Cursing at myself for my hopeless inability to find a
place to drop the car in Cefalu, and fed up with cities, I head for the hills. Surely,
there is more elbowroom up in the mountain villages. I enjoy driving on the
winding mountain roads. I pass through several towns before stopping in
Nicosia, where I park (Yes! I found a spot!) and wander around.
The views are pretty and it is nice to get lunch and a
cup of coffee, but after a while I have had enough of traffic noise and people
so I leave for the countryside in the Madonie mountain range. Here, I
occasionally stop by the side of the road and go for a walk, taking in the
mountain air and enjoying the peace and quiet. A cuckoo bird cuckoos, cowbells
ring, and lizards rustle in the grass.
This area has mountains second only to Mount Etna in
height. Although much of it is covered in forest, there are also wide swathes
of farmland with olive groves, lemon trees, and cereals. Although it is still
only May, the grain has already been harvested and the bales of straw are being
brought home.
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It is soon time for me to drive back to the airport at
Catania to pick up a couple friends with whom I will spend the second week of
this May holiday. Many of the roads in Sicily are good. Signs with EU’s yellow
stars on a blue background are often prominent, which goes to show that Sicily
has been good at getting EU funding.
I choose not to travel on the sleek highways but
instead on the mountain bi-ways. They lead me up and down and around mountains,
and through villages that wrap themselves around the mountaintops. Each town
has a church and a town square. It is almost as if the size of the church is
inversely proportional to the size of the town.
