Cefalu

Just a note... as internet cafe's are much more expensive here we are trying to keep the time down, therefore, whilst it may seem like I am doing all the blogging.. Mark is just about always with me. Same for this occasion, as I type much faster he is basically dictating and I am typing.. (hey didnt I go on holidays to get away from work!!!)

I didn't want to leave Taormina as it was as wonderful as Dominique said it would be. We had the cliff hugging bus trip down the mountain before we set off to Messina to catch a train to Cefalu.

The bus took coast road and an interesting point to note was the gum trees and red bottle brush trees that lined many parts of the countryside. I thought they were Aussie only plants.

Luckily for us the bus terminal is also the train terminal. Unfortunately we didnt get time to check out the 11th century clock that Frank had told us "not to miss" as we only had a 40 min change over to meet an arrival time commitment in Cefalu.

We were staying at a B&B in Cefalu. It was an easy stroll from the train station and once we arrived at the address given we stood there looking at it saying... well this cant be it, there is no sign and it was a very old beaten up door. The address was in a street of shops and we could see poeople lived in the apartments above as there was washing hanging off many of the wrought iron balconies. This is a pic of the street Dominique took one day as Sue and I left the building to give you an idea of the street. Also the windows on the floor above were very dusty so the building looked like no one lived there and no business was going on. Then as Dominique was about to call the contact we had, a young lady walked up to Dominique and asked, .. are you waiting for someone. We then realised we were at the right place and wondered what we had got ourselves into. As we walked through the door into a construction site, Diana our host told us not to be scared its lovely upstairs.



2 flights of narrow marble steps later, we arrived at the 2nd floor which is where our room was, this floor also had other rooms, kitchen and communal breakfast room. Up another floor via a set of very tight spiral stairs was Sue's room. Her room was the only one on this floor and had fabulous views over the main city piazza and down the street to the sea (She came to call it the penthouse) Then above Sue's room was the communal terrace. This picture has Sue in one of her bedroom windows and Dominique above on the rooftop terrace. If you look closely, you will see in one of Sue's other windows, it was laundry day!!!



The terrace had spectacular views over the whole piazza area, the massive bascilica and the huge rock bluff that towers and overhang the old town. We also had sweeping views of the sea and all the coast to Palermo. In total we guessed we had about 300 degree views. Bloody fantastic... we came to use this terrace alot for dinner and lunch. Often people in the piazza below in either the cafes or just walking along would wave up at us. We felt very special indeed and and cheered them back with our wine glasses. We also toasted Dominique for finding such a beautiful spot for us to stay.

Diana who was our host was a Romanian girl who had lived in Italy only 9 mths. She was very interesting and had alot of responsibility with looking after the apartments and guests. She also made our breakfast and on our 2nd morning we asked for eggs. She said she had none but was happy to run down to the street to buy some. She also was unsure how to cook them so after we explained how to make fried eggs she said she knew what to do and did not need us to actually show her. When she brought them out she said she hoped they were ok as to her they did not have a good 'aspect'. They tasted great to us after we got over the aspect (they were running with melted butter and when she had turned them many of the yolks had broken) salt and pepper would have helped alas... we only had salt. She vowed to buy these items for future guests.



We decided to stroll and take it easy and just wander around a few of the side streets and take in the sights. We started walking up a path between houses all the while looking up with an enormous crater in the rock face below a rock overhang that just looked like one the cracks in it could give way any time... and fall on the houses below. The path kept going up and up and before we knew it we were on the path which climbed the mountain above the city. Wehn we got to where we thought was about half way... Dominique said... she had had enough and was happy to sit and take in the views while Sue and wanted to see the Temple of Diana which we thought was not too much further. After about 30 mins of steep climbing we reached the temple and were pleased with our achivements until a german tourist came along saying we were nearly half way to the top. We knew then we would not be going to the top but instead moved down to the walled lookout area on the side of the cliff. From here we could see spectacular views down over the city, the piazza area and our apartment. (If you note in the far corner of the piazza the roof that looks slightly lower. This is our building and terrace was on top of this) The views of the coastline went further than they do for our apartment and it was hard to distinguish between the water and sky as both were so blue. We could see many of the local fishermen out on the water which was like glass. Here is a photo of Sue and I looking proud of our efforts and not wanting to look down. The fence between us and the cliff fall behind us was not very high. It was quite a hard trek and coming down the well worn rocks were quite slippery and were all on a sloped path. There was also nothing really to hold onto. For safety reasons there is a gate keeper. He took each persons details and they had to be accounted for as they left the mountain, I have no idea how they would go about getting you down and I could not see a 'Westpac' rescue helicopter landing on the top. Our legs were well and truly exhausted and for the next day or so Sue found it not so easy to reach her 'penthouse' and the terrace but she soldiered on.. and is all good now.

During our 'trek' Dominique sunned herself and we are now getting quite a tan from ust being outdoors so much. Funnily enough Sue is losing her tan which she normally maintains due to her being outdoors so much for her work. Dominique also had a lovely chat with a women who had moved to England from this town when she was only 20 but was now 67 yrs old and visited regularly to a house she had bought herself. Dominique said she was very glam... wearing very high heeled shoes and sparkly clothes to be going to the market in town. How she managed to walk in the shoes on paths we nearly twisted our ankles on in our hiking boots... we dont know.

These 2 pictures were taken from the beach area looking back to the old town. As you can see some of the buildings literally have walls that have been built on top of beach rocks. Some of the walls over hang and the waves lap in underneath them. Then also have their washing out and we wondered how much they lose into the sea when the wind is wild.

In this picture, you will see the white line at the base of the trees on the mountain. This white line is the rock fence in the photo of Sue and I above.

It was the tail end of the long weekend and Cefalu was hosting the Vespa World Day. We noticed people wearing Vespa club t-shirts from around the world. As you can imagine the city was very busy with old and new Vespa's looking very splendid. Although it was very noisy. There were heaps of Carabinieri (military police) looking very schmick in their black and red uniforms with the white leather trims. They were driving their black with red striped sports Alfa Romeos. Very jealous of these cars!!Prefer these to the 3 wheeled electric powered utes they use to get around the tight streets.

A little history we learned is the Cefalu was the first settled region in Sicily. It was a very relaxing place to visit. The people were wonderful. The weather great.