This had been a night cruise along the
coast of Sicily with lights along the shoreline. At sunrise we
entered the harbor, turned 90 degrees and backed up alongside a pier,
a port side to the inner harbor. This gave us a view of a concrete grain
elevator, floating dry-docks, a couple of large ferries, an MSC ship
undergoing some maintenance, rowing shells and a small tanker. Oh
yes, there is s cliff sided mountain just beyond the maze of
apartment building's, topped with radio towers and what looks like a
monastery with windows, or a remote hotel.
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| a ferry at a pier |
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| view of the city |
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The event of the day for us was began
with an hour long bus ride through the city then along the coast.
This gave us a view of apartments, dark narrow streets, souvenir
shops and later more apartment buildings, trash, junk yards, auto
repair shops, landscaping lots and so on. The Sicilian clothes drier,
same as the mainland Italian clothes drier, is a railing of an
apartment. That at least adds color to drab buildings. In fact this
is a technique used throughout the world; exception being the USA.
It didn't help that our guide was soft spoken and those in the back
of the bus couldn't hear the monologue.
After the dash down the freeway we
came to the sea-side town of Cefalu, which seemed to be pronounced
“cheff-a-lew.” Accent on the “cheff”. Outa the bussa. A
death-defying walk down a narrow sidewalk/street shared with
scooters, small trucks and cars. Off one side, for the first few
meters, was a cliff and a beautiful view of the rocks below and the
sea. With cameras going full speed, sounding like a school of
castanet players, the group made it to the central square. Beautiful,
it was. A tour of the cathedral was provided, though I cannot relate
anything of it. Visit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cefalu_Cathedral We then walked down a narrow street and stopped in to
visit the old community laundry which is a subterranean trough with
mountain water flowing through it.
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| Cefalu |
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| the square |
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| entering Cefalu |
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| Cefalu Cathedral |
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| the square |
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| street scene |
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At that point we peeled off from the
group and headed up another street and pounced upon a fruit and
vegetable vendor with a 3 wheel truck. From him we bought a bag of
Valencia oranges to take back to the ship for our friends in the
crew. Up more streets until we came to the square and there bought
pizza and pastries to eat at one of the many tables in the square.
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| old public laundry |
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| fruit |
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| lunch in the square |
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Back to the bus and by noon were
retracing our ride back to the city.
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| back in the city |
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| city scene |
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Aboard by 1315. This is a
walk-off pier and outside the gate are taxis, horse drawn carriages
and vendors waiting. What we could see leaving the pier were the
usual city pizzerias, souvenir shops, cheap electronics stores, tee
shirt shops and the like. Nothing to entice us to return to town. I
look forward to hearing others' adventures in hope of finding
something in the area of interest for any future stop here.
Noon report: 38º
07.65'N, 013º
22.00'E. Sunrise 0658. Sunset 1649. N-N run (last nights run) 156 nm.
Total nautical miles we have covered since leaving Ft. Lauderdale is
6,302.
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