Trapani

October 20,2007

Here we are, on the train bound for Trapani. We met 4 other Americans on the same train. Two girls attending school in Perugia is going to spend a week at an Agriturismo farm in Segeste-Calatalfimi. Another 2 are just headed for the beach at Castelelomare, then headed back to Palermo to catch their train for Rome. It is raining pretty heavily but we're prepared with rain coats and umbrellas. I don't know if we are able to see Segeste this afternoon in the rain, of course, we can, what's a little rain anyway. In March, we went everywhere rain or shine.

No sooner have we left Palermo and our train broke down. We're being bussed out to Monte Pellegrino where there's a free train sitting on the tracks. We've just been loaded onto the new train, hopefully we'll be on our way soon. Who knows? The 2 beach going Americans decided to turn back to Palermo. Our 2 Perugia going college girls alighted from the train in Calatalfimi but we don't see anyone meeting them, the station is pretty deserted, hope they are alright.

Arrived in Trapani, found our hotel in the old part of town which is a 15 minute walk from the train station. The historical part of town is really pretty, clean too, very unusual for Sicily, full of baroque churches and palazzos. Our hotel is in an old palazzo, our hotel is actually an apartment hotel, we enter through a huge and pretty courtyard and was shown to our apartment, it is really pretty. I didn't have a reservation, unusual of me, I'm usually organized to a 'T'. I had in my notebook the names of a few places I could stay in. The Ai Lumi, (I found it in Rough Guide's Sicily) had a vacancy and that was where we stayed. They owned the restaurant downstairs too and we had dinner there and got a 20% discount on the meal because we were staying in their hotel, a really nice and handsome Sicilian couple. It's a fancy hotel too. I had fish with Couscous, a typical Trapanesi dish, very good. The rate was 70 euros a night with breakfast thrown in. The restaurant is really pretty, the bread was so good. I can't say enough good things about the bread in Sicily. They make such good and tasty bread. We had a choice of at least 8 olive oils on the dinner table. I love Trapani, it's slower and cleaner and newer, after Palermo and Catania, you're not sure if you're still in Sicily, that's the feeling I got in Trapani. It is a good base to explore the west side of Sicily and also the outlying islands.