Serenity: Road Trip Around Western Sicily part 1

Road Trip Around Western Sicily

Starting from Licata we headed north to the hill town of Enna in the centre of Sicily.

One of the few remaining towers of the 20 erected by Fredric at the castle of Lombardia. The castle was used by Romans, then Byzantines and then Normans. In the 20th & 21st century it has been used as a theatre - known as Teatro più vicino alle Stelle ("The Nearest Theatre to the Stars") Quite appropriate considering how high it is compared to the surrounded landscape.

From the tower we could look across to a snow capped Mount Etna - 67kms away as the crow flies! We were lucky the earlier cloud cleared to reveal this amazing view.

There are a number of these hilltop towns which rise very steeply from the plains (and involve some fairly hairy driving!)

A beautiful statue in the Church of St Salvatore in Enna

Cefalu

From Enna we continued north to the coastal town of Cefalu and booked into the Bohemia bed and breakfast.

In the evening we went for a wander around town and came across the old laundry.

It was the African conquerors who built so much of Sicily’s first hygienic plumbing, in early Medieval times. They constructed public laundries all around Sicily, and many of them were used until the 1950’s, when Sicilians started to have running water in their houses.

The medieval laundry sits in the very centre of town, built over the river which was corralled into channels which filled a series of rectangular basins. The women would begin downstream, soaping up their clothes, then move to a sink upstream to rinse them.

The Cathedral in Cefalu

Apparently this was built by King Roger II in 1131 as a thank you to God for saving him from a storm at sea. He was washed up onto the town beach here.