Traveling with Ellen

  Today we visited Erice and Trapani..  Pronounced (Er’ e cha).  We head to the westerly most area of Sicily.   We’re told Erice is a medieval walled city and when we travel to Trapani we’ll visit the salt pans.  I’m thinking it will be very similar to Salt Lake City, time will tell. Breakfast was, again at 7 am and we boarded our bus at 8:30 am for the 1 1/2 drive.   I have to stop and reflect on our hotel and the neighborhood we are staying in, here in Palermo.  We’re in the historic downtown area and the closest I can come to compare it with a city in the US would be Bourbon Street in New Orleans during Mardi Gras.  Vibrant, loud, people singing on corners for change.  Within a block of our hotel, and visible from our balcony two men were singing opera last night, of course in Italian.    We went out for a light supper and ate outside last night.  All the restaurants have tables in the street and people, multitudes of people...

  Octopus, a favorite to catch and eat in Sicily   That’s the real thing! It’s a typical busy day when you go on a tour like this.  We were at breakfast at 7 am and in the lobby at 8:30 departing for our walking tour.   Much of where we walked was a repeat of yesterday but today we received the story and history behind it.  I guess I should start by saying this part of the world, Sicily, in the middle of the Mediterranean, and close to North Africa was the desire of many nations to be won and controlled through conquest. This dates back to and includes the Normans, the Arabs, as well as the French and other nations. Our first stop was the Pretoria fountain built in 1554 and placed in a Florentine garden. It was moved to Sicily in 1581. It popularly known as  the fountain of shame  due to the extremely high price paid to purchase it. Just around the corner is Piazza Bellini.  There are three churches in the square, all catholic.  Two of them d...