Palermo via Mafia country & NW Sicily - Capo lo Vito..

Mussomeli, medieval town in the hills approaching Mafia country!
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Friday, 26th December So, time to leave San Leone, had been a lovely 2 weeks especially having the internet so accessible which we had used for at least 7 hours and they didn’t charge us! And we didn’t remind them! Took an “inland” road making for Corleone…..which Teresa really wanted to visit, silly eh? After having a quick look at Mussomeli 13 kms each way up and up we arrived in Corleone around 3 ish. The town is “set” in a kind of chasm between walls of rock. The old town is closer to the chasm giving way to newer parts beyond. Walked around and it was pretty cold as its about 1500m above sea level. All the shops were closed so after finding a good parking spot we came upon a “closed” shop where we were looking at the Amaro called “Don Corleone originale” … the owner of the shop saw us let us in and promptly sold up a bottle for 9 Euros which wasn’t cheap but wasn’t expensive either. He tried to sell us a bottle of wine produced for the tourists (where were they?) called “Il Padrone..with a picture of Marlon Brando on the label”….weird! Took some incriminating photos around town and then tried to sleep after we’d realised that a quiet parking spot at 3pm became a noisy one when a club opened nearby! Saturday, 27th December Continued on the “inland” road travelling thru the most spectacular scenery we had seen in Sicily. Green agricultural land surrounded by majestic rock formations, gorges and little farm houses everywhere. Quite lovely. And we did it again. Took the road into town and following the signs for Palermo found ourselves up the back of town completely stuck in a tiny street. Once again I was freaking as we nearly hit a street sign, then the guttering of a house. 2 lots of people came and moved their cars and somehow we got thru with 1mm to spare either side of us! Never bloody again! Approaching Palermo you descend via more of those wonderful Italian roads “perched” on a thousand concrete pillars with the vista of Palermo below – the city spreading between 2 mountain ranges and flanked by the ocean on its northern side. Quite breathtaking. It’s a large city, after all it’s the capitol. Fortunately they have a dual carriageway that kind of skirts the city, very like the Paris periphique. Still being Christmas it wasn’t so bad and led us onto the motorway heading west towards the ocean where we knew a camp site was open at Sferracavallo. Tried the first, hated it and settled for the second which had Germans, Danes and Dutch there. No internet though. Walked around the town which was pretty well hopping with people everywhere – originally a small fishing village now resplendent with loads of restaurants specialising in fish menus, no doubt serving the Palermo population. Monday 29th December Yesterday we just walked around the local town but today we went into Palermo by bus. Busy streets, bus negotiating a street packed with cars as usual. Looked around a few squares including the Theatre at Piazza Politeamo looked like the Royal Albert Hall in London, then onto the Opera House-Teatro Massimo in Piazza Verdi, they say it’s the 4th biggest in Europe. Took a small bus going through old streets looking for the market at Ballaro – quite interesting with lots of food stalls selling meat, cheese, veggies and lots of olives. Up to Palazzio Reale which is known as Normani 12th – 14th century building set above the gardens of Villa Bonanno and saw the Porta Nuova set at the northern end of the city. Visited lots of little shops and stalls selling clothes and then it started to rain. Managed an hour on the internet in between! Grabbed a coffee and wonder of wonders managed to locate PATAFIX, yes PATAFIX, PATAFIX, PATAFIX!!!! This is BLUETAK!!!! Needed to put up our photos around the van and have had a hell of a time locating this product, so was the HIGHLIGHT OF OUR DAY! Tuesday, 30th December Took a walk along the front heading around the bottom of the magnificent rocks in this area. They are about 1500 m high and are a little like the rock in Calpe (Spain)…..the park below is now a protected area and a delight to walk along. When we got back to the camp site this guy called Oudo originally German but now sounds like an Italian, was entertaining the Dutch couple parked next to us. We joined in and gradually everyone sat around drinking far too much! Oudo travels with his dog in an old campervan, quite small with a back door…..has massive sound system inside and entertains as he travels with fire throwing and balloon blowing for the kids. He shouts a lot and knows everything, apart from that he’s a pretty cool guy having lived this way for 20 years. Anyway, it was fun and Mike disappeared quite drunk before 10. I followed and realising we hadn’t eaten devoured the rest of the chicken we hadn’t eaten last night! Wednesday, 31st December New Years’ Eve – whoopee doo! Got up feeling the little worse for wear after last nights impromptu “party”. Didn’t do much all day guess we were waiting for the exciting night to begin. Spent an hour on the internet . The german girls staying here suggested a trip to Palermo in the evening to see a band and grab a bite but it was a bit abortive as the café near the Botanical Gardens closed just as we arrived and the buses stopped early. The explosions of the bangers seemed to be 10 times louder than at Sferracavallo (where the camp site is) so we just came back! At midnight we went down to the shore and it was a real fizzer with everyone “celebrating’ in their houses or the younger folk throwing the bloody bangers from their verandahs landing at our feet, really wonderful. Got back to the site at 12.30pm where it was bathed in buckets of smoke from the fireworks. The bangers etc have been going off for nearly 2 weeks, why on earth they sell them so early is no-one’s guess!

Is this where they found the Don?
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Friday, 2nd January Set off early to try to do all the things in Palermo we didn’t get round to the first time. Took the bus firstly to Mondello a “posh” resort near Palermo. Pretty place, clean for once with sandy beaches giving way to high rocky mountains as a backdrop. Walked around, had our first Italian icecream and tried to call Alex again – six times! Gave up! Took another bus into Palermo and another to the Botanic Gardens where they charged 4 Euros each entry which thoroughly pissed us off! Quite interesting, lots of examples of succulents from all over the world incl Aus of course and the biggest fig tree we’ve ever seen. It was planted mid 1800’s originally from Lord Howe Island (Aus). The garden itself needed a lot of upkeep and as is the way in Sicily good intentions over the years have given way to enormous neglect, so sad. After that walked along the front – set out a little like Perth which deep grassy areas alongside the ocean – thought it would be a good spot for the Red Bull aerial race! Walked back thru the market then onto the English Gardens which were very pretty – shopped and back to the camp site. Reckon we’ve had enough of Palmermo will move on soon. Sunday, 4th January Yesterday was dark and rainy. Visited the internet for an hour and made decision, we’d move on today. Bought a shiny brown gas bottle, something we’d been discussing for months! (Rather Mike had been measuring, thinking, remeasuring, thinking, thinking, measuring, thinking about it). Left moderately early from Sferrocavallo with only the Dutch couple left….and made our way to Castellamare. This was technically going “backwards” something Mike hates but everyone had raved about this western most point of Sicily. Arrived quite quickly via the motorway and had a look around. A lovely little clean fishing town perched on the side on the hills leading into the ocean. The main square was thronged with palm trees and the whole town was paved neatly in various cobbled ways. We then intended to set off for the top western corner not so far away but as we were leaving town – CATASTROPHE! As we were going uphill the accelerator cable snapped and the pedal collapsed giving us nil power! FORTUNATELY we were able to roll back into a parking spot and after telling the Polizia Municipale where we were we walked around town trying to look for a mechanic. You know, its hard to find stuff when shops are shut (being Sunday) because EVERY business draws down its shutters and quite often that means shutting off any signage denoting the type of business they operate. For instance it could be a garage mechanics shop or a bloody panificio! (bakers!). Anyway, after chatting to a guy in the street he drew out his wallet full of business cards, located one and rang some guy who came poste haste to our rescue. Naturally it was Sunday so we settled on a 9 am start to solving the problem tomorrow and returned to spend the night alongside the traffic on the main road heading out of town – on a hill – with all of them accelerating! Joy! Monday, 5th January Wonders of wonders, a mechanic showed up at the prearranged time of 9 am and pulled out the offending cable and wound up the acceleration to allow us to “freewheel” down to the garage. Off they set to locate a replacement cable and by 2 pm we got kind of fidgety wondering what the hell was going on. The mechanic was trying to modify a cable for us without having to go to a Fiat supplier miles away to locate the correct article! By 3.30 pm we were on our way after the poor mechanic had replaced the cable engine side in a few minutes but pedal side in about 45 mins! The owner was apologetic that they had used a replacement cable and not the Fiat part and charged us 50 Euros, we left an extra 20 for the mechanic as he had worked so hard for us! We made it to Capo Lo Vito and found a Sosta for 12 Euros a night, hot water and a horse stabled next to the ladies showers, what more could we want? Walked 2 kms to town and being a bit chilly had a glass of Amaro! Great day! Tuesday, 6th January Another public holiday! Epiphany! They’re as bad as the Aussies with all their days off! Day dawned quite sunny so we set off with the van to the start of the Zingara National Park track which was a scarily winding road 12 kms away. Without doubt, we could say today turned out to be one of the best we’ve had in Sicily. The park was absolutely spectacular – it stretched along 10 kms of pristine coastline with craggy inlets and high bluffs. The water was crystal clear, azure and gave way to bay after bay. Paths zig zagged their way at various levels along the coastline. Took 86 photos and culled them back to 50! Had lunch on a beach….and felt safe leaving our trusty home at the southern end of the walk as it was an official entrance with a serious old lady taking the 3 Euros entrance fees! It was a wonderful day and we returned to the Sosta campsite to spend the night.