Sicily (Trapani), Italy - ERICE and SEGESTA - April 11

The private tour I had set up for today was with Rome In Limo. It was with a driver but no lecture guide. http://www.romeinlimo.com/trapani/erice-segesta.htm 

Today we were joined by Janie & Rick, Karen & Steve and Julie & Jeff. What a great group today for another fun and relaxing day.

 sail in

 hydrofoil

 hydrofoil 

 salt pans

We made our way out of the port and found our driver Carmelo. He was informative when we were in the van, but we were on our own at the sites. Honestly, after so many port days with way too much info to cram into our heads, this was a welcome change. It also enabled us to split up and go at our own pace at each site and then meet up at a certain time.

We started by driving through the beautiful countryside of hillside farms and wildflowers to the Temple of Segesta located at the top Mt. Barbaro. It is the first Greek Temple built in Doric style, which has 36 columns, still intact despite the several earthquakes. A Princess bus just arrived and the driver told us we should see the theater first on the next bus up to avoid the crowds.

 at the port

 views from the van

So, we waited a few minutes to get on the bus that took us to the top for the walkway lined with wildflowers that took us to the amphitheater which dates back to the 3^rd century B.C. There were great views of the Greek Temple and the surrounding countryside and mountains. We rushed a bit here to stay ahead of the Princess group. We arrived down just as the bus that comes every half hour to take us back down to the bottom.

 walking to the amphitheater

 views of Segesta

 the amphitheater

 Jeff, Steve, Karen

 Karen, Julie, Jeff

Then, we did the walk up to the Greek Temple. We spent a bit of time here as we walked around the Temple and took in the views before walking back down.

 dog at the start of the trail up to Segesta

 Annette

From here we drove to the medieval town of Erice, still surrounded by its ancient walls. The drive up was breathtaking. It overlooked the ocean and the views were amazing. 

 drive to Erice

 overlook

 at the overlook

Annette

After the driver pointed us in the right direction and told us what there was to visit, we all decided to split up and meet back by 2:30. That gave us time for lunch and site seeing.

We got tickets to the main Gothic Cathedral built in the 1300 and the bell tower. Greg and I stopped in a little place for a panini and a Arancine, a rice ball stuffed with ham & cheese and fried. Very good! As I got up to take a photo of the restaurant, I saw Jeff & Julie also enjoying their lunch there.

 up to the bell tower

 views from the top

 Greg

back down from the bell tower

 Greg

 restaurant - Julie & Jeff by the sign

 Arancine

 panini

Our next stop was at the Castle of Venus with spectacular views of the town and the countryside. (and we are pretty sure we could see the coast of Tunisia) Then, we wandered our way around the charming town of Erice. We stopped and got a couple of mini cannoli and a couple of date filled pastries.

Greg

 post office 

 Annette

Julie & Jeff

 well

We walked some more, and decided we wanted another cannoli since they were so good. (tastes nothing like any we have ever tried in the states.) We couldn’t find another shop that had the mini ones so we split one large one.

 Cannoli stop

It was time to head back to our meeting point. I think everyone enjoyed the day very much with the more laid back pace of the day. On the drive down we saw the cable cars transporting people from the top to the bottom of Erice.

Carmelo then took us to a lookout to see the Salt Pans before stopping at the Salt Museum where we could see the process of salt making. It wasn’t the time of year to be collecting the salt, but we got to see the pools of water and the process involved. There are windmills (like in Amsterdam) that power the operation. Very interesting and pretty stop.

 Carmello

 the ship from the Salt Pans

 selling flavored salts

Our driver then took us around the oldest part of Trapani and showed us where the most popular streets were. Here the tour was done and he would take those that didn’t wish to walk about the town back to the port and the rest of us could stay in the town and walk back as it was very close to the ship.

 the ship from town

We wandered a bit and found some gelato. We also came across the Holy Week parade through town. It looked to be a nice town to explore as well.

Finally, we wandered back to the ship and went down to dinner. We were the only ones at our table for 8 that showed up. Too funny!

The show tonight was Becky O’Brien. She basically does a tribute to Judy Garland and she was entertaining. She came direct from a National UK Tour of Talents of Britain. 

We dragged our tired selves back to the cabin to catch up on uploading of photos and excited for our two sea days before Ceuta, Spain. This post has gotten me caught up with the text portion of the blog. I have tons of photos to get organized to upload to my Web Albums. I won’t have any time to add them to the blog until we get home, but I do hope to get all the online albums done.