8 May – In the “centro storico” – historic center – of this little seacoast town east of Palermo, on the north shore of the island of Sicily. The narrow, climbing, maze-like streets remind me of the towns of the Cinque Terre, rooted into the spaces at the bases of their hills. Navigation must come of childhood exploration. How could one possibly give directions home?
Cefalù is FULL of tourists: elderly Europeans speaking German, French, Danish… some Italian. They are here in crowds with cameras. How can I find myself bristle when I, too, am a tourist? But I want to get away from them and the shops selling knick-knacks, and see the atypical sight. I lose myself on the side streets. Go to the hill tops that require a healthful youth the elders lack. I take the “roads less traveled” and marvel that they never stray from the most-worn path. As in Venice, get off the main drag and find solitude and visual treasures.
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9 May – I had the absolute noisiest B&B room imaginable in Cefalù (Hotel Villelmi). Granted, I had a little balcony and access to a rooftop terrace that looked right out to the Piazza del Duomo and “La Rocca”. But the rowdy crowd of tourists and locals expressively chattered late into the night. Then, early in the morning, 4:00 or 5:00, workers used every sort of process or equipment to clean that piazza. Pressure-washers, mini street sweepers, manual laborers. And the recycling trucks came to pick up the 1000s of wine bottles emptied the day before. The bottle bins were right outside my window.
And as much as I like spring birdsong, I have never heard such loud and sleep-preventing birds as those this morning! And then, at 7:00, the duomo bells chimed 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 times, 3 repetitions of this in rapid succession, as if to say “get up, get moving, get out now!”
Hmmm. Proximity to a Piazza del Duomo is not such a great idea.
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9 May – I’m traveling the regional train along the shoreline toward Taormina: “the straights of Messina” at my left! The straights are something I’ve always heard of, but I have no recollection of what I’ve heard. I’ll have to look them up.