A GIFT AND A LONG RIDE
Italys Holiday weather has been awful! Yesterday it was supposed to be a really bad weather day. So we were not prepared for the gorgeous day that arrived and looked to be the norm as we scanned the sky for clouds or rain. We agreed to go for it and gave up plans to do anything, deciding instead to take a ride to wherever we felt like going while the sun shined. This day of sunshine is like a holiday gift to us. My haircut can wait as it has all week long for one reason or another!
We started off close to home. We stopped at a few stores and then headed out on a road we did not normally take for anything just to see where it would go. We drove past the agriturismo that we stayed at when we visited Sciacca the second time and after a scary dead end, ended up on the upper Carboy Valley. We saw some gorgeous views of our familiar bridges from another perspective, and some impressive farmland. Shepards with their flocks of sheep were everywhere and the roads were littered with sheep turds.
We then headed inland with a vague wish to end up at San Cipirello for lunch at Apud Jatum, a favorite Sicilian restaurant. We drove on the strada veloce, the big road that connects Sciacca to the suburbs of Palermo. After a way-too-plentiful-lunch, we got off for a bit to chase some windmills. We saw gorgeous mountains and valleys, farmlands, towns tucked around mountaintops, and windmills everywhere. We even saw another fata morgana, a mirage of the island of Pantelleria in the distance off the road from Castlevertrano. We found our way around an ever-widening circle of places we have been to and explored roads that we had never taken before. It was a wonderful day, only enhanced by a giggling late shopping trip to Castlevertrano on our way home in which we bought NOTHING! But we did manage to look like two stupid Americans who didnt know their way around. Our secret was that even though we smelled better than a good 3/4 of the people in the stores, we have probably been on roads that day that 2/3 of the people there dont even know about.
We started off close to home. We stopped at a few stores and then headed out on a road we did not normally take for anything just to see where it would go. We drove past the agriturismo that we stayed at when we visited Sciacca the second time and after a scary dead end, ended up on the upper Carboy Valley. We saw some gorgeous views of our familiar bridges from another perspective, and some impressive farmland. Shepards with their flocks of sheep were everywhere and the roads were littered with sheep turds.
We then headed inland with a vague wish to end up at San Cipirello for lunch at Apud Jatum, a favorite Sicilian restaurant. We drove on the strada veloce, the big road that connects Sciacca to the suburbs of Palermo. After a way-too-plentiful-lunch, we got off for a bit to chase some windmills. We saw gorgeous mountains and valleys, farmlands, towns tucked around mountaintops, and windmills everywhere. We even saw another fata morgana, a mirage of the island of Pantelleria in the distance off the road from Castlevertrano. We found our way around an ever-widening circle of places we have been to and explored roads that we had never taken before. It was a wonderful day, only enhanced by a giggling late shopping trip to Castlevertrano on our way home in which we bought NOTHING! But we did manage to look like two stupid Americans who didnt know their way around. Our secret was that even though we smelled better than a good 3/4 of the people in the stores, we have probably been on roads that day that 2/3 of the people there dont even know about.
posted by Sicilian Mama at 9:23 AM
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