We woke to the smell of pastries warming in the breakfast lounge below our room. With a courtyard outside, wide hallways and numerous gathering places, this is a wonderful facility, especially for group stays. Despite the somewhat institutional feel of the 1960s architecture, we would readily return to this lovely place.

Today our only plan was to travel the 110 km to Agrigento . We decided to skip the weekday traffic in Trapani and Marsala, and take a break from touring ruins (the sprawling ruins at Salenunti were not far from our route today). Instead we chose a leisurely drive along the rural coastal road (SP 115). As we picked our way south from Trapani we ran across a small building with a sign - Caseificio Ingardia. Something in the name and the people bustling in and out of the place told us to turn around. Sure enough, it was a cheese factory outlet store.

As with seemingly everything in Sicily, the process for buying cheese at this store was chaotic and noisey. We guessed that we needed to get a numbered ticket from the dispenser, but there seemed to be no way to know when your number was next up. There was no "line" or a display indicating which number was next, nor was anyone calling out numbers. So we peeked at the tickets in other people's hands until we located the pleasant older gentleman whose number was just before ours . By the time our turn came the crowd thinned considerably and things were much less chaotic. We resisted the urge to buy a piece of everything and, with help from Marie - who seemed to be in charge, we settled on a three nice pieces of local cheese. On our way out of town we stopped at a supermarket for some bread. We also found an inexpensive bottle of Nero d'Avola, as well as some Grillo (a white wine we also read about in the NY Times). Fully stocked, we headed back along SP 115 toward Agrigento.

The countryside along the southwestern coast is different than the dry mountains of the northern coast. With broad green plains and rolling hills, this area produces most of Sicily's wines and olive oils. The olive groves and vineyards are so numerous that there are dark patches along the back roads. These are stains from grapes and olives that fall off the farm wagons as they jostled around the hairpin curves and are then flattened by passing traffic .

The sky is hazy and a bit overcast, so the light was not great for photographing our first views of the Mediterranean Sea. Traffic got heavier as we approached the Porto Empedocle and the Agrigento area. It was late afternoon, so we decided get a jump on tomorrow's activities by stopping at the Agrigento tourism office and picking up information on the Valley of the Temples. Aided by the caste metal street map that we seem to find in each city we've visited, we mapped the route to the tourism office. Perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised when we got to the tourism office and found they had absolutely no information on the nearby ruins. All they were able to offer us was a map of downtown Agrigento. So much for getting a head start on information that we wanted for tomorrow's planned visit to the Valley of the Temples.

With the afternoon drawing to a close we decided to make our way to the B&B we had booked for the next two nights. By now we've learned our lesson and are leaving plenty of time to find our lodging. It is a good thing we did, since the tourism office had no map of the town where we were staying, Villaggio Mose, and its streets are not vey well marked. Fortunately for us, there is just one main boulevard. After a few trips back and forth we were able to narrow our choices down to one or two side streets. From there we drove up and down the side streets until we found the house where we were staying.

Carlo greeted us, showed us where to park and led us to our room. The B&B is spectacular, with a lovely room and a kitchen for the guests. Carlo and his family lived upstairs, so he told us to just knock on his door if we had any questions. The only drawback to this little gem is that the wi-fi signal is quite weak, so we cannot upload pictures to our blog.