Saturday, June 4

I started that day with a rather typical Italian breakfast, biscuits, croissant, corn flakes – it was nice of the hotel to have opened up the restaurant half an hour before the official begin – I took the nicest spot on the terrace with splendid vistas.

Then I started exploring the town of Erice on foot – all the cobblestone streets, with lots of alleys with stairs would not have been feasible per bike. I had pretty much the entire town to myself - the tourists were still far away, but then everything was still solidly closed. I marveled at the two castles and the countless churches, stone houses. I did meet a group of young people - these were physics students, hearing advanced lectures on the structure of proteins, nothing less.

The descent was quite interesting – it was so steep there were switchbacks within the switchbacks. Considering the was road blocked to car traffic, there were quite a few cars running around, probably Italians consider such signs as pure recommendations. On the way down, I visited a cemetery with a church. Getting down to the bottom of the hill, I was now in Trapani, the beginning of the rather short west coast of the island. The town looked rather modern from the hill above, I did not visit it, just riding on the outskirts.

Close to town of Marausa, I went in for a swim - then found a workshop producing and repairing sails for boats and kite surfers, the reason being I thought to get a puncture in my mattress fixed. They were very friendly and took care of the issue within minutes. In the middle of the workshop was the largest table I have ever seen, measuring at least 100 square meters or not more, this is where the work was going on on the sails.

I rode through the town of Marsala, which was not all too pretty on the outskirts, but the center was impressive with multiple baroque churches.

I had lunch in a nice restaurant right on the beach, Le Isola Restaurant, they were a bit disappointed with me not ordering the catch of the day, I am not a big fan of sea food. They took care of my stuff while I went in for a swim after the food.After the swim, I continued southward, somewhere online I read about a nice beach, at Capo Feto. The road was at first pretty standard, then the asphalt ended and I was now riding multiple kilometers on an unpaved, sandy road full of potholes - but was absolutely worth it. The water had Caribbean colors, it was sooo refreshing after the nany miles of riding. Capo Feto - definitely has my seal of approval! The only problem was the fine sand stuck to my all my clothing and gear – there was no running water to splash it down.

In the evening I reached the town Mazara, which was even more impressive compared to Marsala. Lot of positive energy, many many wonderful churches, practically one every corner. Wow! My camera kept clicking.

I felt like camping out that evening and Google Maps promised a campground close to the beach some 15 kilometers away. It was getting dark, which was surprisingly early, as it was only around 9 pm. While I made good distance, the one troubling things was that the area seemed pitch dark. Good news was that I did find the campground, the bad news was that it was permanently closed. A nearby beach hotel was my next hope - closed, too. Then, on yet another sandy road, I found a camp for surfers – they were full of middle-aged, sporty Italians, speaking English. My charm did not work, they did not let me camp there, but told me the beach is right in front (I could hardly see anything), while it would be illegal, they would not mind me camping out there. I found a nice spot on the soft sand and had it not been for this one barking dog, I would have slept through the night, but then…you get the point.