Cefalu

Cefalu

Family of wild boars we met en route

Lovely little church at the Sanctuario di Gibilmanna

Alter of the church with painting by some famous guy.

Side chapel dedicated to Mary















Headed off East on the A3 to Cefalu a beachside resort with a beautiful, 12th century Norman Duomo.  Closed, of course, for lunch from 12:00 to 4:00PM so we decided to climb into the mountains to see the nearby Santuario di Gibilmanna. A good (though tortuous) paved road twists up to it through what is obviously the High-Rent district.  All 2nd gear work for the car and about as much time spent looking at the road through the side window as through the windshield.

At the top was a glorious little, reconstructed 7th C Benedictine church, featuring a 1534 fresco, very decorated altar and chapels, and a working nunnery (shhhh). Sated with hill-climbing for the day, we stopped at the next-door restaurant for a lovely lunch and some rough Sicilian red. A charming French lady who worked there and whose ambition was to one day visit Quebec, told us that sadly, the Geophysical Observatory on the hill was only accessible by a 5 KM walk. We scratched that and headed down to the beach at Cefalu, figuring it, at least would be open.

Reggie and Mable, delighting as ever in exploring all goat paths, found one that was supposedly shorter, so gritting our teeth, we dove down and headed for the Tourist Office, dodging a family of wild boar on the way. Once again, the driver’s nerve failed before the increasingly narrow turnoffs and he decided that since the sea was most probably down the hill, that any real road going down was the better alternative. Wrong again. The map was no help and apparently access to the beach is limited to a few strategic streets. Unnerved, we headed home for a parking spot before the stores reopened, and a Gelato.