Last days of holidays are often a bit of a problem. You have to check in for a flight by a certain time but what do you do with the time in between? In my case it’s a three hour drive direct to the airport at Palermo and I need to drop off the car around two o’clock to make the two hour check-in slot. Breakfasted and out before nine, what’s to do? I have a nerdy rush of completism. I’ve been in/by the Mediterranean Sea at Agrigento and Modica Marina and the Ionian Sea at Siracusa and Taormina but Sicily is a triangle and the long top side has the Tyrrhenian Sea. There’s a town called Cefalu that sounds interesting and that’s an hour from Palermo so I’d have the advantage of puting most of the drive in first thus reducing the get-to-the-airport-on-time panic factor. On the triangle thing, I’d been ignorant of why I keep seeing three-legged figures everywhere like the one below on airport floor tiles. So I looked it up and it’s the Trinacria the symbol of Sicily first adopted in 1282 which became an official part of the Sicilian flag in 1943. The woman is Medusa with her snakey hair, wheat ears for fertility and the three legs represent Sicily’s three capes at the points of the triangle – isn’t the internet useful sometimes.
So I leave my pleasant home for four days and set off for Cefalu. The first part of the journey is a repeat of yesterday as far at Catania but then veers off through the centre of the island on the A19. The A suggests autostrada or motorway and bits of it are but I reckon 30% of my journey was in slow single file traffic through mostly invisible roadworks – the odd digger made you think some work might be going on now and then. The landscape is generally brown and pretty dull until I get to Enna where on entering the Madonie mountain chain where the massive Pizzo Carbonara (o not a duly noted) is the second highest peak after Etna. I was surprised to see a ski lift sign by the roadside but there’s a resort here, Piano Battaglia, and a further two on Etna. Then it’s a long descent towards Palermo before a side road heads off to Cefalu. I’m glad I made the detour. It’s a very pretty town in a splendid bay and therefore totally touristy – but that’s no bad thing. It reminded me a bit of the Concha beach in San Sebastian (Donostia for any Basque readers). A long promenade, colourful beach umbrellas, the fight for a stretch of the strand, warm sea and bright sun – all the ingrdients for a fun holiday. So I headed to the ‘second most important cathedral after Monreale’. It’s, of course, up a flight of steps and built in Norman style between 1131 and 1240. Like Monreale it has a lot of gold and the altar piece is a massive and incredibly detailed mosaic of Christo Pancreator. And the museum nearby has a portrait by Antonello da Messina (of Annunciata fame) of a smiling boy. He was good.
A quick coffee and then off to the car hire return place, confirm no damage to report and take the shuttle bus into the airport. As this was my first journey since the operation, I’d been a bit worried about my hip through scanners but in both instances I just pointed to it and said either “metal hip replacement” at Stansted or point at hip and “metallico” at Palermo. In both instances I had a further wand wafted over me before being allowed to proceed. I did have a photo on my phone and my hospital discharge papers just in case but they weren’t required. The flight was delayed by 30 minutes but was happily uneventful. It was clearly not a busy time but still took 30 minutes to slalom our way through passport control. My suitcase had at least arrived by then so I retrieved it, I got the Stansted shuttle bus to the long stay car park, took a few moments to realise I didn’t have to change gear any more and arrived home having had a thoroughly enjoyable holiday in Sicily.
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