We arrive right on time today, at 9am, and dock a little bit further down the pier than we are used to in Messina. We figure this gives us an advantage as we both remember the Hertz office being to our left on Garibaldi, and this dockage puts us closer. But, the GPS locator shows Hertz to the right of the pier, about 1K down the street. Huh? That doesn’t seem right, but it is what both TIM and Google maps show, so guess we’re now further from Hertz than we thought, and are going on a search expedition. Oh well, just additional miles to add to our daily steps.
Once again, its an incredibly beautiful day – light wind, in the 50’s now, warming up to low 70’s. We’ve been so lucky so far with weather, and today is important as we are driving around the northern tip of the island, where the straights are located and then to Milazzo – the peninsula facing the outlying islands of Vulcano, Lipari and Salina.
We make our way down Garibaldi, to the obviously relocated Hertz. For certain, we’ve not picked up a car from this location before. After the paperwork and credit card exchange, the agent takes us out on the street, gives us the keys, tells us the car is a Clio and vaguely waves his hand saying the car is to the right and the left around the corner. Huh? Really? Ok – here comes the great rental car hunt. The car is literally a block and a half away, on a completely different street and totally out of sight from the agency. Wild. Not to mention, it is slammed into a teeny space with barely any room between the other cars, and there are cars double parked up and down the street. Welcome to Sicily!
Ed superbly manages to extract the little Clio from the vice grip of parked cars and we begin our Sicilian adventure. First stop is what I have marked as Torre Peloro – but that is also referred to as Torre Faro – a lighthouse and power line tower on the point of Sicily that is the closest point to the mainland. TIM doesn’t have Torre Peloro – which is the actual tower, but he does have Torre Faro which we figure is the lighthouse. So we follow directions and aim toward Torre Faro.
The roads are typical Sicilian – small and narrow, with cars stuffed everywhere. And I mean everywhere! They are parked at right angles to curbs, double parked in just about every location and stopped anywhere on the street. The first 20 minutes or so of driving is definitely treacherous for other vehicles. This being a Saturday doesn’t help as most of the population is apparently out for coffee or the morning markets.
Shortly after leaving the hustle and bustle of Messina, the traffic thins out as we follow the road along the coast. We can see the Tower up ahead, just as TIM tells us to turn off the main road and start a circumnavigational route to Torre Faro. But as we are driving through narrow little village streets, we arrive at a wide plaza type area in town and TIM says we are at our destination. There is no tower here! Just a little wider part of the road with a beach and some playground equipment on the water. We’ve got cars behind us, so we can’t really stop to get our bearings or park, and head on trying to read the TIM map and find a way back. We take one road that appears to go through to the return route, but it dead ends. Darn it. But, as it is a dead end it gives us a chance to reconnoiter and figure out that Torre Faro is the town we just passed through, not the light house and that Peloro is the power line tower – but as it isn’t on the map, we can’t use TIM to help find it. So we decide to abort the tower and begin to head on to Milazzo around the coast.
As we are navigating our way out of town – slightly unaided by TIM, we actually do pass the lighthouse, which ends up being a military facility and non-accessible to the public. Guess my research wasn’t exactly accurate since I had read about visiting the power line tower and the lighthouse. Sigh.
But as a bonus, we do find Lago di Faro, a peaceful lake hidden in the midst of the villages and towns here at the end of Sicily.
Walking around a small portion of the lake makes for a nice little driving break, and we are ready to get back in the car and make our way to Milazzo. We have to cheat TIM and put in waypoints as destinations because we want to drive around the panoramic road on the coast to Milazzo, not the highway through Messina. This strategy works well, and we successfully drive the coast road, gazing at the changing vegetation (including cactus! Again!) as we move around to the other side of the island.
After driving through the little towns we picked as waypoints, we can finally put in Capo Messina as a destination, and use the highway the rest of the way to the outskirts of Milazzo, then thread our way into the busy streets of the town. This is the ferry port for all the outlying islands, and as it is Saturday, we know it is going to be crazy, busy – and we are right. The little road we take to cross the city dumps us out right at the ferry terminal square that is teeming with people and parked cars – everywhere – there is not a parking spot to be had. One of the restaurants we have chosen is right in the middle of this hub-bub, and we don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of finding parking for lunch – oh well, we have alternative options, and as usual, it isn’t even close to food time – so we continue our journey through the port area and up around the cape on the Panoramic road. And panoramic it is – around every turn is another stunning view of the cape and the water.
On our way up the coast, we pass the other restaurant option, perched high above the sea – with great views, and even more importantly, a parking lot! Ok – this will work on the way back.
We arrive at the cape with little incident, except that contrary to everything I had read, they have now closed the path off to traffic, and thus, we overshot the parking area at the top of the path. We end up turning around in a resort driveway (as do most of the other people who are coming here (which makes us feel less like navigational dummies). Finally parking, we take a few photos overlooking the peninsula from the car park area.
Since it is still early, we decide to have cappuccino at the Cafe di Faro restaurant at the start of the path. I’ve read that it is the typical touristy overpriced restaurant (and why now? location, location, location). But as we’re just having cappuccino, we figure it will be fine. And it is – a great place to hang out on the terrace, watch everyone coming up – and passing the parking lot – and just enjoy the weather and scenery. The only snag was when I went to pay, and only had a 20 Euro note. The waiter kept saying Pici, Pici – but I was clueless as to what he meant. I finally figured out that he didn’t have change and wanted me to give him a smaller bill! Aha – handled – and off we go on our hike.
Our aim is for the Piscina Venere – Venus’ Pools – at the end of a 2k walk at the edge of Cape Milazzo. They are supposed to be incredible, for the views and to swim. Of course we aren’t swimming, but we’ll take the views! The path starts out in down a narrow track lined with gorgeous vines, changing color with the season.
We veer off at the fenced off lighthouse and work our way through an olive grove bordered by the ruins of an old stone building and the lighthouse in the distance.
At the end of the olive grove, we get our first glimpse of the stunning views and crystal clear waters here at the cape. Out in the distance are the islands of Lipari and Vulcani.
It is fabulous out here. The path is easy to navigate, the view get better by the minute and we take our time heading down toward the pools, stopping often to gaze out at the crystal blue waters and fantastic views.
One of the best parts of this whole hike is we are virtually alone here. There are only a few other people on the path, which makes it feel like we are alone out at the end of the island with no one around.
About 15 minutes into the hike, we round a corner and get our first view of the pools down below us.
Beautiful. But not worth hiking further down to get a close up. There are a couple of people down there doing a photo shoot (it looks like) and more on the way – so we just take pictures from up above – probably better views anyway…
…and keep walking to the end of the cape for a view of the coast of Sicily.
There the bust of Pippo del Bono awaits. Who is Pippo del Bono you ask? Not a clue, obviously someone important to either Milazzo or the park area here – but nonetheless, his face looks out along the water at a prominent point on the Cape.
Turning back, we retrace our steps up, up, up – literally on steps to the top of the walk.
We had wanted to try to go around on the other side of the Cape, and walk down by the water, arriving back at the car park via a huge staircase. But we can’t seem to find the trailhead. There is one little walkway that leads down the side of the steep Cape, but it looks more like a Goat Trail than a real walkway, so we play it safe and stick to the path we know.
Now it is on to lunch. We make one error on our navigation back down the hill, we miss the first turn off and end up driving through these narrow little streets for a good kilometer before being able to turn around and head back to the panoramic road.
But, we finally make it, and make it back to Ristorante Al Mandorlo on the side of the hill overlooking the bay. We are the only people here, and hope the restaurant is open, since it is after 12:00pm. We sort of wander around the lot, then we head up to the front door which says it is open. The place is all set up, but utterly deserted. I sort of stroll through and interrupt the owners (we think the owners) having their lunch. I tell them it is no hurry, but one of the guys gets up and escorts us to a table out on the terrace overlooking the water. Beautiful.
No English here – or at least not a whole lot anyway! So, we sit down and relax, and have a very leisurely lunch of shared antipasti, ravioli con zucchine e gamberi for me (real, fresh, authentic – way better than the Maltese version) and salcicce for Ed. All washed down with a big Messina beer and nice copa di vino.
I love it when a plan works out!
After lunch, we successfully navigate our way back through Milazzo, where there are more parking spaces available now than earlier this morning. Go figure. Saturday morning markets, maybe? Anyway, we easily traverse the city streets and make our way out onto the highway back to Messina. We stop for gas at a 24/7 unattended station and finally figure out how to work the automatic pumps. They are a tad confusing, but we’ve mastered them now and are quite proud of ourselves!
It is a quick 30 minute ride back to Messina where we amazingly find a parking space right outside the Hertz office. Nice. With plenty of time to spare, we wander down Corso Cavour looking for a cafe for an afternoon beverage, helping a nice British couple on our ship find the cathedral square. Surprisingly there is nothing on Corso Cavour, which is the main shopping drag. Weird. We don’t necessarily want to go the cafes right by the port because they’ll be packed an overpriced, but as we start to head that way, we spy a little place on the corner by the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele. Al Piccolo Caffe is the right move – nice wine and beer and reasonably priced. We hang out with the locals watching the HoHo buses cruise by (completely empty) and just relax in the little patch of sunshine we’ve taken over.
Next we head to the cathedrale where we are in time to hear the 3 o’clock bell ringing, and watch the golden figurines do their dance.
Since we are already here, we explore the cathedrale, with its cool bas relief figurines on the exterior, painted wood beamed ceilings and soaring white washed walls with marble archways.
We stroll back to the ship, happy with our day and looking forward to the last port on this leg of the cruise – Naples.
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