Part Nine- Trapani

The train ride from Catania to Palermo was so beautiful and we even got a bit of a nap in before we got on a bus in Palermo to Trapani. In total the trip across the short island took eight hours and by the time we got there I was pretty frazzled and exhausted. A nice girl let us borrow her phone so that we could call the lady we were renting the apartment from and when we got there all my frustrations melted away!

 It was an incredible little apartment and they had been so nice to stock it with milk, cereal, fresh fruit, and juice. It was right next to this adorable little restaurant and directly across from this tiny but amazing cathedral. So when we walked out the door all you could see is this enormous gothic stone building.

The view from the door of our apartment

The next morning we went to the medieval town of Erice. It's crazy because there are not really any drivable roads up there any more so to get there we had to take a tram way up onto the mountain to get to it.

The town was so beautiful and had kind of an eerie quiet feel to it. Besides the tourists of course!
It was around this point in the trip when Lewis said something to the effect of, "You can only have so much awesomeness in one trip. If each experience keeps topping the one before you kind of get numb to the awesomeness." By the time we got to Sicily, we were pretty numb and exhausted. So when we got back from Erice we took it easy. At sunset we walked over to the west side of the island to watch the amazing sunset!

On our last full day in Trapani we took a bus to the northwestern tip of the island called San Vito Lo Capo. We played in the water, ate Gelato, and went on an unnecessarily long hike only to run out of time and have to turn around before we reached our destination.

The next day was another little miracle! We got up early hoping to catch the bus to some ruins that were supposed to rival those in Greece but found out that we wouldn't get back in time to make our flight to Frankfurt. A lady we had talked to the day before told us that before we left we Had to take a boat over to the island of Favignana, so we decided to spend our last few hours there. We got to the dock just after they announced that they had reached their limit for how many people they could take across, and that we would have to wait two hours for the next boat. If we had waited two hours we would not have been able to go to the island and make our flight. I was pretty disappointed and ready to give up but Lewis started asking around to see if anyone else could take us. He found a guy who had a small boat and would take people over to the island for half what the big ferry cost! We totally smoked them getting to the island and were able to rent a scooter to drive around the island.
The water was so beautiful and clear! We found the first beach and decided that the other beaches couldn't be more beautiful than this one so we decided to spend most of our time there. I set down our towels and turned around and was shocked to see a bunch of naked people hanging out right in front of us! Needless to say, we maneuvered so that we didn't have a bunch of nudity marring our view!

Even though the pictures look warm, it was still only the first week in June and I wasn't in the mood to shiver the whole rest of the day so I didn't jump in the water. Lewis was braver than I, and swam for a while before being stung by a jellyfish. After he pointed it out I could see from the beach hundreds of little clear jellyfish floating in the water. He got out after that and we continued on to the next beach which was even more beautiful than the first!

Jellyfish sting, the picture didn't do it justice! 

At the next stop there were these big rocky cliffs descending into deep blue water. Jellyfish or not, Lewis was going to jump in!

After that we realized we were running out of time and that we needed to hurry back to the dock. Somehow we got turned around and ended up in a dead end and had to back track most of the island! We made it though thank goodness! Sitting on the ferry back I noticed that I was really hot and that my arms and face were kind of sticky. I found a mirror and realized that I was turning bright red! I had started to put sunscreen on one of my legs but then got distracted and didn't finish the job. So my right leg was fine, but the rest of my body was toasted. It was a painful jog back to the apartment to pack up and run with all of our stuff over to the train station. Everything worked out fine and soon we were on our way to Germany to see Spencer and Jenny!