Ellen and I are departing for a two month sojourn in Italy. We arrive in Palermo and take a leisurely drive along Sicily’s north shore to Messina. From there we’ll take a ferry and train to Salerno, visit Capri and the Amalfi Coast, then drive from Salerno to Florence.
We will stay in Florence for six weeks making side trips to hill towns and wineries in the vicinity of Florence.
We leave for Palermo tomorrow. I will be blogging about our trip along the way.
We booked our flights through “just fly” from San Francisco to Rome. “Just fly” made reservations through British Air who subcontracted with Air Lingus. That’s one convoluted booking. We arrive in Rome with 1:20 to make a connection between Terminal 3 and Terminal 1 to catch our flight to Palermo. Alitalia assured me that if we have no booked luggage, a 50 minute connection is fine. This is the one connection in all our plans that presents a logistic problem. We’ll see how this goes.
Our itinerary is planned out until we arrive Florence. Our goal with six weeks in Florence is to live like a local to the extent that two Americans who speak very little Italian can. This will be big fun for us and for those of our friends who can make it out to visit.
Our first few stops:
1. Overnight at Don Ciccio’s Sea House in Carini near Palermo Airport.
This looks to be a comfortable B&B along the coast. This will be more of a pit-stop for us to just stay briefly overnight. We look forward to a comfortable bed and breakfast .
2. From Don Ciccio we drive to Enrice, a medieval hill town on the way to Trapani. Trapani is on the north west shore of Sicily. We will stay in Trapani for two days at what looks to be a comfortable apartment in central Trapani. We’ll stay two days in Trapani and take a ferry to Levanzo one day. Photos of Levanzo show crystal clear waters though the restaurants on the island may or may not be open. We’ll see.
3. From Trapani we drive to Palermo to stay at Villa Igiea for a few days. On the way there we may visit Scopello and/or Castellammare del Golfo. Brief scenes from Montalbano “the sense of touch” were filmed at Trapani, Levanzo, and Scopello, though my research shows that the hotel at Scopello is rundown.
More about our trip and experiences as we go.