Monday, May 8
This has been a lazy day. Many places are closed on Monday. We had orginally thought we’d take the train to a nearby town today, but we’ve had enough of that train for a while.
We needed to find a place to do laundry, which we did, and even a nice English-speaking proprietor who was able to do it for us, so we didn’t even have to figure out the machines. Once we got that done, we had no plans, so explored the back streets and found good stuff to eat. Today was the first rain we’ve had, but it was light and we were fine with hooded jackets. The only problem was being accosted by umbrella vendors.
We had traditional Sicilian pasta for lunch. The African and Arab influences are evident in many of the dishes. Jerry had a pasta with sardines, raisins and pine nuts. MIne had local sausage and ricotta. Later we had enormous cannoli with the ends dipped in chocolate. The Sicilians know to put the cream in the shells while you watch to show it’s fresh. Carol enjoyed going into a fancy restaurant and getting an espresso at the bar in a lovely little cup and saucer. Price 1.50 euros (less than $2). And nobody in the US can make espresso this good. Because we had a big lunch, we just ate street food at dinner time. Good greasy fun. Then gelato a little later.
The place we had gelato yesterday is gone today. The market that was full of street food vendors yesterday is now all meats, fruits and vegetables. Things seem to appear and disappear. If you see something you want to buy or a restaurant you want to try, don’t expect it to be there tomorrow.