I reorganised my gear this morning to try to get some weight out of the top box and into the panniers, and leave room for my shoes in the top box as well as the bag containing my clothes. The idea was to be able to open just the top box, grab the bag and shoes and leave everything else on the bike in the panniers undisturbed when I leave the bike for a BnB. It didn’t quite work, my size 11.5 shoes are just too big.
Breakfast at Vivaldi’s was a little disappointing; salami, but no prosciutto, no fresh bread rolls, just sliced bread, cellophane wrapped croissants. Everything else about the BnB was great, including its location right on Via Maqueda, 50 metres from the Theatre.
Next, I had to retrieve the bike from the secure parking and get it near Vivaldi’s to load it up. I negotiated the maze of one-way streets and cul-de-sacs around the theatre and parked it on a side street about 20 metres away. Zumo was useless here, as he didn’t know Via Maqueda was pedestrians only for this festival. He has a strong liking for sending me up one-way streets the wrong way too. I got a ticket from the machine, attached it to the bike, and pointed it out to the guys ticketing parked cars across the street. I didn’t want another parking fine. I changed the blown globe.
My target for today was Agrigento. It was not too far to ride around the coast in a day, but I thought it might be more interesting to cross the mountainous interior of Sicily.
After a long tortuous ride through the Palermo suburbs to get to the freeway towards Messina, I missed the exit to Agrigento because Zumo wanted to keep going on the freeway. To recover, Zumo wanted to go around through the port with more congested traffic. Bugger that. I did a U-turn and got back onto the freeway, albeit in the wrong direction. When I saw an overhead bridge with an exit on my side and on-ramp on the other, I could reverse my direction and try again. This time Zumo agreed and we exited on route SS121 for Agrigento. The country is hilly, very poor and arid. Rocky soil, good only for grape vines and grazing. Very winding roads, but slips had produced many ridges in the ashphalt running diagonally across the road; quite hazardous for bikes. About 10km short of Corleone, a tiny village 1km off the main road intrigued me. I went there. It had a nice big lawn (half a hectare) in front of the town hall, a couple of bars, people picknicking, kids running around, entirely pleasant. Ficuzzi.
Not in Google Maps, or Here. I resorted to my backup paper map book to find it. I spent a pleasant half hour with a Coke. It’s much easier to buy beer anywhere, but I’m on the bike today. In Corleone, I found this piazza, the only nice place in the town, and had calzone at the cafe.
They actually have a public toilet, but you need to know about it to be able to find it, and its a horror inside.
After about an hour the Polish rally cars turned up.
I saw a conga line of bus passengers being led to, probably, Vito Andolini’s birthplace. The 100km run to Agrigento was on main roads, mainly at a 90k speed limit. The BnB in Agrigento was so pleasant, on the high side of the main street with a terrace overlooking the ocean, and secure parking nearby, that I immediately requested a second night. By then, I knew I needed a whole day for the archealogical ruins anyway. I had hedged my bet by finding a place with a vacancy for both nights, and booking only one night in case I wanted to move on. There was a good chance I could change my mind and stay an extra night, and so it turned out.
The Saturday night crowd is building now, and my second Moretti is finished, time to eat. After a nice 2 course meal that cost a bit more than I wanted to spend, back in my room, I was drowsy and thought I’d just have an hour’s nap before resuming my struggle with Tumblr. I had the TV on, I like a bit of background noise, even if it’s in Italian. After an hour, I was woken by thumping on my door. It was a youngish lady in night attire, who made it very clear she wanted me to turn down the volume on the TV. Sure, no problem. Hmmm, it wasn’t that loud, it hadn’t kept me awake.