Trapani and Erice Sicily

When one thinks of Naples, one unfortunately identifies it with crime and corruption. This is generally true, even today when waste management is controlled by one crime family. One can also say the same of Sicily - Mafia comes to mind. I can't say I know much about that and today we docked far away from Palermo, the principle city and probably the hotbed of what might be bad about Sicily. But as we pulled into the port of Trapani this morning, it looked like just another Mediterranean town with a castle to greet us and salt works off our stateroom window.

Our excursion today was to take us up to the hilltop village of Erice by cable car. The wind decided against that and the cable car was closed - to Dawn's relief. So instead, our bus driver Allesandro, along with guide Barbara, took us up yet another set of perilous, narrow, windy roads to Erice.

Actually, that last picture is the road going down which was twice as wide but just as windy. Allesandro honked at every invisible corner. Erice began as a sanctuary with its main church being this one, Our Lady of Assumption.

The village itself is a maze of cobblestone streets, churches, towers and of course the prerequisite castle at the top of the village.

The views from here were spectacular and today they were also gusty and chilly. From one direction there was Trapani where Nautica is moored.

From the castle, you got a better impression of the ruggedness of Sicily.

From this same point, we also got a good look at some of the important commerce of Sicily - marble extraction.

When we returned to the ship we were in time to dine in the Grand Dining Room, always our dining room of choice. Then it was slow time and with our ship's positioning today, that included some balcony (sun) time.

This evening, after happy hour and some cards, we dined at the Italian themed restaurant on board, Toscana. This seemed fitting as this was our last day in Italy. Since we ate later this evening, Dawn and I went straight to the lounge for the show featuring the 4 singers, performing a show of Broadway classics called Postcards. On a small ship like ours, we must give up the large production shows of the floating cities in favour of "hopefully" quality scaled down entertainment. Tonight didn't disappoint.