Enna

You probably know what these are straight away. But I got out of the bus into the cold wind in the hilltop town that is the geographic centre of Sicily and the highest regional capital in Italy, and just stared. So many blind houses! So tightly packed! What? Why?

As I'd booked accommodation for the next two nights before changing my plans and deciding to come by bus, I had a much longer trudge to get to my base than I usually do. So, plenty of laden time while reading the map and noticing the architecture around me to ponder those thin houses and still fail to understand.

Then I forgot all about it as Maria welcomed me effusively, lent me a guide book in English and, imagining I understood all her recommendations for visits, praised my Italian.

She left. I slowed down. I discovered that she'd left me coffee-making stuff. I made coffee.

I'm two minutes walk from the cathedral, closed, like all the churches, because it's Sunday (?!), and the things to see are either left from there (most of the town) or right. I want a break from visiting monuments, and left included the Belvedere (as well as those weird non-houses) so that clinched it.

The superb view of the nearby hilltop town, Calascibetta (2nd extra), made me wonder why I wasn't staying there, then reminded me of the old conundrum: would you rather live in a beautiful house with a view of an ugly house, or vice versa? (Not that Enna is ugly.)

I made my destination the furthest landmark on the map, the octagonal Tower of Frederick II, and meandered towards it through Enna's deserted Sunday streets. I passed a stunningly ill-conceived set of steps (1st extra), with ugly concrete bowls of drooping plants (as different as could be from Cefalu) where the risers had been decorated with a plastic print of someone's crocheted blanket, which was now falling off in chunks. Just no.

At the tower, I must have been a grave disappointment to the guy who'd probably spent all day alone in his little wooden ticket shed, waiting in vain for people to pay 2€ to go in. I rested on the bench opposite the entrance then left. I didn't want to go in. I didn't want to climb any more steps. I just wanted to look at the octagonal tower. From there it wasn't too far to the dead houses and when I imposed a satellite layer on my map I realised that that's exactly what they are. It's a cemetery. But you knew that already, didn't you?


Extras:
- Dismal steps
- View of Calascibetta


Some of you will know that my laptop stopped working properly a few weeks ago. I didn't replace it in the end because it juddered back into life. But I've just realised that the problem is that the battery is not taking charge and is now not allowing mains current through. It's a real struggle to get photos from my SD card to the laptop and I can't really edit. So if I go quiet, that's almost certainly the reason. I'll backblip after I get home.