The Eagle Has Landed (On Sicily): Messina to Palermo.

July 11, 2015

Wednesday

The sun is slipping behind the hill above Messina, the city on the Sicily side of the strait as the ferry ramp goes down and commuters, on foot, cars, scooters and me on bike pour off into port.

I follow scooters through the spaces in a traffic-jam along the seafront avenue, then at a roundabout turn uphill, going on the theory that following the coast, it'll be residential all the way. The best chance of finding a free place to camp will be in the hills above town. As expected it's quite a stiff climb; the uphill avenue narrowing to a road up by long terrace tenement blocks before finally winding further uphill with wooded slope on the inside and the lighting up city below on the outside. I ride a few kilometres until I reach a suitable level place for the tent and the light is almost gone as I put up the tent. A few hundred metres ahead there's laughter from what looks to be a hotel lit up with big lights.

Thursday

It is surprisingly how good a place I located to put the tent in the dark; perfectly level and comfortable to lay upon. I slept well, maybe because when I unzip the tent at dawn, there's a cooling breeze.

Breakfast is a small packet of peanuts and raisins and a carton of orange juice.

I am on the road for seven continuing on upon the nearly traffic free road I'd climb out of town. The nearest building to my campsite, only three hundred metres or so away, which I thought was a hotel in the dark, turns out not in the light of day; more a kind of an apartment block, though only half is occupied and the rest derelict. Strange. Thought I don't think my torch-lit tent would've been seen from the balconies anyway. Always a worry when camping after nightfall and needing to cook or whatever.

As the narrow road twists round in canopy of big round conifers, an old man on a mountain bike catches me up and rides with me for a while. He asks me usual question in a mix of broken English and Italian and I ask him if I continue on this road will it lead to the road to Palermo, the principal city of the island and place to catch a ferry north to Genova. What I want to know does this road descend the other side of the island's northeast corner and join the coastal highway west. "Si. Allora, derecho, derecho........."

But I didn't quite understand all what this kind gentleman said, because when he said ciao and rode on, I come to a split with a road going downhill toward the coast and a town which I pass and a day or two later suspect was to the south of Messina on the island's east coast. The small road having twisted and turned so much that I's nowhere near my desired location. Anyway, I some start descending into the street of a town: the surface deteriating, then joining a wide divided urban thoroughfare for the rest of the way downhill and very soon I suspect I'm back in Messina. And right enough when I reach the waterfront, I recognize the ferry-port gates I'd rode out yesterday.

It really feels like such a waste of an early cool start. Now I'm no further on than I was at dusk yesterday and even though it is still only eight, it's warming up fast as I ride back along the waterfront pass the roundabout where I turned up the previous evening. I ride for a few kilometres with beaches on the right and housing on the left until I come to a café and stop for morning coffee.

I am on the road a week today. The problem with Italy, the terrain is so mountainously arduous and the available roads for cycling are limited, it takes a lot longer getting across the country than anticipated when just looking at the map. And with the July heat and humidity, the sweat is always pouring off me and without a shower in a week, the skin has become greasy and prone to itchy irritation. My calves are a little that way now. But luckily mosquitoes are not too much of a problem or lower legs would be really itchy with salty sweat further irritating the bites.

Riding on from the coffee stop I'm soon leaving the city and pass a sign: Palermo 253 km. So I should be there Saturday and have a much needed clean up and rest. The road number SS113 and of fair quality. Most of the traffic it seems is on the parallel autostada, only visible on occasions as a viaduct between hills to the inland left. And I meet or am passed by singles or groups of club cyclists on fast training and fitness rides. Most wave and shout "Ciao!"

Around late morning I've ridden quite a bit from the city and passing through a village, I'm glad to come to a small fruit shop. I want something cold to drink, but first pick up two peaches from the rack outside and enter. I find the refrigerator and select a litre and half bottle of a orange drink and go to the counter and pay. Then sat on a shaded step, drinking the cold drink, I know it is best to drink it all, as any left in the bottle, will be warm and undrinkable later. So I drink until I'm no longer thirsty with a third of the bottle remaining. It doesn't taste great; all sweet and chemically. I turn the bottle and find the ingredients upon the label. Azzur de naranja, or concentrate juice 20%; then, there's a long list of additives, colorants and E numbers. No wonder it tastes terrible.

Further I come to a bigger town with a supermarket to stock up and buy mineral water to get the taste of the orange drink out of my mouth. And I also get rid of a carrier-bag of rubbish in my pannier I've accumulated. With the amount of packaging used to present and prolong shelf-life of everything I eat, it's surprizing how much discarded plastic and stuff I've got to throw away. Rubbish it seems is a big problem here, as I pass laybys full of reeking dumped domestic waste in bin-liners; and other places with the same overpowering smell of overflowing industrial sized bins. It is like the refuse-collectors have gone out on strike.

Lunch today in another town, on a bench in the shade of ornamental trees in a square with a fountain nearby, which is useful for cooling down. If it wasn't so public, I'd get in and wash and rinse out my sweat sodden clothes. As it is I take off my tee-shirt and rinse it, then put it on wet. As a mark of how hot it is, the paving-flags outside the shade of the trees are almost too hot to walk on in bare-feet. I remain long after eating, reading more of my book.

The chance of finding a place to camp here is zero.

Friday

I make good progress today, having got on the road at six without all the shenanigans of returning through Messina of the previous morning. I've clocked eight-five kilometres by one o'clock when I reach Cefalu, an old town with a castle on a high headland rising shear from the beach. A place with lots of other tourists where I stop for a well earned lunch at a roadside cafeteria: a slice of mozzarella and ham pizza with a big glass of cold beer.

Sat across from me is a stocky American with a Harley Davidson tee-shirt, his wife, a very big lady and sister with identical facial features and equal size; and the couple's little girl, also large. They speak with a sweet and slow southern accent. The daughter is looking up at a pair of pigeons scrabbling on a tree branch. "Look! Mammy. The birds are fighting...The birds are fighting.." she says to laughter from the adults.

Getting on the move again at three. I've resorted in the last couple of days to wearing my Keen sandals, such was the pain my cycling shoes were inflicting on my feet which had expanding due to the heat; but I'm fed up with the sloppy soft feel on the pedals the flexible souls have, especially there in the forenoon, as over eighty kilometres in sandals isn't comfortable. So I'm back to using the cycling shoes this afternoon with the velco-closures as loosely done-up as possible while still supporting the shoes hold upon the feet. I'll see does the sensation of crushed big-toes return.

I continue to push on with the thought of reaching Palermo by nightfall, the suburbs at any rate and check into a cheap hotel. I will have to eat though and eating out for the second time in one day is more than what I'm prepare to spend, so I'll settle for something bought in a supermarket and eat in the room.

At four thirty I come to a Conad superstore. I'm in there not exactly knowing what I would like to eat as I don't have much appetite. I amuse myself looking at all the different beers in the drinks aisle and make my way on pass a group of shop management to the wine. I know what, I'll have a cibatta bread to make the sandwich in the hotel room later; and a can of tuna for filling. I also would like a tomato and a green pepper. Though weighting tomatoes cannot work out what I'm supposed to press on the weighting machine in order that a label comes out, until a friendly girl arranging fruit come and takes over. The next time at the weighting scales I know what to press and putting the labelled pepper in the basket and walking away, the girl runs after me and picks up the pepper from my basket and scrutinized the label; then smiles and says "Ah, you a get it a right..."

So far my feet are feeling fine, maybe because the afternoon has cooled down as dark cloud envelope the sky ahead. Looks like it's going to rain.

The road which has been along coastal plain on the inside of the autostada since starting after lunch, now turns further inland and climbs a hill looming the past hour. The dark sheet of rain is upon me as I crest the hill and I hurriedly look out for a place to put the tent up. There's a roofless derelict house on the right slope down from the road, which I have a look at. The floor inside is clear, but the floor in the adjoining room has caved in and fallen down into the level below, opening out to the house's backside and subterranean at the front uphill side, so perhaps this perspective campsite isn't structurally safe. I see the rotten wooden beams and mortar wreckage around the walls of the room next-door.

The rain is pelting down now and I don my raincoat and duck in underneath a bramble hedge. The road is soon a watery sheen. Once it eases I'm against riding further and destroying my chain and brakes with splashed up rainwater off the road, so I'm for finding a place to camp. There's a disused yard, overgrown with weeds and bramble round the edge of a concrete apron where I could put the tent, but the only access is to ferry bags and bike over a three foot high fence. I ride a few hundred metres more and come to a disused olive grove, which will do. The only fault being cultivated soil around the trees is a muddy on the surface after the rain, but I rid aside the wet surface soil to uncover dry soil underneath in a patch big enough for my tent.

The autostada (motorway viaduct) has perhaps made that property unmarketable.

Luckily my road isn't the concrete switch-back climb ahead in near forty degrees.

On the way into Palermo. Sicily's principal city.

Left: Aude from Paris prepares an orange salad from local ingredients while far right: Mat from New York looks on; and centre: Claudia, Sicily and Santa, Russia pose with a meatball.

Today's ride: 267 km (166 miles)
Total: 7,016 km (4,357 miles)

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