Trapani - 26th September 2021

We slipped lines off the mooring buoy, after breakfast, and said goodbye to this fabulous bay. It was only eight nautical miles to the city of Trapani and we had a very nice down wind sail, with just the jib, until we were approaching the large harbour.

Trapani is a city of 68.5 thousand residents on the western side of Sicily. On one side of the city there are extensive salt pans. To one side of the harbour we could see large mounds of salt, ready to be loaded onto ships. It is a very industrial harbour and the marinas are well inside, down at the shallow end. Fairly large ships came in, as well as a cruise ship and an old tea clipper, while we were there. We were lucky to get a berth in a small marina, with only one pontoon; I suspect only because we were early, arriving before lunch. Our main motivation for this was that we had run out of bread and knew we would have to get to the bakery before they closed at lunchtime, especially as it was Sunday. We made it, after having to make a tricky parking manoeuvre.

The waterfront has been redeveloped and smartened up in the last fifteen years, we understand, hastened by the arrival of the America’s Cup teams in 2005. The old quarter of the town reflects the tangled history of this part of Sicily in its hybrid architecture. Because of it’s strategic location, between North Africa and the Tyrrhenian Sea, it was a major Carthaginian colony and later it was important to the Aragonese, as a link with Spain.






Note Tom's drink served in a "skull shaped" container


Typical narrow streets 

In the early evening we walked down to the old town area, which is spectacularly beautiful. People were dressed up to the nines, out promenading. We stopped at a bar on a corner of these magnificent buildings and were able to enjoy full people watching. After supper we returned to the highest rated gelatoria (gelato shop), along the seafront and joined the queue of locals to have our taste of superb gelato. There seemed to be a festival going on, with a lot of music in the large park. We speculated that this may be to mark the end of summer, as the autumn equinox has just passed. The national park rangers in Favignana had told us that, after this week, everywhere would go very quiet.
The gelateria even has a crossing leading directly to it.

It has turned out out to be another unexpected delight, that we have hit upon on our journey.

Tricia (and Steve, Teresa and Tom)

Distance today               8 miles

Total distance 2021:   327 miles

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