Today we took another day off and went to the beach. Vacation can be exhausting!
We slept in a little this morning - we've been getting up early most days and since restaurants around here don't even open until around 8 PM, we haven't been getting to bed until midnight or later, so we've been needing some extra sleep. We had breakfast at our hotel and chatted with Tanner (or Turner) and learned about some Italian politics and Sicilian ways of life, particularly in Palermo. One example: when we were walking home yesterday we noticed there were guys on every street directing people where to park. Once a car pulled into a spot, they told the guy how long they'd be there and then paid him a small fee. Turns out each guy has "his" block, and basically he knows when cars are coming and going and can therefore pack in as many cars as possible (therefore making as much money from the fees he collects), but it also results in really efficient parking management. We agreed that at first we would be very hesitant to give a stranger money, but its also a way to have your car "protected". Its an interesting idea, but takes some getting used to.
After breakfast we caught a bus that took us 20 minutes out of the city to a mini-paradise known as Mondello. Its a small city with a beautiful bay of water surrounded on both sides by mountains - Monte Pellegrino and Monte Gallo, and its completely impossible to understand how this place can exist so close to Palermo. Understandably though, its where Palermo residents go during the summer, but today it was pretty empty and almost no one was in the water. This was one of the few sandy beaches we've seen on this trip (and we agree that pebbly beaches have a lot going for them - sand gets everywhere!) - but this was not your regular sandy beach. The sand was actually really tiny pieces of shells, which made it really stick to you, unlike sand which you can usually wipe off pretty easily. Anyway, that was an easy issue to write-off because the water was incredible. The temperature was perfect, the colors were amazing, it was crystal clear, there were no jellyfish (well, I saw one), and it was basically a huge sand bar. You could go out about 100 feet from shore and the water was still only four feet deep. There weren't many fish to see, and all the fish that were there were white, just like the sandy bottom. I went out and swam laps for about 30 minutes while Mike relaxed, and then we both took a nap. We left the beach for a while to grab lunch, and then went back to repeat the morning. I swam for another 45 minutes, and then we just relaxed until about 5:30 PM. It was just perfect.
We walked around to find a map of the city so that we could find a restaurant that came highly recommended (thanks Michael and Sylvie!). We walked along the beach promenade as we waited for our reservation time to arrive, and its really the first time we've seen so many people out doing exercise - mostly runners, but also some cyclists. We also saw a couple of bats flying around.
Tucked away in a residential neighborhood we had dinner at the classiest place of our trip, Bye Bye Blues. For the foodies out there: we both tried the starter that the restaurant provides to all customers - a small piece of octopus, a fish ball, and a mini pizza. Then we had a cheese flan appetizer plate with an assortment of jams and honeys, two home-made spaghetti dishes - one with fried zucchinis and another with tuna tartare and lime peels, and then an amazing chocolate dessert with an assortment of other chocolaty goodies.
We took the bus home and worked on the only low-point of an otherwise perfect day: for some reason our camera lens has decided to also go on vacation and no longer wants to auto-focus (it works with our telephoto lens so pretty sure it isn't the camera, just the lens that came with it). Which is why there are so few pictures for today. Hopefully we can get things up and running by tomorrow!
Gelato Gusti per il Giorno:
Mike - Pistacchio e Cooky
Aviva - Anguria e Melone (watermelon and cantaloupe)
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