Segesta

We set the alarm and were up about 7:00a.m. We enjoyed our last breakfast at the hotel and were soon on our way to pick up the rental car. I went about 400 feet in the opposite direction to grab a cache and then back tracked to Budget Rent-A-Car. I had found a car online that was a manual shift for only $19/day, however upon talking to the representative she offered an automatic. I asked if it was for the same price and she said it was, but when I signed the paperwork it was for more (about the same price I saw online for an automatic). I decided to just go with it, and I’m glad I did. Even though my first two cars were manual, it really is easier to drive an automatic in a foreign country. I suppose now isn’t the time to be cheap. It is a four door smart car that is white with black accents. I said it looked like a panda bear, so we have now affectionately named the car the pandamobile. We headed back to the hotel and I sat in the car double parked as Tom went upstairs to grab out luggage and to check-out. Once again the owner was awesome and helped Tom carry the luggage down 4 flights of stairs.

We carefully navigated the streets of downtown Palermo avoiding motorcycles, pedestrians, and anything else that happened to jump in front of the car. We got on the autostrada and were on our way to Segesta. Segesta contains an archaeological park with a temple and Greek theater that were built around 418BC.

The GPS got us to the temple but we were slightly confused by the parking situation. It looked like there was a lot, but it was gated off. At first we wondered if the park was closed due to lunch, but it was only 11:30. A bus was sitting nearby and it honked at us, which we assumed meant to get out of it’s way. We went down the road further and didn’t see anything so we turned around and headed back to where we saw the parking. The bus was still there so Tom got out of the car and asked the bus driver where to park. He told him that we should follow him. We followed him about a mile down the road from the direction we first came, and found the public parking. The bus he was driving was the shuttle bus that took you to the entrance of the park. We later discovered the parking lot we found was the handicapped parking area.

So we paid our 5 Euro for the parking and got on the bus to wait for it to shuttle us back up the hill. When we got back up the hill we saw another ticket counter, which I had assumed was for tickets for a shuttle bus that would take you up the hill to the Greek theater. So after attempting to find a geocache in the ticket area, and not finding it, and using the restroom, Tom and I headed up the hill to the temple, only to find another ticket area where they were collecting tickets. So there it was. I assumed wrong for what the ticket counter was for off the shuttle bus area. So back down we went to the ticket counter and paid 6 Euro per person for entrance to see the temple and theater.

There were very few people at the temple and we enjoyed taking our time snapping photos and enjoying the sun. We hadn’t bought the tickets for the shuttle bus up the hill to the theater and it wasn’t at the bottom of the hill ready to go either, so we decided to hike it. It was quite the steep climb (probably a little more then a half of mile), but we made it before the bus ever made it back down the hill and back, proving that we had made the right decision by not waiting for it.

The theater was an impressive sight with an even more impressive view. We took a few minutes to sit and relax and enjoy come Combos and a Powerade just as the people did over 2000 years ago. There was a geocache nearby that I attempted to find, but I couldn’t locate it. I was super bummed that I was 0 for 2 at this location. We took our time and eventually made our way back down the hill (which was 100 times easier then the climb up). The trail we took down led us right back to the ticket counter. I pulled out my phone to try the cache here one more time and I had much better luck. I had found it and Tom was only a few feet away and he said “The bus is here!” so I scrambled to put everything back just to find out he had been messing with me. Since I had an extra minute I grabbed one of the travel bugs my mom had given me to put in a cache and I dropped it in just as the bus really was pulling up. We hopped on and went back to the parking area.

My original plan for the day included the trip to Segesta, a stop in Erice to see a castle and to drive through Marsala. I didn’t really look at the clock and just started heading toward Erice. Erice is on top of a very large hill and after we made it to the top we realized the castle was closed, and more so, we really didn’t have time to visit it anyway as we wanted to get to our AirBnB in Sargento while it was still light out. So after we walked around for just a few minutes we got back in the car and went back the way we came. In retrospect, we probably should have just left Segesta and went straight to the AirBnB and not driven toward Erice. Tom was also feeling quite panicked as he did not have a way to charge his phone and we were using it for GPS, but since we didn’t want to drain it we kept turning it off. After we got headed in the right direction towards Agrigento (where our AirBnB is for the night) Tom had given me some verbal directions that included, “You can’t go wrong. If you miss the turn at the split and you can go the other way and it’s just 3 minutes slower.” So he fell asleep and I kept driving. I passed a sign for Agrigento but I thought this must be the split and I kept going. I woke him up 10 minutes later and asked him to check the GPS only to find out that I was supposed to take the exit and had gone too far. I turned the car around and headed back again. We found our way, but it was kind of nerve wracking thinking we might be without GPS and communication with our AirBnB hosts.

The plan was to meet the hosts and they would take us to the flat. After a couple more wrong turns and less then 10% battery remaining we came into town and our hosts actually flagged us down on the road and she jumped in the car with us to direct us where to park. Her husband had saved us a free parking spot in a lot with their car. We transferred our luggage from our car to theirs and they drove us to the flat. They were so incredibly nice and helpful. They gave us a quick tour of the apartment and then offered to go get our car and drive it up the steep, narrow, one-way road to a parking spot that was available close to the apartment. I said no problem and handed them the keys. It felt way safer to have him drive that road and it was one less thing we would have to worry about in the morning.

I threw a load of wash in the washing machine and we walked the short distance from the apartment to the main street to find dinner. There was hardly anybody out and about, which was so different from the streets of Palermo. We found a little restaurant and shared an appetizer, risotto, and swordfish. For dessert Tom had tiramisu and I had a cannolo (cannoli is the plural – I just ate one). It was very good. We walked back and began the nightly practice of blogging! Looking forward to the Valley of the Temples tomorrow!

Stats of the Day

Geocaches: 2
Steps Walked: 12,617
Times Coughed: Way less then the last two days but still there.