The Rough Guide to Italy describes Palermo as being ‘filthy, bustling, noisy…….driving in the city is best avoided…’
Well that cheered us up as we prepared to drive off the ferry in our 3.5 tonne campervan, not the most agile of beasts! Arriving at 7.30 am the roads were clear, so we raced to our camperstop to beat the fearsome traffic and vowed to walk or bus everywhere. Much easier in large cities anyway.
We spent the day wandering around Palermo. I liked it, it was busy, vibrant and tatty: crumbling palazzi, palms, stray dogs (like everywhere in Sicily), poo from said dogs, police in abundance. Yes the traffic is chaotic and so it is throughout Sicily, with most cars being dented and/or beaten up. No wonder there are constant sirens! Sitting in the English Gardens we saw the children dressed up in various costumes and realised it was only a few days to Carnival, a big event in Italy. We discovered one of the many markets in Palermo and were amazed by the quantity, quality and cheapness of the fruit and vegetables here: enormous green cauliflowers, mountains of globe artichokes and of course oranges and other citrus fruit at give away prices. How do they earn a living?
The next day we eventually took the bus to Monreale to see the spectacular mosaics. I say eventually ….because there was a lot of hanging around waiting for the right bus and then waiting for the church to open after lunch. We filled in by looking round the rather scruffy Botanical Gardens and then trying to find something to do in Monreale, a small hilltop town on an early Sunday afternoon. It was sunny but chilly and I got steadily chillier as the day wore on. I had forgotten to put on my vest…..or rather I had been deceived by the sunshine. By the time we had seen the beautiful mosaics (or man sauces as my iPad wants to spell it) and waited for the bus to Palermo, I was feeling distinctly cold. I soon warmed up with a brisk walk to the bus stop to catch the bus home. It turned up, loaded to the gunnels and we decided to wait for the next bus. Mistake. We waited……and waited……and waited…..along it came, even more crowded. The call of the warm camper and a cup of tea was loud and clear and we sprang forwards, elbows at the ready, pushing women and children aside in our quest for warmth. Well actually, it was only a couple of pushy women who’d turned up at the last minute, no children were injured in the making of this drama, promise.
So after a warm and refreshing night’s sleep, we bade farewell to Palermo and set off westwards. We were regaled in a supermarket by a kind man urging us to try various delicacies on his hot food counter, so we stood there trying various Sicilian delicacies such as swordfish rolls and sausage with broccoli, no lunch would be necessary at this rate! It was all delicious, as most Sicilian food is. So we stocked up and said fond farewells to each other, everyone was happy, he’d made a sale and we didn’t have to cook, result!
We had the first of several pleasant nights, wild camping by the beach. A friendly, stray white dog came to say hello and spent the night quietly by the van, she was rewarded with a bit of old sausage, lucky dog! It was hard to say goodbye and she barked when we left but I’m sure someone else would be along soon….
The sun continued to shine and we drove up to the hilltop town of Erice. The town was deserted and virtually unchanged from centuries ago. We wandered around looking for life, bumping into other couples who were also wandering around aimlessly! A shopkeeper in one of the few open shops told us that a cruise ship was due in next day and he was busy restocking for this. We had a nice spot overlooking the valley so we decided to stay put after lunch and then the mist descended…..It was strangely eery and atmospheric and it was easy to imagine what the town had been like in its heyday several centuries ago with its low,overhanging buildings and stone paved streets.
Heading round the west coast of Sicily, we began to despair of finding somewhere to lay our little heads and put down the wheels. Marsala, far from being a pleasant place, redolent of Jane Austen heroines sipping dessert wine, was a bit of a hole. We were accosted by a young man as we stopped at the port, who insisted that we pay him for topping up with water. Given that he had various friends and relatives camped nearby, it was difficult to argue but we resisted paying him for emptying the waste…….fortunately at that point the police turned up and started taking photos of the washing lines outside the caravans, presumably for evidence of permanent camping. He lost interest in us at that point and we scooted. It put us off Marsala. Similar encounter at the next port where a man with a tatty book of tickets, tried to charge us for parking and told us he was only trying to earn a living…..Note – when you hear whistling in these places, they are not admiring you, they are getting your attention so they can charge you MONEY (for things which don’t belong to them!). It is rather intimidating and unpleasant but it does remind you of just how poor this part of Italy is.
So we kept going and pretty grim it was, with piles of rubbish, crumbling buildings, badly maintained roads and so on. But it was sunny!
We aimed on towards a lighthouse at Granitola on the south west coast.The scenery improved and the grotty towns faded away. We found a nice spot next to the lighthouse, overlooking the sea, recommended by a German lady, Angela who was walking her dogs and was a Land Rover fanatic. Later, on her recommendation, we strolled into Granitola to pick up on the vibrant atmosphere which she assured us was there. It was just us and the barman, who gave us two exceptionally nasty glasses of cold red wine poured from a plastic container, which looked as if it once contained anti freeze. It tasted like it too. We gave up and walked back along the coast to the van. It was a nice spot, despite the antifreeze wine but the next day it was blowing a gale, so we retreated behind the reeds and waited for the bad weather to pass, after a long healthy walk on the beach of course….
And so, on to Sciacca and the oldest carnival in Sicily. We were about the tenth campervan to arrive on the dock where the parking was located. By Saturday evening, there must have been two hundred vehicles, all supervised by the Coastguard Authority who were running the show. This was motor homing Italian style. We arrived back from our morning walk, to find our newly arrived neighbours’ washing dangling over our steps from their side window. They’d arrived with their family in another van and wanted a huge space between them to set up their tables and chairs, so parked as close as possible next to us! We managed to shift sideways and I attempted an afternoon snooze……..this was punctuated by more vans arriving, engines left running, small children crying, small dogs yapping and small men talking in loud, shouty voices outside my window. They seem to be incapable of talking quietly, everything is shouted as if you were over the other side of the room. Enough!
More of the Carnival next time…