I'm writing this at a little after 2:00 PM as Lou and the woman who let us in to the Hotel Medici are walking "around the block" to get some of our suitcases. At this point, we'll just get some. Before we leave to fly to Milan on Thursday we'll need everything so we can unpack and repack in a way that makes sense for flying. As I wait in this small hot room with a view of a roof and some walls, workmen are banging and drilling awfully close. That agriturismo I booked initially is sounding awfully good about now.
You might be wondering why our car is around the block. A case of you can't get there from here. The TomTom got us close. "You have reached your destination." But where were we? And where was Hotel Medici? The first person Luigi asked had no idea. The second person gave Lou directions which were wrong! Wrong in addition to all the streets around here being under construction. Yowsers. I suggested we park the car and look on foot. As we were trying to figure out where to park, I looked up and there was a street sign that read G. Medici, the street we were looking for! Still unsure of where to park, Lou backed into a senso unico (one way) and parked.
We walked back to the G. Medici street sign and followed it around to a barricaded pedestrian street. We followed the numbers from 7 until 81... where we found our hotel with a locked door. A woman who looked like the Italian version of a former friend of mine came and let us in. And here we are! I think we're well-located for walking around Milazzo, but beyond that I'm just not sure.
Our day started in a similar vein. "There's a historic old town center here. We should drive over before we leave Amantea." Pause. "And there's a world famous gelateria. At least that's what a reviewer on Trip Advisor said." I plugged Amantea (City Center) into the TomTom and off we went. Until the roads no longer resembled our directions. We saw signs but like this afternoon, it was simply impossible to "get there from here." I saw the old castle from the distance. I saw a sign about some bombardment during World War II. We had places to go and people to see. I'd seen enough of Amantea.
The drive to the ferry port in Villa San Giovanni was very straightforward. The drive from where we purchased our ferry ticket to the actual ferry was much more difficult. TomTom had us going in circles and of course there were no signs. We let logic guide us and it was only after we made the turn that made sense that we saw the sign directing us to the ferry. We drove onto the ferry and by the time we walked up to the saloon, the ferry was moving. We were in Sicily and unloaded so quickly. (During the unloading, I saw Italian drivers at their most polite, handling the alternate merge onto the ramp very nicely.)
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| Saloon on the ferry |
We took a walk while waiting to meet Lou's cousins, Carmelo and Nerina outside our hotel. We sat for awhile at a bar down the street. We'll see Carmelo again tomorrow. After we take a trip down memory lane.
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| Hotel Medici |
This evening we walked back and forth around the hotel and up and down the spiaggia in Milazzo. We had to be patient and wait for ristorantes to open for dinner. I noticed a chestnut cart near where we were crossing the street so we had some hot chestnuts to tide us over. Traditional local food for dinner and then back to the hotel for the night.
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| Spiaggia |
Tomorrow is a big day. Everything that Lou's been pouring over on Google maps will be alive in front of us. Buona notte.
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