After sitting out two nights in Caltanissetta with minimal WiFi service, I’ve gotten significantly behind. I’ll try to blitz the next few entries to get caught up again.
We began the day enjoying the great spread prepared for us by Arianna, our host in Piazza Armerina. It’s really an excellent spot, and one we can heartily recommend if you want to stay on the crown of the town, next to the cathedral. You too can start your morning by carefully pushing your bike down a few steep cobblestone streets before coming to anything bikable.
Beginning the day right, at Antichi Quartieri B&B.
Or, you could stay a few blocks below where there are also some attractive old monuments, and pavement,. Here, we’re stopped briefly so I can adjust my brakes which have gotten dangerously soft.
The ride to Caltanissetta proved to be one of the easiest of the tour so far - not too far and a bit less climbing than we’ve seen so far, but the main thing is that we were supercharged by a forceful wind most of our way west. It was nice to see some relaxed miles, and the scenery made them roll by even easier. Not quite up to yesterday’s impossibly high bar - not every day can be the ride of a lifetime, after all - but still very pretty, quiet, and often very beautiful.
Not far out of Piazza Armerina, Rachael rustles up a small cattle drive.
Now this is my idea of an ideal road - vegetation grows over at the margins, carfree, but still reasonably paved. And trending downhill. Even a bit of a tailwind. After the last few days it’s nice to have a bit of easy riding like this.
The last ten miles of the day, a gradual climb uphill from Pietraperza, were the highlight of the ride. We had just turned off onto a very quiet road and were stopped for lunch, admiring the valley before us and a ruined castle on the opposite ridge. A man walked up while we were eating, and asked (I think) if we needed any assistance or water. He pointed back to Pietraperza, which we had just left, but I shook my head and pointed the other direction, saying we were going to Caltanissetta. He looked uncertain, then pantomimed that the road was either very poor or very hilly. I nodded. He looked down at our bikes then, smiled, nodded his approval - they’ll do. Wishing us well, he walked off.
He was right about the road - very rough, with several spots where we dismounted to work through the broken surface. We didn’t see a car for the next hour as we biked through another spectacular setting. As I said, the best miles of the day.
The view from our picnic spot: looking across the Salso Valley, with the ruins of Pietraperza’s ruined Norman Casale on the opposite ridge.
Our first impressions of Caltanissetta are lukewarm, at best. They aren’t helped by our experience getting to the room we’ve booked. It’s hard to find, apparently up several flights of stairs on a rather dirty alley. I walk up to confirm it’s the right space, check in at the inn, and then leave to get Rachael and the bikes. I noted that there was a car by the rooms, so presumably there’s a way to get there up a different street without climbing the stairs. There is, but we have a terrible time finding it wandering through a maze of crooked, junk filled alleys guarded by snarling curs.
When we arrive, we take our bikes inside and are shown a room. We booked an apartment though, with kitchen facilities. After some discussion they agree, and we we are shown to it. It’s not up here at all. It’s back down the stairs, near where we had first stopped. We take the bikes back out again and carry them down the stairs. The apartment, once we arrive, is narrow, uncomfortable, a bit gloomy. The street walking up to it is narrow, busy, a bit of a death trap. Not the best introduction to a town.
We’ll be here for two nights. It looks like we’ve missed all of the best Easter processionals. We don’t see many attractive places to eat either, and I’m wishing that we were only staying one night if any reasonable alternative was available. Bad attitude, I know - it’s all the fault of the phenomenal previous day, which set us up for a letdown.
At dinner time, we walk down to the central plaza to the restaurant we’ve picked out. They’re open, but fully booked. I ask if they’re open tomorrow and they say yes, but that’s fully booked also. We have better luck at the next place, Sele e Pepe (salt and pepper) - they have room for us tonight, and serve us a very fine meal. And they’re open for lunch tomorrow also, but they too are fully booked. Uh, oh.
We ask for suggestions, and they helpfully do some research for us. They find a restaurant about two miles away that will take us, and make a reservation for us at one tomorrow afternoon. It looks like we won’t starve on Easter Sunday after all - things are looking up.
San Sebastian Church, Caltanissetta. Built in the 1600’s to express thanks for delivering the city from the place, it sits on Garibaldi Plaza opposite the cathedral.
