Sunday, June 5

Needless to say, I went in from a swim with the rising sun...what a feeling, getting up in the morning, rolling out of m tent, directly into the clean blue waters.

By this time, I was pretty much done with the west coast and was now on the south coast, heading in an eastwardly direction. The road was extremely sandy, I often got stuck, the wheels (or my legs?) would not strong enough to lead me through the layer of sand.

As mentioned earlier, Google Maps is sometimes a curse, at times a blessing - this time it was the former. It directed me off the asphalt onto a dirt road. with a steep downwardly incline. I was somewhat sceptic, but followed it nevertheless. Not the best decision - at the bottom was a river, shallow, but very much wet. I had no intention of shoving my bike back where I came from, so took off my shoes and crossed the stream. I could not escape my faith, though, now the steep incline started on the other side, so that I really had to shove my bike. I think I spent like two hours with this short patch of road.

This suffering called for a nice swim at Contrada Fioro, I found, by accident, a beach that some Sicilians from Palermo called one of the nicest in entire Sicily. I had an amazing swim and at the end ordered a serving of cold melon, pineapple and cantaloupe - delicious! I got into a conversation with a couple some ten years older than me. The day before I spotted an ultralight trike flying low over the sea at Mazara, it turned out that it was the pilot of this I was talking to. Alas', he did not offer to take me on a ride, but still invited me for a coffee - thanks!

Later I made it to Sciacca, a town famous for ceramics. It was not as nice as Masara the previous evening, but still liked it.

Now I was getting close to the first Unesco destination, located in Argigento and was eager to get as close as possible to it. I made good distance, the road led me by Montallegro, a small town next to a hill. On the top of this hill are the remains of a sixteenth century village.

It was getting dark, but I pushed on. I booked a room in Realmonte, it proved to have had the best value for money ever - for just 22 euros, I got an entire 2-bedroom apartment, fully equipped and even with breakfast included. Great deal! Buona notte!