The autostrada from our home to Genoa can be summed up like this: tunnel, bridge, tunnel, bridge, tunnel, bridge, .... It’s an intimidating 2-hour ride for me on my motorcycle. In addition to the discontinuity of the alternating tunnels and bridges, there is often heavy traffic around Genoa, or worse yet, there can be extremely high winds that funnel up off the Mediterranean into the narrow valleys spanned by the bridges. I had to exit this stretch of road one time because it was so windy that I was being blown all over the bridges. Nothing that anyone told me about Sicily (bad crime, dangerous drivers, floods of immigrants from northern Africa) had me as worried as this short stretch of highway from our house to the ferry. I fretted for days about whether I would be able to handle the bike if the winds were strong. But when we left Friday evening there was no wind and we had a calm, quiet ride in the twilight of a clear April evening. Two hours after leaving our home, we, along with our motorcycles Cleopatra and Caesar, were at the ferry terminal waiting to board for our week-long Sicilian vacation.
It’s a 20-hour ferry ride from Genoa to Palermo. Italian ferries are generally big and comfortable, making the long Mediterranean passage easier. Not much to do but relax and plan our trip, which we’d done very little of. Armed with maps and guidebooks, we drank our espressos and decided we would focus on the ancient Greek and Carthaginian ruins that are in the western half of the island: Segesta, Selinunte, and Agrigento. We also wanted to throw in a little Norman splendor at the Monreale Cathedral (the Norman’s controlled Sicily for most of the 12th Century), sample marzipan sweets in the medieval hilltown of Erice, tour the Phoenician ruins at Mozia (8th to 4th C. BC), spend a day poking around Syracuse, and climb Mt. Etna.
First we had to deal with Palermo. We were both nervous about our late-night arrival and navigating this notorious city with our loaded bikes. Many had cautioned us to watch out for crazy driving and nefarious types, but our biggest problem was finding our hotel. Jim was incredibly frustrated with his GPS, which sent us in circles around the city, a city bustling with Saturday night traffic and pedestrians. I struggled to keep up with Jim as he weaved his way through the city’s maze of one-way streets and alleys. At first, I was hesitant about the traffic, but as I cut off another car in order to keep up with Jim, I realized that what felt like chaotic, aggressive driving was really not that threatening. All bark, but no bite. I decided to employ the highly effective Italian driving strategy: If I don’t look at you, then you don’t exist.
After a lot of swearing from Jim who had the burden of navigating and a lot of unhelpful comments from me, like “Haven’t we been here before?”, we finally found our hotel. Jim went to check in and find out where we could safely park the bikes only to learn that a water pipe had broken, making our room uninhabitable. Not to worry though, because they’d booked us in another room...across town! Fortunately, we had better luck finding the
Hotel Plaza Opera, and approximately two hours after our arrival in Palermo and precisely 1 km from the ferry terminal, we were checked into our room.
All of our frustration dissipated when we sat down for dinner at
Capricci di Sicilia. We then realized that the traffic wasn’t as crazy as everyone had warned, the food was as good as we had heard, and the people were gregarious and welcoming. And in the seven days we spent riding around the island, nothing changed our minds about Sicily. The longer we stayed there,
the more we liked it. In addition to good food and friendly people, the archaeological sites are impressive, the terrain is beautiful, and the riding is
fantastico! Downsides to the trip? A lot of unusually cool, wet weather and a sandstorm out of Africa on our last day of riding; no climb of Etna, whose upper reaches were off limits because of volcanic activity; not enough time to visit all of the places we had hoped to visit. We’d be happy to return.
And as for the trip home: tunnel, bridge, tunnel, bridge, tunnel, bridge...
A slideshow of our trip:
