Temple Walks and Other Adventures From the Road

Or How Dolly Led Us Astray!

We've been walking quite a bit since finishing our crossing of Sicily. Around temple sites and climbing to see an amphitheater as well as endless, but enjoyable walking through beautiful towns as we continue to enjoy the beauty that is Sicily. Given that most of our family and friends follow this blog, and as there has been an element of walking, I figured that I could get away with posting here. So I will given I'm the administrator of this blog. 

Since finishing the formal walking part of this travel we have had a few fun experiences. Changing over to a wheeled transport has given us many more options and of course more possible ways to get into trouble. Take the other day when we were touring out from Trapani on he west coast. Our host had suggested a route that we might enjoy which included the opportunity for a walk. We jumped at this and headed off up the coast to this chunk of rock.

We arrived to find a nice trail so of course we had to check it out.

It was a bit muddy walking in our sandals after some heavy thunderstorm activity the day before, but well worth it. 

When we returned to the car park, we found the police waiting for us and I was told that I wasn't allowed to park in the car park? I gather that someone had pulled the metal barriers back to get through, and so naturally we thought it was ok to drive the 100 m to the non-car parking area. Apparently not, and I apologized knowing that with no English between us that I wouldn't be able to explain anyway. He accepted my apology and all was well. 

We then decided to drive across country to see the Greek ruins at Segesta, a hilight for anyone interested in this sort of thing. Those who know us, understand that we rarely use gps, preferring to figure things out with a map whether walking or as in this case, driving. Well we had it available in our car and after nick naming it Dolly, we decided to give it a go, but always keeping our map handy. You'll perhaps remember that the huge, heavy map was a gift before our first day of walking. I'd carried it ever since and now we were using it. We programmed Dolly and set off. It seems that everyone has their own GPS story and now we have our own. Things worked pretty well in the beginning. We were purring along nicely when suddenly directed to head up a hill and through some vineyards. That part was fine and scenic, but we soon turned a corner and the road changed to a walking trail. 

Not really a problem. We've walked miles of these and they are a bit rough, but usually passable. So off we set, but it became heavily potholed with mud grinds where tractors had passed and there were huge puddles of water. This was the only place I could take my hands off the wheel to take a photo. You know I travel with Annemarie and she usually doesn't think to photograph these interesting bits. She was holding on tight!

It soon went from bad to worse, but there wasn't a place to turn around, so we were committed. The mud was flying over the top of the car, and I was very thankful that the small compact we'd asked for was replaced by a midsize car with a high centre. Of course there was no windscreen washing liquid in the car so it was really fun looking at the trail. You'll have to take my word for it that the road was quite a mess for about 12 kms and the going very slow. Dolly was happily churning out fresh orders as we went, to turn this way and that way. I said a couple of choice things to her, but I really couldn't blame her for taking us on the most direct route. We finally found a small hamlet where I got out to make sure everything was still attached. It was, and I also poured some water on the front window and cleaned it as well as possible.

When we got back to town I gave the car a half decent wash as thankfully we had a kitchen in our small apartment with a bucket!

On the way to Segesta we wandered through a really nice village where we stopped at a small store and they made us really nice sandwiches. The best sandwich I've ever eaten! 

We stopped at a park and munched away and then we tried out Dolly again to see if we could find the elusive 

The site was pretty good and required some nice walks, unless you were prepared to pay to take the shuttle busses up and down the hills. We liked the idea of a good walk and the day was beautiful. Here are a few few shots from our wanderings.

Towards Palermo.

Then it was off to wander the salt pans which were pretty cool with really interesting mills.

Eat your hearts out Holland:)

Piles of salt everywhere.

I'll wrap up wth a couple f photos from a different Greek site on the south coast, also pretty good. Selinute.

That's about it for now. We are in the SE part of Sicilia now and the grand national bike race has come to these parts, the Giro D'Italia. We were in one of the towns that will host a stage finish yesterday and we will see what we can arrange. More n that later.