We presented ourselves this morning at 9:30 at the Cantina Florio for an informative tour on the marsala wine they produce. The level of difficulty on the tour turned out to be an approximate 9.4, since we discovered after we arrived that the full hour would be in Italian!
Great wakeup call, I might add. We understood a fair amount, and got to smell the cork out of a barrel from 1944, so all in all the tour was a success. And we definitely understood the tasting portion, wherin we tried a little superdry marsala and a little sweet. Marsala has only been made since the 1830s, and production was started by an Englishman, which came as a bit of a surprise. Also, marsala likes to be exposed to air – again, very strange.
By about 10:45, we left with a little more knowledge of Marsala wine and our very own (cheap) bottle. You can’t not buy Marsala in Marsala, right?
After a brief stop in town to grab a very late breakfast pastry and cappuccino,
the gastronomic tour continued with a visit to the salt flats south of Trápani, where some of the world’s best salt is produced. As soon as we got out of Marsala, we started to see giant piles of salt protected by shingles. A strange sight, dotting the roadside.
There is a brand-spanking-new Salt Museum housed in a windmill on the coast road between Marsala and Trápani, which really turned out to be interesting – we learned the specific use of all of the different drying pools, from largest to smallest (least to most concentrated), as well as the use of the windmills. They turn an Archimedes screw to get water uphill from the giant collection pool to the first salinization pool.
They did have an informative video in English, though afterwards the actual mechanics of the mill were explained by a lovely older man who spoke Italian and French… no English. Today stretched our nascent Italian to the breaking point, I tell you what.
(The man did go into a bit of an odd digression, when we admired the museum’s Nativity scene, saying that in northern Italy they have Christmas trees because the Muslims are chasing out all of the Nativity. I guess lots of people think we’re in the middle of a war on Christmas. Their presepe, what the Italians call their ubiquitous nativity scenes, was made out of salt paste painted to look like native coral.)
Of course, we bought about 10 pounds of salt that we now have to lug around for the next three weeks. Good salt, though.
After admiring the salt ponds some more, we drove towards Trápani with the intention of going past it to Érice, a mountain town overlooking the entire region. We got very lost, but only for 30 minutes or so, before finding a sign pointing us in the right direction and shooting directly up a narrow mountain road towards the town.
Érice is a very old town. Its strategic location, and view of miles and miles of surrounding coutryside (apparently, on clear days you can see Tunisia!), combined with the relative flatness of the surrounding area, make it totally stunning.
The collection of ancient streets and churches doesn’t hurt, either.
We did share the town with a tour group we kept running into, as well as a few Italian families, but all in all there weren’t too many people around.
Everyone in the shops was really friendly, as well – in a small caffeteria, we tried to order a caffé doppio (double espresso) and had a bit of a communication problem. Somehow, it ended with us explaining to the confused barista that, though we are American, we didn’t want the Italian version of caffé Americano. She asked just what that was, anyway, and when we told her that caffé Americano is just espresso with water added, the look of disgust on her face (Like, why would you DO that?) completely cracked us up.
When the sun started to go down, we left Érice to see one last town – San Vito lo Capo, a beach town back towards Palermo. We apparently are cultivating a love for off-season beach towns.
We traveled through Purgatory on our way to San Vito lo Capo. Leaving Purgatorio!
Though the town itself was not too much to look at, it sits on a stunning bit of land that juts out into the water. Large rocky hills tower over it.
The sunset was spectacular.
With the sun now setting in earnest, we drove back the hour and a half to Marsala (including 30 minutes of being lost in Trápani). We had dinner at the strangest place, a ristorante and pizzeria named Nashville, which was completely packed with locals and fluorescent light.
I finally got to try a specialty of Sicily, pasta with sea urchin roe. I’ve only had sea urchin roe twice, both times raw, and I was not a fan – but cooked it’s really yummy. Especially cooked with lots of oil and butter.
And that’s another day… tomorrow, on to Agrigento and Greek ruins… and our first New Year without sushi in 6 years! (Our traditions are short-lived, but hey… we’re young.
Good night from Marsala!
