Travel to Enna
Apr. 24th, 2014 02:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blatherskiteOur goal the next day was to travel to Enna, in central Sicily. The city is interesting in its own right (at a high elevation above the surrounding countryside, it too has a castle) and has a few interesting historical or archeological or architectural sites, including a big church erected to commemorate St. Francis of Assisi. But it will also serve as a central point for at least two trips into the surrounding countryside. The first will be to the famous villa and floor murals at Villa Casa di Romani. The second will be to the Nebrodi nature reserve, on the north shore of the island. We hope to do some day hikes, and visit some of the scenic local villages.
We took the bus to Catania airport to pick up our rented car, which will carry us from place to place during the last 9 days of our stay. The bus trip was easy and pleasant, but getting our car was quite the opposite. We'd incorrectly assumed that since the best price we'd negotiated was from Hertz, we'd receive a professional reception and be on our way in no time. Not so much. Despite there being three people behind the counter, it took more than half an hour to process the four people in front of us in the line. The clerk who finally served us, a guy named Simone, was friendly and helpful, but was clearly the only one who had the faintest idea what he was doing, and everyone else had to wait for him to explain what needed to be done, then wait again for him to confirm they'd done it right. Then one of them left for lunch.
When our paperwork was finally complete, it turned out that they'd decided to upgrade us from a subcompact car to a Volvo minivan... way too large to be practical given the tight roads in most Sicilian cities and the difficulty finding a parking place. So I ran back into the rental place, and insisted that they give us a smaller car. Simone again came to our rescue, let me butt into line (ahead of a crowd of renters that now stretched out the door), and sent me back out to get the new car. The woman in the parking lot, who was responsible for handing out the cars, told us it would be 10 to 15 minutes before our car was ready; we figured that would be optimistic, but settled down to wait, not really having any choice. When our number finally came up in the waiting list, she presented our car to us... and again, it was not exactly tiny. More like a full-size car. But as it was smaller, and as we didn't want to have to go through the whole drill again and further irritate the people waiting hopelessly in line, we shut up and agreed to take the car.
It was looking, more than an hour later, like we'd actually escape the rental lot, but some guardian angel prompted Shoshanna to compare the license numbers of the cars being lined up for renters with the number in our paperwork... and she noticed that the car we'd been assigned was parked right in front of us, but was being loaded up by a young man who'd been behind us in line. We rushed over and explained the problem: yes, he had the right keys for the car, but if the paperwork said that he had a different car, there'd be hell to pay when he tried to return the car. We'd have even worse problems because we're planning to drop the car at the airport before the Hertz office opens, and I'm sure they'd be seriously dismayed --- and punish us accordingly -- if we returned the "wrong" car. He agrred that it would be best to resolve the problem now. So I ran back into the office, yelled (mostly politely) at the woman who'd made the mistake, and she revised the paperwork for the third time. She eventually handed us the revised papers, said "don't worry, the car is in perfect shape", and ran back into the office.
Not being fools, we looked over the car. Sure enough, many scratches, dents, a gap in the body over the wheel well, and even cigarette burns that penetrated right to the stuffing of two seats. Back I went for the fourth time, and hauled her out to mark all the damage on the rental form and sign it.
Our patience now exhausted, we took the car and ran. Airport signage was primitive, so it took two tries to escape the airport, but we finally did get onto the Autostrade and on our way to Enna. It's been several years since I last drove a car with a clutch, but I managed it well enough. It was a bit disorienting because it's a six-speed transmission, and the gear changes didn't follow the same trajectory as in any other car I've driven (for example, 5th and 6th gears are way the hell and gone to the right), but I eventually figured things out. This was good, because Enna is way up at the top of a hill, and although there are fewer switchbacks and much easier driving than at Taormina, it still wasn't trivial for my first time in ages driving stickshift.
With help from Shoshanna and a GPS she'd downloaded for her iPhone, we made it to the B&B just before the main rush hour. Driving in Enna isn't terrible under those conditions, but figuring out where to park isn't obvious. So I found an open space in the road near the B&B, and Shoshanna ran in to get our host or hostess and figure out where we should park. The hostess was busy, and sent out her father, Fabio, who had next to no English. My Italian has become good enough, at least for such limited purposes, that he was able to tell me everything I needed to get to a safe parking space. Then the next problem emerged: trying to get the accursèd vehicle into reverse so I could get it into a parking space in the lot. There was a weird trigger device on the stickshift, which I correctly figured out was required to let the lever shift into reverse, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how. Turns out that in addition to holding down the trigger, you had to move the shift lever about twice as far to the left as I expected. Fabio kindly helped me, and then seeing how frustrated I had become, offered to finish the parking maneuver. I gratefully accepted.
We then walked about 100 m to a second B&B; our original room in the Proserpine B&B was unavailable because they were having unspecified bathroom problems that would take some time to fix. They put us up in their second B&B, Il Centro Sicilia, instead. It's a nice place: large, airy, with a great shower and a nice view out over the rooftops. If you're paying attention, you'll note the catch: yes, once again, we were four floors up. Sigh.
I'm not sure whether they make this offer to all of their guests, or whether Fabio had seen my frustration, but he suggested that we come over to the Proserpine after we had unpacked for a few glasses of wine and some snacks. We gratefully accepted. Proserpine is also lovely, with very old (several centuries) stone walls on the ground floor and breakfast area, and the wine was very nice: Lissandrello, a Sicilian cabernet sauvignon. We'll have to look this one up when we're back home. There was also nicely smoked olives that were not too salty, and some very good prosciutto.
Dinner was at a small local pizza place. Wood-fired pizza is lovely, and it made for a nice end to our day, and there was enough left over for lunch tomorrow too.
Insert contented sigh here, as we prepare for bed and another day's adventures.
We took the bus to Catania airport to pick up our rented car, which will carry us from place to place during the last 9 days of our stay. The bus trip was easy and pleasant, but getting our car was quite the opposite. We'd incorrectly assumed that since the best price we'd negotiated was from Hertz, we'd receive a professional reception and be on our way in no time. Not so much. Despite there being three people behind the counter, it took more than half an hour to process the four people in front of us in the line. The clerk who finally served us, a guy named Simone, was friendly and helpful, but was clearly the only one who had the faintest idea what he was doing, and everyone else had to wait for him to explain what needed to be done, then wait again for him to confirm they'd done it right. Then one of them left for lunch.
When our paperwork was finally complete, it turned out that they'd decided to upgrade us from a subcompact car to a Volvo minivan... way too large to be practical given the tight roads in most Sicilian cities and the difficulty finding a parking place. So I ran back into the rental place, and insisted that they give us a smaller car. Simone again came to our rescue, let me butt into line (ahead of a crowd of renters that now stretched out the door), and sent me back out to get the new car. The woman in the parking lot, who was responsible for handing out the cars, told us it would be 10 to 15 minutes before our car was ready; we figured that would be optimistic, but settled down to wait, not really having any choice. When our number finally came up in the waiting list, she presented our car to us... and again, it was not exactly tiny. More like a full-size car. But as it was smaller, and as we didn't want to have to go through the whole drill again and further irritate the people waiting hopelessly in line, we shut up and agreed to take the car.
It was looking, more than an hour later, like we'd actually escape the rental lot, but some guardian angel prompted Shoshanna to compare the license numbers of the cars being lined up for renters with the number in our paperwork... and she noticed that the car we'd been assigned was parked right in front of us, but was being loaded up by a young man who'd been behind us in line. We rushed over and explained the problem: yes, he had the right keys for the car, but if the paperwork said that he had a different car, there'd be hell to pay when he tried to return the car. We'd have even worse problems because we're planning to drop the car at the airport before the Hertz office opens, and I'm sure they'd be seriously dismayed --- and punish us accordingly -- if we returned the "wrong" car. He agrred that it would be best to resolve the problem now. So I ran back into the office, yelled (mostly politely) at the woman who'd made the mistake, and she revised the paperwork for the third time. She eventually handed us the revised papers, said "don't worry, the car is in perfect shape", and ran back into the office.
Not being fools, we looked over the car. Sure enough, many scratches, dents, a gap in the body over the wheel well, and even cigarette burns that penetrated right to the stuffing of two seats. Back I went for the fourth time, and hauled her out to mark all the damage on the rental form and sign it.
Our patience now exhausted, we took the car and ran. Airport signage was primitive, so it took two tries to escape the airport, but we finally did get onto the Autostrade and on our way to Enna. It's been several years since I last drove a car with a clutch, but I managed it well enough. It was a bit disorienting because it's a six-speed transmission, and the gear changes didn't follow the same trajectory as in any other car I've driven (for example, 5th and 6th gears are way the hell and gone to the right), but I eventually figured things out. This was good, because Enna is way up at the top of a hill, and although there are fewer switchbacks and much easier driving than at Taormina, it still wasn't trivial for my first time in ages driving stickshift.
With help from Shoshanna and a GPS she'd downloaded for her iPhone, we made it to the B&B just before the main rush hour. Driving in Enna isn't terrible under those conditions, but figuring out where to park isn't obvious. So I found an open space in the road near the B&B, and Shoshanna ran in to get our host or hostess and figure out where we should park. The hostess was busy, and sent out her father, Fabio, who had next to no English. My Italian has become good enough, at least for such limited purposes, that he was able to tell me everything I needed to get to a safe parking space. Then the next problem emerged: trying to get the accursèd vehicle into reverse so I could get it into a parking space in the lot. There was a weird trigger device on the stickshift, which I correctly figured out was required to let the lever shift into reverse, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how. Turns out that in addition to holding down the trigger, you had to move the shift lever about twice as far to the left as I expected. Fabio kindly helped me, and then seeing how frustrated I had become, offered to finish the parking maneuver. I gratefully accepted.
We then walked about 100 m to a second B&B; our original room in the Proserpine B&B was unavailable because they were having unspecified bathroom problems that would take some time to fix. They put us up in their second B&B, Il Centro Sicilia, instead. It's a nice place: large, airy, with a great shower and a nice view out over the rooftops. If you're paying attention, you'll note the catch: yes, once again, we were four floors up. Sigh.
I'm not sure whether they make this offer to all of their guests, or whether Fabio had seen my frustration, but he suggested that we come over to the Proserpine after we had unpacked for a few glasses of wine and some snacks. We gratefully accepted. Proserpine is also lovely, with very old (several centuries) stone walls on the ground floor and breakfast area, and the wine was very nice: Lissandrello, a Sicilian cabernet sauvignon. We'll have to look this one up when we're back home. There was also nicely smoked olives that were not too salty, and some very good prosciutto.
Dinner was at a small local pizza place. Wood-fired pizza is lovely, and it made for a nice end to our day, and there was enough left over for lunch tomorrow too.
Insert contented sigh here, as we prepare for bed and another day's adventures.