Five Degrees North

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Palermo airport is on the headland at Punta Raisi west of the city. The city itself is around the headland and out of sight as our flight makes the approach but there is a fine view of the hills on the promontory across the bay. After collecting the hire car we took the autostrada west towards Alcamo and then south to Castelvetrano. The road doesn’t follow the contours of the land but floats over the valleys on viaducts and tunnels through the hills. The central reservation is a drift of pink and white Oleanders.

At Castelvetrano we picked up the SS115. We made good time to Agrigento but then missed the turning to Palma di Montechiaro which delayed our arrival at the hotel. We were staying at the Azienda Agricola Mandranova (*) . The hotel is at kilometre 217 on the SS115 but the entrance was not on the main road and it took us a few passes to locate the turn, which is at kilometre 215 and signposted to Campobello di Licata.

Mandranova is an olive farm now also diversifying into almonds. Our room was in the old railway station. Supper is a four course meal which was served communally at 8:30pm on the terrace, except for on the last night of our stay when the wind, the Scirocco, blew in from Africa and we had to move indoors. To go with the food there was an excellent selection of Sicilian wines. We tried three of the whites, a rose and a red on subsequent evenings, all from vineyards on the slopes of Mount Etna.

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The Norfolkline ferry from Dover to Dunkerque is primarily for trucks, but the fares are good and it is more relaxing than the regular passenger ferries. The truck drivers have their own lounge and the canteen serves canteen food. Our boat sailed at 8:15 in the morning and we were on the road south an hour or so later. Even with the time difference, this should have been enough time for us to reach our overnight stop at Zug in Switzerland at a leisurely pace. However, road works pushed us off our expected route across northern France onto another course through Belgium, Luxembourg and the Saarland region of Germany. We then got lost at Saarbrucken trying to find our way back onto the Strasbourg road, with the result that the sun was setting when we reached the Rhine with still some 3 hours driving to go until we reached our hotel. Despite having to pay for the no-show, we stopped at a hotel in Strasbourg. There was a pleasant family restaurant next door.

The second days drive was therefore that much longer. First the sprint down the autobahn to Basel, then across Switzerland and through the San Gotthard Tunnel into Ticino, then follow the valley southward to Italy. From Milan we drove east on the autostrada across the Po valley, past Bologna to Rimini and then it’s a run down the coast to Ancona and Pescara. There are fine views of the Adriatic from the road. At Pescara we turned inland on the road that runs back across the Apennines to Rome. Up in the mountains, we turned south to follow the winding mountain road to Pescassaroli.

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We made the first of our two motoring tours of Italy in 2001. We took the shuttle train through the channel tunnel on a Friday evening late in September, stayed the night in Calais, then drove down through France to Italy, arriving at dusk in Milan.

On Sunday we drove on to Verona, taking a detour along the shores of Lake Garda on the way. In the afternoon we visited the art museum in the Castelvecchio. The castle was completed in 1376 and is a superb setting for a museum. The fortified bridge that crosses the river here is a restoration; the original was destroyed at the end of the Second World War. In the evening we joined the passeggiatta, taking a stroll through the streets to the arena, before heading back to our hotel for supper.

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