265 – Sunday 10th January 2016:  Trapani and Wine

The Italian Squeejy vans game continued through the evening, become a Squeejy cars party.  Despite a huge expanse of tarmac we had two cars of courting and flirting LOUDLY youngsters on one side.  They were soon joined on the other side by quite a number of cars coming and going with loud boombox ‘music’ (I use the word with caution and I am NOT against modern music … I have 5 Seconds of Summer album!) with people popping sweets (!) and leaving little plastic bags all over the ground!  20-30 youngsters in loud party mode. We should have moved over the other side, but bed was too warm and you think they’ll be gone soon!  They weren’t!  J reliably informs me they departed at about 3.00 am…. I slept the sleep of the innocent! 

I did a 4km run though the docks and town and spotted a small veg market and the fish market.  There are serious fishing smacks here, so it is no surprise there was a fairly large fish market.  I purchased 1.4 kilo of cod at EUR10/kilo.  He even filleted it for me, leaving the livers too …. only had cod liver in tablet form, but sure I’ll find something to do with them!

Huge cauli for EUR1 …. become 4 lunches of soup for us … thank goodness for the freezer!

We walked around the town and it is very attractive … some fairly smart shops.  And being Sunday, the locals were out in force.

No political correctness here … it is actually the National Institute for war wounded persons.

As well as the time, this showed the days of the week, and adjacent ….

… the astrological clocks

And another fun Christmas tree … still think the empty booze bottles wins though!

Would that be a Marsala? … small portions, so in the next bar, we switched to …

white wine … followed by another  ….

Again, non PC … the bar invites people to flirt and smoke!

Hoping dates will start to appear soon in the markets.

We are camped up near the castle on the far right.

 

266 – Monday 11th January 2016:  Seeing Erice and NOT Seeing It!

All the nuisances of Saturday night had not returned so we had a good night, once J nobly got up and disposed of couple of tin cans that were acoustically rattling around us, as the wind had got up.  We planned to stay in Trapani again tonight, but we thought that 3 nights in the same spot is pushing our luck.  We had identified a large car park on our walk yesterday, but it was packed, so we ended up back at the port.

By now, time was pressing … we had to fair route march the 2km to the bus station to catch the bus to Erice.  The busses only run a couple of times a day and since Erice is a hill town, we did not fancy driving up.  We had checked the weather forecast … Erice should be 17c, only 1 degree cooler than Trapani, with just a few clouds.  Obviously Erice does not subscribe to Accuweather!  The sun made an appearance a couple of times during our visit and decided to come out permanently when we left on the 3.15 bus!  The rest of the time it was a cold, damp pea souper. We attempted to see the sights … got lost (K had a sense of humour failure at the lack of road names in the guide book) …. we decamped to a bar.  But they did not do food, so we had to decamp to what seemed to be the only open restaurant for a speed starter, before heading back for the bus.

The Christmas market shutting up … no idea what the square was … too foggy to see road names!

The very pink bar we decamped to.  Erice is known for its almond pastries (K can vouch for these 🙂 and marzipan.

One of K’s Dad’s favourite sayings is ‘to tear the arse out of it” …. had it not been EUR20, we’d have brought some back.

Erice makes some good red!

Not sure how sea worthy this is?  On Saturday the bilge pumps were going and constant jets of water were being ejected.  On Sunday there was no pump and it was already a foot lower in the water.

Fish night:  Starter was the cod livers:  marinated in orange juice and pan fried with sultanas soaked in Marsala …. don’t bother:  tasteless.  Cod to followed, which we did eat!

Check this for a sunset!  No digital enhancements!

 

267 – Tuesday 12th January 2016:  Onto Capo San Vito

We shopped on the way and headed for a campsite that a Belgian couple had told us about …. only EUR12 incl. electric – El Bahira Camping Village … would be completely hideous in high season, but we are one of only three vans.  Soup for lunch whilst we chatted to a German lad next door … he gave us some good tips for the area, so we may well stay here for a few days.  A washing machine load and a little hand washing done.  J slaughtered K at tennis … we were on a full sized court which took some getting used to after the one at Punta Braccetto.  However, we were close to the sea … crashing waves against volcanic rock with amazing views of the mountains … I am blaming this distraction for my lack of tennis skill or performance!