Sunday – 1 July 2018 to Saturday 7 July 2018
Sunday morning at 10:00, or last that was the plan, we tore ourselves way from Ponzano Superiore for our journey to Sicily. As we were packing our lives into the boot of our Clio a pilgrim came walking past and stopped right there to have a rest and some sustenance in the form of cold water from the village fountain.

We got chatting and what a lovely and most interesting guy Mathew turned out to be. He is from Switzerland and that’s where he started walking the Via Francigena pilgrims route, been on the trail for nearly four weeks with his end destination Rome, obviously. This pilgrim made us 30 minutes late, but we were glad he did for it was an enriching experience.

We travelled south and I soon enough wished that Italy was not such an elongated country; we had 1300km and a ferry ride to do to get to our next home in Aspra, on the island of Sicily.

It is claimed that the south of Italy is the poorer part of the country and this becomes evident while motoring along the highway. The houses and towns become more rundown, the roads become more rundown, and even the highways become toll free at some stage.

We planned to do the trip in two days but intentionally did not book accommodation for our one night stand as we were not sure where our bodies would give in to the effects of the long day of travelling. At around 17:00 we stopped off at a highway petrol station, had an espresso, found and booked our accommodation which we would find in another two hours’ drive. It just happened to be at a guesthouse in the randomly picked town of Montesano Sulla Marcellana, didn’t know it, never heard of it, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

As we eventually ventured off the highway we saw a beautiful hilltop village in the distance and made a mental note to visit it in the morning before we tackle the next leg of our journey. You can imagine our surprise when our GPS lead us right up to that same hilltop town, it just happened to be Montesano Sulla Marcellana!

The guesthouse and the landlady Teresa were both lovely, the view from up there was even better, but it was late, we were tired and almost immediately fell into bed and slept.

After an amazing breakfast just after 08:00 we were ready to leave by 09:00, but couldn’t. We were now in regions where cash rather than credit cards are the norm, and of course I should have had enough cash with me… but I didn’t.

We took a drive into the centre of this beautiful town and stopped off by its central square. Everybody seemed to be greeting us; the town is tremendously friendly, probably not too many tourists from outside Italy make their way here. There was only one Bancomat in town, its whereabouts unknown to me. I ventured into a tabacchi shop to gather directions and waited for the owner and customer to catch up on the last year’s gossip.

A man that I had noticed outside walked in, he was a Jean Reno lookalike, or maybe it was Jean Reno, I don’t know. Jean had no business in the tabacchi shop other than to check up on my wellbeing – it seemed – so I requested the Bancomat directions from him. And by the way, Jean Reno has always been one of my favourite actors, he had acted in many great movies, but check out Roseanna’s Grave – sometimes also referred to as For Rosanna – a beautifully crafted, funny and heart-warming story, but more about that in a future post.

While reading through Jean’s Wikipedia article I noticed that he got married to his third wife in 2006 in a little town called Les Baux-de-Provence in France. Adri and I just happened to have visited this beautiful little town a short while ago when we went to see Sylvie who stays in Maussane-les-Alpilles, about 5km from there. I remembered Sylvie – while driving us around this beautiful area that day – pointing out where Jean used to live. But he had now bought another property on the other side of town, probably at the time he got re-married.

Be as it may, when I got back to the car Jean and a couple of his buds were hanging around our car, having now identified from the number plate that we were from France. Jean offered a smiling “bonjour monsieur”, he could actually speak French! Now I was really wondering about this guy…

We drove south past Florence, Rome, Naples and finally ended up at the toe of Italy’s boot at the ferry port just north of Reggio Calabria. Without, or rather with much fuss and fanfare we boarded the ferry by car. The fuss and fanfare arrived in buckets when we had to drive up a rather steep ramp – narrow as a nail – up to the second level of the ferry. Was it scary? Hmm… Was it very scary? Hell, yes it was… But at least I saw another few cars that also stalled before attempting to climb their Everest. After arriving at the top I felt better, but Adri was still shaking long after I had stopped… shaking that is.

The ferry ride is no longer than 30 minutes and at €38 for a one-way journey is rather extortionist, although I should not say that too loudly here in Mafiosi territory, I guess.

We took a walk around the ferry and ended up outside on deck and watched our interim destination of Messina fast approaching. It was terribly blustery outside but we welcomed the cooling effect it had in this stifling heat. We watched the long hair of a small dog blowing wildly in the wind. Had it not been for the leash around its neck it would probably have been doggone. The hair of the dog somehow reminded me of a song, not surprisingly called Hair Of The Dog, performed by Nazareth in the 70s. And by the way, the title Hair Of The Dog has nothing to do with it and is never mentioned in the lyrics, you can read the background to the song here, rather interesting.

As Messina grew larger we went back to our car for our disembarkation manoeuvres. Going down that ramp was far less intimidating than the trip up, guaranteed, and soon enough we rolled back onto mother earth, driving around Messina trying to find our way to Palermo.

And this was where I became scared, poep scared (scared shitless), as I peered nervously from behind my steering wheel. I was now in Sicily so I was supposed to be scared, I should be scared… but it was not of Tommy guns, Berettas, snipers and/or kidnappers, but of the drivers. Man, the drivers here in Sicily are atrocious, worse than in South Africa, even worse than in Thailand.

And adding insult to injury, the roads are also atrocious, worse than in South Africa, even worse than in Thailand. The highway between Messsina and Palermo is mostly in total disrepair. Parts of the road that had become too dangerous to drive on were blocked off with barriers and road signs that translate to “Men at work”. I never saw any men at work and judging by the overgrown barriers and road signs no men had worked there in the last many years. And to top it all, this particular road was a toll road. My first thought was “They want me to pay to drive on that? And my second thought was “They should be paying me to drive on that!”

During our month’s stay I would find out that the bad driving theme is a well known and recognised phenomenon in Sicily. Even the local drivers think they are that bad… It’s just the way it is. People don’t stop when they’re supposed to; they don’t drive when they’re supposed to. They drive up your arse even though there’s nowhere else to go. They hoot and they toot for no apparent reason. Oncoming cars cut corners and refuse to veer back into their own lanes forcing you to hit the gravel on your side. There is no method as to how to approach a roundabout, there is neither rhyme nor reason, they just drive in and out of there hoping to emerge unscathed on the other side.

There also seems to be no rules governing on how to approach an intersection. There is this particularly scary  intersection in Bagheria that have five tails to it in a weird setup, and always chocablock with traffic… always, with cars pointing in every possible directions of the compass. You have to nudge your way through this sea of cars and if you move too slow you get hooted at and if you move too quick you will inevitably hit someone. This particular intersection became my nemesis during our stay here.

One time I had the driver of a parked car open his door wide just as I was about to pass him in this very narrow lane. I hit the brakes skidding to a halt to try and avoid a door bashing… This guy just looked at me in a scolding kind of a way as if I was the crétin (dumbass).

Now let me be clear; I am not a nervous driver, have never been… ever. But I am man enough to admit that I was a nervy ball of nerves, a crumbling wreck every time I got behind the wheel. Sicily is the one place where you drive offensively rather than defensively, you will never survive otherwise. But, by the end of the month I was slogging it out with the best of them.

After all that I had gone though during my first few hours on Sicily, and also my baptism of fire through that intersection, we somehow arrived safely in Aspra around 17:30. Our landlady Anna was having a good old chinwag with her neighbour across the lane while waiting for us. She showed us our newly refurbished apartment and we were more than perfectly happy with our choice, the place was great. There was even a partial sea view down the way between the apartment buildings.

A little later we took a stroll around the lovely promenade where people were milling about, chatting, drinking eating; Aspra truly has a magical atmosphere… the bad drivers now a distant memory.

We were incredibly tired after a long day of many experiences so supper was not going to be made tonight; it was going to be had. I read somewhere that Ristorante Pizzeria Kalambaca served rather good pizzas and that’s where we headed, exactly 110m from our apartment. The pizzas were great, the big Becks beer was also great and apparently the 500ml carafe of white wine was even better. The view from the restaurant across the ocean was superb; wow, what a welcome to Sicily!

My first impression of Sicily was that it is wonderfully haphazard and scruffy. The buildings are quaint but mostly in disrepair. The roads are not quaint but also mostly in disrepair. Papers and bottles and all sorts of litter are strewn all around Aspra notwithstanding the fact that there are numerous dustbins on display, with the emphasis on display. I just didn’t get it. I can understand that poverty can cause badly maintained buildings and roads, but there is no excuse for leaving litter on the streets and sidewalks, and on the beach. Fortunately the litter problem is not true for the whole of Sicily and seems to be centred around certain areas.

Having said all this, we would find that the people of Sicily are its greatest asset… They are super friendly, wonderful and most helpful, which makes Sicily a truly amazing place to visit.

Tuesday morning Adri woke up and was not a well puppy, she had a throbbing headache, must be the heat, she proclaimed. Methinks it was rather from that half litre of wine she absorbed last night.

We spent most of the day recovering and recuperating from our road trip… as well as the previous night’s drinks.

It was early evening when we went for a walk along the promenade. In Italy the ritual of going out for an early evening stroll with family and friends is an age-old tradition and referred to as la passeggiata, or the walk, with the emphasis on the. It is a time when everybody is out to see and be seen, catching up on the news and gossip of the day, a truly wonderful and relaxing experience.

On our way back home I saw a young gun, maybe 13 or so, trying to impress two 13 year old little ladies on the beach by smashing a Heineken bottle on the rocks in shallow surf. I was about to admonish the little crétin but stopped myself short thinking that maybe, just maybe, his godfather is the godfather. I was not yet ready to put on my cement shoes and stand at the bottom of the ocean…

Wednesday we took a walk to the supermarket, for two days now they have not had any eggs. And this reminded me of a guy in Cape Town with the surname of Eccles; we used to call him Eggless. Yet again we came to an Eccles shelf. I enquired about the egg situation and the lady attendant went backstage to get the latest but there was still no news on when those pesky chickens would stop their strike. It was two minutes later that another lady stormed into the shop front and deposited a dozen eggs into my basket, they had just come in. I was eggstatic.

Back at home after an eggemplary breakfast, the AppleTV which refused to connect to the wifi yesterday had no qualms in joining the community today, have no idea what brought that on, but I was happy. We watched a few Netflix shows and generally relaxed most of the day and settling into our new home. Late afternoon I cracked open an icy cold Tuborg while watching the colour of the sea seamlessly changing in tune with the setting sun… life was good, eggstremely good (Okay, enough already with the eggs thing!).

Thursday was the first time that I had regained enough of my driving nerves to take to the road. We drove to Palermo which is some 20km from where we lived. We were happy to have found a Carrefour supermarket where we could go proper shopping, and thought we could utilise their parking area to do a recce of Palermo while we were there.

As we entered the covered parking garage an old not-very-mean-looking Italian man with a bag hanging from his belt acknowledged that we could park there for free as we were shopping at Carrefour.  When we had completed our shopping we asked whether we could leave our car there while strolling around Palermo. He nodded in agreement but wanted to know for how long, one hour or two hours were the options. When we replied “three hours” he quickly made a price of €5. This was obviously illegal but we were undercover, or rather under cover, it was a scorching 33 degrees out there.

I happily handed over the bounty even though I saw this as a form of pizzo (protection money). At least I knew the car would be safe with the Mafia watching over it. The not-very-mean-looking man even took the time to warn Adri to keep her handbag closer than usual while walking around Palermo. I thought this was a bit rich coming from him.

Be as it may, this prompted me to take the money situation in my own hands and pocketed the purse, something I rarely if ever do. We needn’t have worried though, Palermo is perfectly safe, my money was safe; one just has to take care of one’s belongings as you would in any other city.

is a wonderful city where you won’t find much littering amongst the ancient old and quaint buildings. We first walked to the opera house and bought tickets for a show later on in the month, more about that in a future post.

From there we ambled along little streets and market stalls and walked under tall green trees which came as a welcome reprieve from the midday sun. Horse drawn carriages amble along on streets where street performers perform right alongside those same streets.

There are a number of markets that operate in different parts of the city. Some concentrate on selling clothes, others on food and so on. We stumbled upon the fresh produce market and by now we were hungry and tired and sat ourselves down in a little restaurant come bakery. It was only once we had picked our edibles from behind the counter that we realized that there was no coffee served in this house. How was that even possible in Italy? Was it even legal?

We walked back to our car in a roundabout way and past the marina when we came upon a sign… a sign promoting the weekly Saturday Palermo parkrun which takes place right there by the harbour. And that turned out to be a sign for us to put on our tekkies (running shoes) and go for a run… Maybe, just maybe we would indulge in a parkrun before we leave Sicily.

We arrived back at Carrefour for a second round of shopping for the cold stuff we daren’t buy earlier. Our pizza, or rather pizzo guy, was nowhere to be seen, obviously he had made enough money for the day and was probably passed out somewhere in a gutter with an empty bottle of whatever next to him. RIP.

It was Friday morning and there it was again… That same voice, that same high-low tune, if that’s what one could call it… But what was it? Every morning since we’ve arrived I’ve heard that same tune, fading in and reaching a crescendo and then fading out, disappearing amongst the ancient buildings. I have not yet been able to establish the source of this phenomenon.

I feverishly rushed to the balcony – almost breaking a few ribs when cutting a corner on the way – and caught my first glimpse – the first of many over the next month – of our local veggie and fruit seller passing by in his three-wheeled Piaggio Ape.

It was Saturday morning and there it was again… But today there was no need to bust my ribs; Same guy, same tune, same time, seven days a week. You gotta love this guy.

Today could not have been more relaxing even if I tried… and I didn’t. I spent all day in front of the TV watching rugby and World Cup soccer, with a bit of Tour de France mixed in for good measure. And I just loved that mix… brannas (brandy) and Coke, in large measures.

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