Adventures in Sicily

I just returned from two weeks in Sicily with Sweetie. I'll be adding my travelogue over the coming days. Here's the first installment.



June 15

We arrived at Ben Gurion airport for our 0600 departure and whizzed through security (having learned the ropes on our UK trip), encountered a very pleasant El Al ticket agent, and had plenty of time to sit and people-watch in the airport's comfortable duty-free shopping area. I had to shelter our cappucino and orange juice from vigilant Ethiopian cleaning staff about ten times in one hour. They were very keen to keep the tables clean, whether you had actually finished your food and beverage or not. Don't blink!



After a transfer in Rome (where they have a habit of switching gates without actually noting this on the screens or anywhere else), we arrived in Palermo's small airport. I was confident our bags would arrive, but they weren't coming off the belt and I noticed another passenger make an inquiry and then race through another set of doors. It turns out, if you were arriving from an international destination, your bags show up somewhere else. Would have been nice to know this.



Anyway, Sweetie's bag rolled out, so we were expecting mine to follow. It did not. When I saw an Italian-speaking man ask if there were more bags and then race to the "missing bags" counter, I decided we better do the same. We were in line right behind him, and about 5 people were behind me. We filed our claim and then defeatedly headed out to get our rental car.



We briefly debated waiting 1 1/2 hours for the next flight from Rome since "Your bag should be on that flight," but I didn't think it was worth it (later we were very glad we didn't wait, because the bag didn't turn up for 5 days). We then attempted to drive off in our rental car, which was an automatic that worked like a manual. Go figure.



We drove to the town of Cefalu, 1 1/2 hours east of Palermo. We found the place I had booked --- Villa Cerniglia -- but wished we hadn't. Sweetie refused to walk into the "hovel" they presented to us, which overlooked a parking lot and construction site, and so we paid for one night in an "upgraded" room (no A/C, no lock on the door out to a shared balcony) and ventured out to find alternate lodging. (Sweetie later said there were many places he only stayed in one night, but this was the first place he paid for that he didn't stay in at all).



We had passed signs for Club Med on our way into town, so that's where we headed. Oddly though, the signs pointed us down a narrow back road which then turned into a steep, extremely narrow cobblestone road which seemed to head down to the water. Near the bottom, we came across a courting couple sitting on the wall on the side of the road. They looked at us like, "Where did you come from?" Clearly, the road was not intended to be used by cars. When we said, "Club Med," they pointed us back up the hill. So, then Sweetie had to reverse up the steep single-lane cobblestone mini-road (in the automatic that worked like a manual). We got stopped by a crossing train, and Sweetie partially saw a sign with a picture of a bed on it, so then we proceeded down another single-lane mini-road (with a cobblestone wall). It led us to Calanica -- a collection of 26 bungalows set on a hill above the Mediterranean with sweeping ocean views, a pool, a restaurant, and a small beach area.



Our bungalow had a bedroom, kitchen area, and small bathroom, but adequate (and matching) furniture. It had a deck with amazing views of the sea. The clientele was mostly middle-aged Germans, and for the first few days of our stay, I was clearly the odd-one-out being under the age of 50, let alone under 40.



The staff was helpful in tracking down my bag, though they said I'd be lucky to see it in 3 days. UG.