Day 3: Ancient Segesta & Erice
SegestaSegesta was a city, but your visit will consist of the theatre and temple. We went up to the theatre first, then walked downhill to the temple. The theatre would have produced both comedies and tragedies, and has wonderful acoustics. We were able to admire the temple from many angles as we walked down to it. It is an amazingly preserved example of a Doric Greek temple, spanning 6 by 14 columns, and is 69 by 183 ft. It was built about 420 BC and is a small temple as the Greek world goes. It was never finished, however. It is missing the fluting on the columns, a cella, roof and altar. Historians think that perhaps the Segestans didn't finish it because it was built to solidify an alliance with Athens. Once Athens signed the pact the Segestans didn't bother to finish it.
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Maria Grammatico's!After Segesta we took the bus up the switchbacks to Erice where a Sicilian feast was laid out for our lunch by Maria Grammatico and her helpers. It was fantastic to look at and simply divine to eat! Bruschetta, olives, cheeses, salami, arancini, salads, eggplant, tomatoes, caprese etc... and of course - wine! We joined Nancy and John at a table and had a wonderful buffet lunch trying all the things!
After we were all done stuffing ourselves with the amazing food we were invited into the kitchen... |
Brett with Maria trying to roll the nun's boobies correctly, Deb and I with Maria and her interpreter, Maria's hand showing us how to properly roll the nun's boobies, Maria filling the cannoli shells, all the sweets we were going to get to try, Deb and I with our aprons on (which we got to keep) smiling during such a wonderful experience with such wonderful people!
...to help Maria make some goodies for our dessert! Maria is a spunky Sicilian lady who was wonderful to learn from and work with. She had a great sense of humor conveyed to us through her British interpreter, as she doesn't speak English. Hand gestures and gesticulation always work well, though. We made two different types of cookies - what I think she called 'nuns boobies' and what amounts to 'ugly but they taste good' cookies. Neither recipe had flour if I remember correctly, but ground almonds. Getting the conical shape on the nuns boobies was much harder then it looked and I generally failed, though some in our group were quite good at it. Then she talked about the cannoli's, the shells were made ahead of time, as she filled and decorated them. We then all headed back out to the dining room to try our creations with some made to order coffees. They were so delicious, and with the coffee it was just a perfect end to our time with Maria and her helpers, enjoying the culinary delights Sicily had to offer! We also got bags to take some cookies with us!
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Erice
Virginia then had a surprise for us, gondola rides down to Trapani after a little time to explore the mountain top village of Erice! Most of us decided on this option which gave us a little bit of time in the village, though you could go with the bus down the switchbacks if you wanted. She parked us in the shade by the church you see below to give us a little history and information of the town, and then set us loose with a meet time at the gondola station for the ride down. We decided to explore the church.
Pro-Tip: Let your guide know up front about help you might need in certain situations, for example: I get motion sickness on buses. I let Virginia know ahead of time and she would let me sit in front to help negate it when we had a particularly bad stretch of road like the switchbacks on the way up to Erice. Combined with my Seabands and Dramamine, this helped to keep me from getting sick.
Badia Nuova ~ Trapani
This hotel was on a quiet street off the main drag, we walked a short distance to it from a square along the water where the bus dropped us off. The rooms were like mini apartments. We had our bed, a table and kitchen area, and the bathroom. The indoor breakfast area wasn't the largest, but they did have seating on the street which was really nice. We always preferred to sit outside if it was available. It was hot in Sicily while we were visiting, but the mornings were always pleasant.
We definitely didn't need to find dinner tonight between our ample lunch and this little happy hour on the rooftop of our hotel. It was nice to just sit, relax and chat.