Coach tours

On my way back to my room after a long day, I was very surprised to see cheese being made in the open air in the market so I snatched a badly-composed shot with perspective I can't fathom. Anyway, what I was going to say before that...

I travel alone, I make my own plans, I get up and go if I don't like somewhere, I stay longer if I do, I chat with no-one or anyone, I eat what I want when I want... So coach tours are not my thing - though I did have an exceptionally good one to the Scottish Highlands, and there's no way I'd ever have visited Libya if it wasn't for going on a tour with my mum (which was actually what made me want to come to Sicily). But there is no public transport to Segesta's Greek temple and Roman amphitheatre so I booked a day coach tour that also took in the salt pans south of Trapani and the 'beautiful medieval hilltop town of Erice'.

Oh dear. Two hours may just about have been long enough at Segesta if we had been told the times of the site's shuttle bus between the two parts of the site but I lost so much time waiting for buses (which always turned up in pairs, as there were so many people waiting - may I suggest a logistical improvement to the service, please?) to ensure I wasn't late for our tour coach's departure time, that it was hard to focus on the site. That said, I loved the temple. It reminded me of Paestum and brought back a lot of memories of my hitching trip in 1974. My friend Jane and I escaped a difficult situation in Herculaneum the previous night, arrived in Paestum - just a temple in fields, not a tourist site - very, very early in the morning and cooked scrambled eggs on a camping gas stove right by the temple. I'm sure that would be impossible now. (I have diaries and faded photos of that extraordinary trip - perhaps one day I'll backblip, if Blip goes back that far.)

OK, back on the coach.

We had 15 minutes at the salt pans so we could take photos of... not sure, salty water? a broken windmill? flamingos almost out of sight?

Then Erice. So many guides and blogs have recommended it but it is completely soulless. I wondered whether I was just in a contrary mood but I met a kindred spirit on the bus and he agreed: a not very interesting town that is so well marketed that coffee, and probably everything else as well, costs twice what it costs elsewhere. Of course we were delivered there just as everyone was mid-day hungry. The saving grace was that there was a car-racing event on the roads around the town which meant our tour bus couldn't get up there so we had to pay an extra 11€ to get the cable car up. Fabulous views over the salt pans and out to the islands. And I discovered that, finally, I can ride in a cable without panic! That's taken me a long time.

I planned most of this trip two months ago, and booked accommodation, guessing how long I'd want to be in each place. I didn't book travel (except long-distance) so as to give myself more flexibility about exactly how long I spent in each place. But because I wasn't sure how I'd get to Segesta nor whether I'd need to stay overnight, I have no accommodation booked for the next two nights. So I spent this evening making sure I wouldn't be stranded on a station bench (yes, it's happened, but a very long time ago). My itinerary is exclusively to coastal towns and I feel in need of hills so I tried to see if I could get to Enna, recommended by a choir member. Well, it took me several hours to work out the realities of Sunday travel and to check that wherever I went there was a possible and moderately sensible route to my next booked place, and of course to ensure there was affordable accommodation. I booked the one Sunday train to Enna, booked a room, asked my host how to get to hers from the station (6km away, which is more than I want to walk with baggage) and was a bit taken aback when she said it was Sunday so... nothing. She recommended the bus so I grappled with the SAIS website and booked a bus 6 hours earlier than the train (cancel lazy morning in Palermo). Huge credit to the efficient Trenitalia app which allowed me to cancel the train and claim a refund within seconds.

So, set for the hills tomorrow.

Extras:
- Curves, ancient and modern
- Temple and rock