Discovering Sicily

On the second day we had plans to see the capital of Sicily and the Italian Mafia, Palermo. We ate a generous but overly sweet breakfast in our hotel and at ten o'clock we were already sitting in our supercar. Once again we took the small, curvy and slow coastline road instead of the highway to be able to see more.

The fancy car of ours

Just like the day before, the curvy road was even slower than we thought and soon we realized that we wouldn't make it all the way to Palermo on that day. Instead we took another road leading to a small city of Castelbuono. The road leading there offered magnificent views over the hilly landscapes of Sicily. The only downside being Inna's slight motion sickness on the way up. In Castelbuono we took a relaxing walk and ate in an interesting small local café. We ate quite a lot of meat and mushrooms for fourteen euros. The main sight in the city is its medieval castle standing on a small hill. The castle itself isn't anything spectacular but the area is somehow charming with the beautiful old town all around.

The views in the inner parts of Sicily are breathtaking.

The castle of Castelbuono

From Castelbuono we headed towards another old town, Cefalú. The road took us through the national park of Madonie and the views were even better than before. I have read that hiking isn't well developed in Sicily but it might be really interesting at least if you can find a place that is isolated enough.

An example of the curvy mountain roads

A snowy mountain

More mountains!

It was already dark when we arrived at Cefalú but we took a walk there anyway. Once again we had no idea where to go and decided to visit a post office to see if they have any post cards there. Well, they didn't, but it was an interesting experience anyway. The doors leading in and out of the office were somehow time locked. On both ways you had to enter something that looked like an air lock from a scifi movie before you were able to proceed. We found it very amusing :L.

We had paid for parking for only an hour so we took a quick walk through the old town of Cefalú before running back to our car. I had told Inna how we once weren't able to find our car with my mother and aunt and the same thing almost happened again. I knew what the place looked like but we just got a bit lost with all the turns in the old city. Luckily Inna was better with the directions this time and we found the car in time.

Cefalú at night

On the way back we visited a supermarket where a worker helped us to weigh the cactus fruits we bought. When we were about to pay for the fruits at the counter, the saleswoman told us that we hadn't correctly weighed the fruits! But no problem, the same worker comes to the rescue and weighs our fruits once again and on the way back throws our fruits on the floor :). We had a good laugh at him back in the car.

Before driving to our hotel we visited a small restaurant and ate lasagne with chicken salad for twelve euros. The portions were big and very tasty. Back at the hotel I was very tired after driving the whole day. We didn't see Palermo but it was a great day nevertheless!

Sometimes it seems like oranges fall from the sky in Sicily.

This palm tree was producing something tasty.

A curvy highway