get to a main square downtown. There was almost no one around, unlike last time when there were a bunch of old men sitting on benches in the shade, with whom we had a nice chat. We ate some lunch and gelato at a little cafe, walked around a little, then left. I had ice cream in a brioche! Divine! I should have prepared better, mapping out the mother church and the street that Vincenzo was born on, but we were all tired and my feet were protesting, so we skipped the details. It would have helped Wes feel more of a connection. His tongue-in-cheek comment was "Gee, I wonder why anyone would want to leave this town?" Here is some photographic proof that we were there. Wes is, we believe, the first of his generation of Martoranos to visit Chiusa Sclafani.
It was another two hours of driving from there back to the airport, again over some curvy mountain road and then a lot of flatter back roads: lots of potholes, a few wrong turns (easy to do, even with Google Maps), and some crazy drivers. I was very glad to make it to the airport in one piece and plenty early. There was some kind of a dent on the wheel rim when we turned in the car to Budget, probably due to hitting a pothole somewhere, but since we had paid (dearly) for the full insurance coverage -- what I always do when driving abroad -- there was no charge.
We had over three hours at the airport, where they apparently do not believe in using much AC -- it was on, but just barely. We got a place to sit near our gate and hung out there, with Alyssa doing some Sicily shopping along with Dee and Wes. She was particularly happy to have an arancino for lunch. This is a typical Sicilian snack of ragu with meat wrapped in cooked rice, rolled in bread crumbs and fried. There were several brief power outages during our wait -- maybe that is why they don't turn up the AC. Our flight was on time, and our upgraded seats were well worth it for me, with several extra inches of leg room. When it came time to board, they announced in Italian that they were letting on the "Comfort" passengers with the priority boarders; however, when we got there the lady first said ok, then got mad at me because Comfort does not mean Priority. She let us through anyway, even though I said we would go get back in line. As a result, our two carry-on suitcases made it on board with us. I was able to fit Alyssa's doll in my carry-on!
We landed in Rome about 8:45pm, but then had to walk down a big flight of stairs to get to a bus which then took us to the terminal. It was nice to not have to wait for luggage. From there we walked a very long way up and around to get back to our parking spot, which was just across the street. If there is a next time, I may try the offsite parking with a shuttle bus, which will probably be quicker. Even after leaving the parking structure, we drove for maybe ten minutes, with lots of turns, just to pay and leave the parking area. We got home about 10pm, very glad to be there. I then printed out a bunch of tickets and info for Wes & Alyssa's trip to Florence and Venice the next day. We were all quite tired -- everyone but the driver got to nap along the way -- so it was easy to get to sleep.
