Trapani to Mazara del Vallo via Salemi

March 23, 2023

Last night we ate again at Salamureci, where we are staying in the rooms above. We had pasta dishes again and shared a salad, but the salad was mostly (very good) potatoes so we were stuffed again. Al finds that a secondi plus vegetables in some form doesn’t give him enough food and, since the second plates here didn’t really appeal to me, the idea to share a pasta (primi or first course) and a secondi (second course) remains a future plan. How any individual could eat an antipasto, a primi, a secondi, and then dessert, all à la carte, I don’t know. Not even Al could do it, and that’s saying something!

Salamurace Camere has a garden for guests. It’s enclosed by walls, not glass like it seems in the photo, and looks a pleasant place to spend some time. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really warm enough to sit out there during the times we were “home”.

Al had pasta with seafood; I had gnocchi with a sauce made with Sicilian cheese, bacon, and nuts. Not photogenic but very tasty!

This morning we packed up and headed out. Leaving Trapani was once again fairly straightforward, as there are long one-way streets leading off the peninsula. The route out of town could be broken into a series of sections: old town (narrow streets), newer town (one-way streets), town fringes (two-way arterial), suburbia (minor highways lined with flowers and garbage), rural (quiet “paved” roads lined with wildflowers).

Italy is a first-world country; why they can’t properly deal with their waste, I don’t know. It seems to be a thing to drive out of town and toss the trash. There seems to be no functioning recycling program and no movement to reduce the amount of single-use plastics here. Sad, really.

On to the ride. It was fairly level along a road lined with yellow flowers, through green fields and bare vines. Then it turned up and so did the temperature. We certainly weren’t expecting 30° in March!

Green fields with yellow flowers and wind turbines on the ridges.

More of the above. My Garmin was showing over 30° here.

A big cloud passed in front of the sun as we went through Ulmi, the first village on our route at about 30 km. Here is where we also saw a lost bus, a tour bus with only a driver aboard, coming towards us, then executing a multi-point turn in the village, and exiting the village again in the direction it had come.

On through Gorgazzo, our route diverged a bit from the highway. Ulmi, Gorgazzo, and Salemi are quite close together and there was now, near noon, some traffic, so we were happy to take what we thought would be a quieter road into Salemi. I hadn’t checked this one carefully on RWGPS as it was marked as paved and I thought Salemi itself was the top of the hill. Oops! The highway contours around the hill but we went over it, on a farm track/access road to the communication tower right on the top of the hill.

That’s me, just before I dismounted and walked the rest of the way up.

Going down. It would have been fun on my mountain bike.

We approached Salemi from above. Tricky with a hilltop town, but we did it.

Salemi itself was a disappointment. We hadn’t expected a lot, but given that it promotes itself as one of the most beautiful villages in Italy, we expected something. We at least found an open Conad and got supplies for a picnic lunch. We hadn’t seen anywhere appealing to sit down in our quick pass through the old town that might be worth going back to do we packed them away and continued. The only public benches we had seen were inside the traffic circle at the entrance to the old town and those were occupied by gangs of school kids as we went by. The circle was also the centre of a traffic jam, due to two tour buses parked along the outside of the traffic lane. There appeared to be bus parking down the road a bit near the Conad, but I guess the drivers didn’t know that.

Decorated with oranges, lemons, and bread for the Festa di San Giuseppe. The pedestrian area began after the first short block.

This pedestrian street was very quiet. It was lunchtime but there were no restaurants or bars on this street.

Piazzele Tony Scott, jazz clarinetist. His parents were born in Salemi (or Ghibbelina?) and emigrated to the USA where he was born in 1921. He later settled in Italy.

We zoomed down the road from Salemi, cautiously after turning onto SP 79, which is one of those Sicilian rural highways that might have been paved at one time, but was now more like a farm road. Pretty scenery and no traffic, though.

Looking back up at Salemi and higher up on the left at the communication tower.

We eventually found a wall to sit on with a view to look at. You can’t see culverts from the roadway except that they always have a short section of wall on either side to keep errant vehicles from veering into the deep ditch below. Decent for sitting on but don’t fall backwards!

After lunch we continued through the fields, joining busier and busier roads until we rode into the old city of Mazara del Vallo.

We found our accommodation, La Corte di Zaccaria, because our host was watching for us. The sign is actually inside the wrought iron courtyard gate and there is only a small street number outside. We would have found it eventually, but it’s the hosts, Angelo Zaccaria and Luciana Bonantinithat really make this place. They are a very sweet older couple. I regret not getting a photo of them.

We wheeled our bikes into the courtyard and Angelo waited while we unloaded. We carried our bags up to our apartment on the first floor and Luciana soon came to greet us and give us an introduction to the old city.

And what an introduction! She was prepared with a city map, a pen, and an orange highlighter. She expressed disappointment that we would only be staying one night because there was so much to see! She then took at least half an hour explaining the history of the city, describing the important buildings and the important art. Angelo had disappeared and reappeared with a plate of cookies, which we dared not eat while concentrating on what Luciana had to say. I finally got in that we didn’t have time to see it all on this trip and she reiterated what she considered most important and left us to it.

First on the list was getting the laundry going. The washing machine was a prime feature in choosing this place and we wanted to get a load done and hung up to dry asap. Once it was going, we ate the cookies and they were delicious!

We headed out to for an explore and to find the Museo del Satiro Danzante and check its opening hours. We weren’t expecting it to be still open but it was.

You may remember reading about the Dancing Satyr in the news about 25 years ago.

The torso was recovered from the sandy sea floor at a depth of 500 metres (1,600 ft) off the southwestern coast of Sicily, on the night of March 4, 1998, in the nets of the same fishing boat (operating from Mazara del Vallo, hence the sculpture's name) that had in the previous year recovered the sculpture's left leg. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Satyr_of_Mazara_del_Vallo]

I remembered reading about it, or perhaps some other bronze dredged up from the depths, but this was one thing that jumped out at me from Luciana’s spiel. It was here and I wanted to see it.

Piazza della Repubblica, Mazara del Vallo

Amphorae from the bottom of the sea. Everything in the little museum (with a couple of exceptions) had been dredged up in the Mediterranean.

The Dancing Satyr. Note where his tail was attached!

Not from the deep sea but a typical illustration of dancing satyrs from that era.

After returning to the apartment to hang up our laundry to dry, it was time to find a place to eat. We first left the old town to find the place Luciana had recommended, but it was closed on this Thursday evening, despite its sign saying its closed day was Wednesday. We looked around the area for another option but nothing appealed so we returned to the old town. We never found the usual cluster of restaurants but we did find one and enjoyed a good meal.

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Today's ride: 70 km (43 miles)
Total: 298 km (185 miles)

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Margie AndersonLove you detailed commentary Jacquie. So cool you got to see the Museum with Dancing Satyr! M.
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1 year ago

Anne MathersYour photos of Selinunte are stunning. We didn't see it, and I wish we had now. As for garbage, look no further than the mafia.
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1 year ago