Trapani, Sicily, ItalyGood Morning Trapani !
I wake to the sound of crazy birds causing a raucous outside.
My bedroom is on the street side of the building so I am greeted by all the early morning sounds of the city. No worries because I’m up at 5:30 AM regardless ... Sue is resting peacefully in her bedroom at the rear of the building facing the courtyard. She sleeps until I wake her at the arranged 7:00 AM wake-up call.
We have a cute kitchen for our morning coffee. And my morning blog entry.
After getting ready for the day, we are off to meet up with our boat! It’s not a far walk to the boat docks but first we stopped at a bakery to get something for breakfast. I got a little round flat roll with pizza sauce and cheese. Sue got a focaccia-type bread with savory spices. Then we walked down the street to a tour office to buy our bus tickets for our journey to Palermo on Thursday. Now off to the boat docks. After a small bit of confusion and walking back & forth looking for our boat people, we find Giorgio who takes us to the counter to pay our balance. We find a pleasant surprise that the price quoted to us is actually a lower price in this season so we pay 20 euro less than expected.
Good deal!
Our boat is a wooden gulet boat that carries max 30 people on this trip. We will travel across the sea to the islands, stopping along the way for swimming. Our spot on the boat is on the deck laying on pads. We spread out our towels and settle in under the hot, brilliant sunshine. The weather today is 88 degrees with a real feel of 99 degrees according to the weather thing on my phone. Not a cloud in the sky. We apply sunscreen and do re-apply but foreshadowing .... did not do as good of a job at it as we’d thought.
Departing from the port of Trapani we travel out into the open sea. It takes a good hour or so to reach the first island and little bay for swimming. Oh boy, the water is cold! But it feels quite refreshing. There is a little ladder to climb off the boat or some people choose to jump in. At this point there are some rolling waves and a little current so there needs to be a little effort in the swimming bit. The water is a beautiful blue and acqua. Love, love, love the swimming.
Back on the boat, there is a little aperitivo served with snacky snacks and sangria.
Then some cruising around the island before we stop for a second swimming and then lunch will be served. For some reason, I get the urge to jump off the boat and take the plunge. Aside from the salt water up the nose, it was fun. The water over here is even colder but in this heat it feels pretty dang good. I didn’t venture much from the boat this time and get back up the ladder when the boat people toss some bread into the water and all the fishes come up to nibble. I go back down the ladder to get some snaps of the fishes. Pretty cool.
Lunch is served on the deck with a pitcher of white wine to share with our new boat friends, pasta with tuna, some bread with a paste of some sort and a nectarine. Lunch was pretty tasty. The wine was good. After lunch, the boat is back underway towards Favignana island where we have a 2-hour stop to visit the island town and explore. At this point, the waves are kicking up and every so often a big splash comes over the deck to spray us all. The boat is rolling pretty good at times. This would be the theme park ride part of the tour.
It was hard to finish my little cup of wine without it spraying back in my face!
We arrived at the island of Favignana where we disembark and are given instructions to return to the boat by 4:00 PM. We have a couple hours to spend here. In the heat and hot sun, we are thinking of some place in the shade. No bike ride or such for us on this day. We walk a little ways from the port to find the town. It’s cute with shops, restaurants and a pretty church. After a bit of shopping, Sue finds a “towel” to buy. It’s a huge blanket with a turtle design on it. It will be perfect to shade both of us from the sun on the return trip on the boat back to Trapani!
Time for a tasty treat... in the shade! We sit for awhile and enjoy some granita and an Aperol Spritz (me) and some delicious coconut gelato (Sue). Really hit the spot. After we walk leisurely back through the port to the boat, ready to lay on the boat on our journey back to Trapani.
Back at the boat, we find out some bad news. The wind is really kicking up so bad that our boat cannot leave with passengers.
In fact, the boat will wait until night time when the wind is supposed to calm down to even return with the crew. So we are told that the solution is to give us tickets for the ferry. Disappointing but no problem. The bad news is that we have to wait for another 3 1/2 hours until the ferry we can get tickets on departs from this island to Trapani. The ferry however is a 30 min journey b/c it’s fast.
So off we go walking back to town to find some shelter from this sunshine. We wander a bit and settle on what seems to be the only restaurant that is actually open right now. Our friends from the boat are also here. We decide that this will likely be our early dinner for today as we won’t get back to Trapani until after 8:00 PM. At that point, I’m predicting that a shower and sleep will be all that’s needed to finish off this day. So dinner was pretty great. I got an eggplant dish that was delicious. Sue got caponata which is a different eggplant dish (speciality of Trapani area) which she enjoyed. We spent as long as possible in this shaded spot before we needed to return to the boat to collect our ferry tickets from the crew (at 6:00 PM).
We go back to the boat after the walk from the town through the port to the dock. The crew gave us the tickets and said to be back for the 7:35 PM ferry. So back up to the town, we stopped in the gardens of a Villa-turned tourist office to sit in the shade. We found a bench and sat there for awhile. The wind just got stronger and stronger making us actually now chilled in the shade in the wind. We walked to the back of the Villa where we sat on the steps partly in the sun and partly in the shade, but more blocked from the approaching hurricane-style winds.
Having enjoyed the gardens long enough we make our way back to the dock to wait for the ferry. Lots of people watching opportunities going on while waiting. The ferry is pretty big and inside the a/c is kicking on high. I borrow the new blanket which is cozy. We snooze a little on & off during the 30 minute journey back to Trapani.
In Trapani, we disembark the ferry and walk the little bit back to our apartment. Red and very warm under my skin, I’m ready for a shower and looking forward to some rest and sleep.
Despite the delay in our return and missing out on the boat journey back, we really enjoyed our day out on the water and the island.
Good night Sicily !
Cindy
2019-07-01
WOW.... it looks like you guys had so much fun on that boat, and swimming in the sea !!! Good thing you guys didn't bump into any jelly fish !!! LOL Looks like you had gorgeous weather !!