(Click thumbnail photos to enlarge)
“OH, NO, Signora, we never run the gondola if it is too windy. Today is wind [sic], but we will run it for you.”
Gondola, on the 750m trip up to Erice. Remember to double-click on this photo, so you can count all the other people who made the trip up and down the mountain with us today. Hint: it’s less than one.
As our gondola climbed the mountain, I pretended to agree with the chipper Peggy Schmidt, as she peered around at all the other – EMPTY – gondolas and crowed, “See? If it were a sunny day, you know we’d be fighting the crowds.”
The city, even shrouded in mist today, really is spectacular, and its denizens? Lovely.
Erice was founded by a people claiming descent from the Trojans. What remains today is mostly medieval – walled city, narrow streets.
The art of the cell phone
At the end of our visit this afternoon, we visited Sicily’s finest pasticceria, “Maria Grammatico,” where I ran into Maria herself coming out of the kitchen. She was clearly flattered that I recognized her, b/c she smiled [long-sufferingly?] and took my hand.
Maria Grammatico’s
In case anybody wondered, it’s still within the Octave of Easter
mebtravelling 