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Published: September 27th 2022
ENNA
On our arrival, that dreaded hill so high up and 5klmsTrain trip from Catania to Enna was only about an hour and half but the Enna Train Station is about 5klms from the town, uphill and very steep! The buses do not co-ordinate with trains and it was over an hour wait for bus, so after a couple of calls eventually got a taxi for 15 euro up to the town, there is no way you could walk it! We are staying at the cutest B&B called Domus Enna and the owners Giuseppe and Patrizia are just lovely and full of life, its right in the main road Via Roma, so very central. They just have 4 rooms here and the breakfast they put on is fantastic! We were not expecting much of a spread and there were so many choices. Enna is spot on the centre of Sicily and the tallest capital in Sicily, on the highest point is Lombardia Castle. It is just so scenic looking from atop over the countryside down into the Dittaino Valley and overlooking nearby villages. The area is a big grain growing area as well as fruit and vegetables. It is off the beaten track and there does not seem to be loads of
ENNA
Statue at Lombardia Castle tourists around town, though the railway is on the line between Catania and Palmero, so I am surprised there are not more tourists. Our first night we went to a very local restaurant for dinner which I had booked in advance as reviews said within 20 minutes of opening they are full, we were first there at 8pm and sure enough it was full within minutes, but we had to laugh our table reservation said Turistx2! Didn't speak English but we managed and they were super friendly and made us feel very welcome, we had an amazing caponata and a pasta each... very delicious! We have walked and walked around this beautiful little town up hills and down....it is really worth the visit. John has been getting the hang of the drone and has taken some great shots around here. There are many, many churches in town, you wonder how they all get a congregation! The cemetery is something else, hundreds and hundreds of burial sites but all like little houses with tiled roofs and some even have downpipes!! Monday we caught a train to Agrigento with one change, all went smoothly, we are waiting for something to go pear
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Lombardia Castle shaped as they are so known for cancelling trains at last minute and leaving people stranded. Our B&B was only about 600metres from the station thankfully on fairly flat ground, a lovely modern interior in a very old building. Agrigento is a hilltop city on Sicily's southwest shore and known for the ruins of the Temples, a huge site, 5klm walk through it, with well preserved Greek Temples....we were totally amazed by this park, loved it so much, John got some good footage with his drone until we were told in no uncertain terms, NO DRONES, with this guy making phone calls etc etc, nowhere did it say no drones and we also went through security checking everything in our bags...nothing said, anyway we finally got away from this guy and went on our merry way!! Pheewww! To the west of Agrigento lies Scala dei Turchi (Turkish steps) a stepped white cliff overlooking sandy beaches, which we thought was quite spectacular, you were able to walk on it until earlier this year when some world body said they were not doing enough to preserve it! Anyway down many, many steps to the beach we were able to walk along the
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Philisopher Giuseppe Mazzini beach and get a good look at this. The furtherest point we could get with the bus was about 3klms short of the site, so we walked it and it wasn't too bad, as I said nothing is co-ordinated here! After a big thunderstorm on the Tuesday night we awoke to a lovely fresh morning and made our way to the station for a 7.15a.m. train to Trapani in western Sicily with a crescent shaped coastline, we had two changes and had to go into Palermo and then right down to the south again and up to the north western part of Sicily, crazy! We arrived in Trapani about 2.15pm which was quite good, on another Flintstone train, made it in one piece thats the main thing. Our B&B here is in one the main boulevards of the old town, very central, a studio apartment but not much in it! Our first night we went to a beautiful restaurant Osteria la Dolce Vita which I had seen in a recent article in The Gourmet Traveller that Annissa Helou had written a piece about Trapani, prices were really good, and as Annissa had said in her article Trapani is a provincial
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Lit up church town and people don't do super fancy and expensive restaurants, fresh fish and steak, amazing all displayed in a glass fridge so you could pick your fresh fish and a litre of their vino de casa rosso, really good and it was 6 Euro! Saturday we decided to take a ferry out to the Egadi Islands which lie off the coast of Trapani, they are all like big lumps of rock, but it was so nice to get away from it all and walk and sit and relax for the day we thoroughly enjoyed it, the waters were so torquoise and blue and as clear as! We are really taken with Trapani, it has an air of elegance about it and a really clean city, the rubbish and crap everywhere in a lot of the other cities in Sicily is unbelievable and you just see kids take a paper off their sweet and through it in the air to land wherever!!! Plastic bottles everywhere! Trapani is a breath of fresh air in that regard. Well it has happened!!!!....we left our accommodation at the 10am check out time after a huge storm over Trapani the night before, our floors were flooded
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Walking to find our restaurant in our apartment and the owners could not give a continental! Off we went to the station, all trains and buses cancelled in and out of Trapani! Schools closed, roads closed! Mmmmm what do we do now, in steps John, into his work it out mode, after ringing a taxi driver whom we had spoken to the day before, he was able to help us. What a little gem Nino was, we were able to get him to take us to Palermo with another American guy who was also wanting to get to Palermo! 100klms in a taxi.....arggghhh.... anyway he charged a reasonable price seeing he had to come back empty, Nino had a decent 9 seater taxi van thing so it was higher than cars or normal taxis and that got us through the flood waters and once out of Trapani there was no issue, we shared the fare between the three of us! Along the way Nina said is it OK we stop for coffee, cannoli and smoke, yep OK whatever Nino and off we went to this lovely little village and had the best connoli and a great coffee. We arrived in Palermo before the train would
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One of the neighbouring villages across the valley have arrived anyway and into our B&B early and it is a gem, quite newly renovated and spotlessly clean, in the old town within easy walking distance to so many sites. Palermo looks so lovely! See how we go here.
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Ernie & Roni
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Love Sicily & the villages look amazing. Not touristy at all. You have seen & done so much. A dream trip.