Morning Lido di Ostia 

An early start at 5:00 AM and the sun has just risen . .. laying around bed, sitting out on the terrace updating the blog, listening to the waves crashing on the deserted beach.  This is a lovely, lazy way to begin a beautiful day. At 7:00 AM breakfast begins downstairs in the hotel breakfast room. I am able to get a cappuccino at the bar and select some very nice items to make a wonderful breakfast ... apricot yougurt, cheese with delicious soft bread, fresh pineapple and blood orange juice were the winners this morning. 

After a leisurely breakfast, I trek back up the 4 flights of steps to finish the re-packing and getting ready to catch the Cotral bus back to Rome FCO airport to meet my friend Sue. 

Sue and I have been friends since we were 12 years-old. I feel lucky to have such a good friend like Sue for all these years. We have been planning this holiday for about 10 years now.  So we’ve been looking forward to this holiday for quite a long time already. So excited the adventure is about to begin! 

With my bags re-packed I head down the steps to check-out of this lovely hotel. I so would stay here again, especially on a first night after a long-haul flight (depending on if my trip allowed for the luxury of an extra day). It helped quite a bit with feeling back to normal pretty quickly to have this rest on the sea before heading out on this adventure. 

The bus stop is where I arrived in this town, right in front of the train station. The 10 minute walk is easy with one street up hill. As it’s Sunday morning, I pass a church and see locals going in and out for mass. I meet up with a few friendly faces on the street, most memorable is the man at the water fountain (nasoni) who asked me if I was “finito” and the street sweeper dude who gave me a cheery “buongiorno”. Of course I arrived over 30 minutes early for the bus but I would rather not rush, especially dragging my luggage. At this small train station there are no benches (strategically, I’m sure) so I hang out by the bus stop with my bags watching for the bus to arrive. I’m tracking Sue’s flight from the Rome FCO website and get an alert that she has indeed landed a few minutes early. Seeing as there were zero lines yesterday, it is likely that she will breeze through the passport control, bag pick up and customs. I am hoping the timing is good so she’s not waiting around too long. Thankfully, the bus arrives a few minutes early. The driver kindly confirms it is indeed the correct bus to the airport. Off I go ... 

The bus drives through the town and off past Antica Ostia. I had already forgotten that on this bus ride you can see pretty much all the backside of the archeological site with all the ancient Roman port city ruins. It’s amazing. Too bad the bus windows are so dirty that pictures were pointless. I fondly remember my visit to Antica Ostia in 2015 where I opened my first little bottle of Prosecco by myself (those popping corks scare me a little bit). Then over the river into the town of Fiumicino and then arriving to the airport. The bus passes by the little gas stations were I would fill up the tank before returning a car here at this airport. Then we hit traffic in the round-about. Sue messages me that she has her bag and is heading out through customs. I tell her that I’m almost there !

At the airport, the bus stop is about 1 minute from the terminal where I meet up with Sue. When I walk in the doors, Sue is standing there with her bags by the meeting place #1 .... Ciao !  

Now with my travel buddy for the next 2 weeks, it’s time to walk the 5 minutes over to terminal 3 to chec-in and drop our luggage for our flight to Trapani in Sicily, Italy. It’s a super short, 1 hour-ish flight that leaves at 1:35 PM. We have several hours to take care of getting checked-in & such before we board our little plane. We are flying Alitalia. Some coffee for Sue is the first stop after security. Then poking around the shops and duty-free before heading to our gate. We have to board a bus that takes us across the tarmac to our little plane. We climb the stairs in the brilliant sunshine and find our seats in row 8. Up we go and then just as quick down we come where we are greeted by the sea and some beautiful islands. The approach to the Trapani airport seems to take us skimming along the water and then straight onto the runway. Here we are Sicily !

We get off the plane by stairs and walk the short distance across the oven-like asphalt to the little teeny terminal building. Now worries about which baggage carrousel to look for ... there is only one!  After our bags arrive, we walk out to see our driver with my name on his card waiting for us. He drives us in good ‘ole Italian fashion the 30 minutes to Trapani city centre. Since he is driving a mini-van, he gives us a round-about “tour” of the city as he maneuvers around to a stop he can drop us near our apartment. It’s only a few minutes walking to our street, via Badiella. 

Outside the apartment we meet up with the owner who is waiting for us. Checking in, we receive the keys and complete some paperwork as well as making the payment for the next 4 nights here in Trapani. The place is called A Cucchia. We found the place on booking.com. 

Sue is ready for some rest from her long-haul flight and connection to the little flight to Sicily. After awhile settling in and un-packing, we head out to explore this small city on the sea. The buildings are tall in the center offering loads of shade from the sun. When we head out it doesn’t feel so hot anymore and there is a nice breeze kicking up. We go off to find the tourist information office so we can buy our Welcome Cards that will give us access to buses and the cable car up to Erice on Tuesday. It also gives us a free glass of wine at a local enoteca (wine bar). After the TI, we head out to the department store recommended to us so that we can buy towels for our boat trip tomorrow. I find a nice towel but Sue is on the look-out for a more souvenir-type towel so she is holdng out. We poke into all the touristy-type shops but find no towel but we are hopeful to find something at the meeting point for the boat. There could be some vendors there selling beach things. If not, we have travel towels to use along with the towel I bought here. 

We take a short walk to the Chiesa Anime Sante del Purgatorio where we go in to view the statues used in the Good Friday procession through town. They are stored here on display during the year. They are huge and there are many - one for each station of the cross we gather. We also figure they were made in 1712 and they seem to be paper-mache at least in part. 

After shopping & sightseeing a bit, it’s time to find some dinner. We head to a seafood restaurant I have saved in my google map for Trapani. It’s closed which is fine since I think we are in the area where they are having “drainage problems” that our host at the apartment explained to us.... I am happy to go to a different street as the sulphur odor is not pleasant. We head to a wine bar with small plates/tasting that is also on my google map. This wine bar is called Enoteca Versi di Rosso. We sit outside and enjoy a lovely light dinner. I have a nice glass of white wine with a tasting plate of fresh zucchini with pecorino cheese, caponata (a Sicilian speciality with eggplant and olives), bruschetta with tomatoes (to replace the pork dish) and a anchovy with cherry tomato and a piece of delicious cheese. It all was delicious. Sue opted for the smoked swordfish salad with a lemon tonic, which hit the spot for her in her jet-lagged state. 

Our next task after our nice dinner is to find a grocery (and still poking around looking for a towel). We find the two groceries on the google maps but alas they are both closed. Google tells us there is another market open until 9PM so we backtrack to see what we can find there... it’s a little tiny place but we buy some essentials from the nice man (a package of cornettos, milk, coffee and some blood orange juice. On the way back to our apartment, we head one block over through a narrow passageway to the edge of the sea. 

The sun preparing to set over the sea is a wonderful welcome! It’s so pretty this edge of town. There are little beaches along the edge of the wall here. Walking along the wall, we wander back to our apartment, again cutting through the building to get from street to street. This was a nice way to end our first evening in Trapani. We feel that we are going to be enjoying our time in this sea-side town ! 

Back at the apartment, it’s an early night as we get things around for our boat trip tomorrow morning. Good night Trapani !