To Sicily

We're traveling again! This time, the destination is Sicily, the island at the tip of the Italian boot. We visited here a couple of times back in 2016, when we spent half a year in Malta. Sicily is so close to Malta, that there are places in Malta where Sicily can be seen on a clear day. So we're in familiar territory. But our two trips to Sicily back then were only to the area around Catania, on the eastern edge of the island. This Overseas Adventure Travel tour will allow us to see much of the rest.

Ham radio friend and near neighbor, Reid Maertz, was driving his Significant Other to the airport at about the same day and time as our flight, so he kindly offered to drop us off. That saved us the bus and light rail  train trip to MSP. Getting boarding passes and through security were quick, but the plane to Chicago was delayed because of a leaking coffeemaker. That's hardly a safety issue for the aircraft, but they still had to get a mechanic to sign off on that. Fortunately, we had plenty of time in Chicago between flights. Others on the plane were not so fortunate.

The international flight was from Chicago to Zurich on United. It was unremarkable, but we didn't get much sleep on the flight. I actually slept more on the flight from Zurich to Palermo! Mary wasn't as lucky. But the view of the Swiss Alps at the beginning of that flight was quite stunning.

An OAT representative met us, as expected. We also connected with a couple with whom we have traveled previously on an OAT trip. Craig Dorsay and Suzy Driver are semi-retired attorneys from Portland, Oregon. We met them on our trip to Sri Lanka and South India several years ago, and have kept in touch. We've been looking for an opportunity to travel with them again, and planned this trip to sync with them.

The OAT rep led us to a van and packed the four of us in with an Italian driver for the trip to the hotel. The trip reminded us of why we do not drive in Italy. High speed close encounters with other vehicles and liberal use of the horn were hallmarks of this half hour journey.

Two of the Four Corners

Our hotel is right in the middle of the old, historic area of Palermo. We are just a few meters from "The Four Corners" where the city's main north/south street intersects with the main east/west street. In fact, the name of our hotel, in Italian, translates as "The Fifth Corner." They tell us that the hotel building was originally a palace. It's no longer palatial, but it is quite adequate.

We walked down the main drag toward the sea, seeing the old buildings, a large fountain in front of the city hall, several old churches, and eventually, the marina, and a nice park on the seashore.

Our walk ended just in time to make it back to the hotel for our "Welcome Drink" (a glass of wine provided by OAT) and the opportunity to meet most of our other group members for the first time. It appears to be a good group. Larger than most, it has the full OAT limit of 16 travelers with no dropouts. There are more men, more couples, and fewer single women than on most trips. Six of 16 are lawyers! Most had arrived the day before, but we were amazed at how little they had done and seen in the previous 24 hours.

Dinner was "on your own" tonight, but our tour leader, Flaminia, said that we could accompany her to a local restaurant where we could eat together on separate checks. It was an out-of-the-way outdoor place that we would never have found on our own. Appetizers were ordered to split among the table, and they just kept coming and coming. We didn't know how we would find room for the entrees that we had ordered -- but we managed. And the price was quite reasonable. For the first time in our memory, dollars are worth more than Euros, so the exchange is very favorable.

We were the first to cash out and head back to the hotel. The lack of sleep was catching up with us.