The first five nights of my travels I slept in five different beds. Alghero, Olbia, Cagliari, Trapani, Palermo. Started in the north of the Italian island of Sardegna and made my way south to Sicilia, where I am now. I'm currently spending my third night in Palermo, and couldn't be happier about it. It has been so good just to stay put for a little bit. The first five days took a lot out of us. From now on, we'll be spending two nights in most places. Tomorrow night I'll be sleeping on a night train from Palermo to Napoli. We'll have two nights there, checking out Capri and Pompei. Then I'll spend the next night sleeping on a ferry from Ancona, Italy to Zadar, Croatia. Pretty excited about that part of the plan. But enough of the probable future, how about what I've already done.
Sardegna was amazing. Although first day we were there was a bit of a bust. We wanted to get to the beautiful beaches of Stintino via bus, but it was Sunday in Italy. If you don't know what that means, it means it's nearly impossible to do anything or get anywhere. We spent most of the day waiting for buses until finally we took a taxi to the next town over so we could take a train to Olbia where we were sleeping that night.
My favorite part about traveling is being open to new experiences. Once we finally made it to our B&B in Olbia, we met with the owner Edoardo and got settled in. He told us that there was a festival going on in the city that evening for the patron saint of the town. He explained to us how to get there and introduced us to the only one other guy staying at our B&B. Chris from Hamburg, Germany. We went out to dinner and made our way over to the local festival. To break it down, it was basically just an open market next to a big open concert next to a traveling carnival. To put it simply, it was awesome. We rode a haunted house ride and another ride that I'm absolutely certain would never pass safety regulations in the States. Easily the most fun I've had on a carnival ride since I was a wee lad. Felt like I was going to fly off.
Yesterday in Palermo we were planning on taking a ferry ride to the island of Ustica, the source of my Italian heritage. It was a bust. There was too much wind out on the water and the ferries weren't running. Then we tried to catch a train to Agrigento to check out some ancient temple ruins but that failed too. Italian train strike. However, the day wasn't a total failure. We walked around the city and explored.We stumbled into the local opera house to check it out and realized we could see the opera that was playing that night for 20 Euro. It was so amazing. The opera was Der König Kandaules. I looked up the synopsis beforehand because I knew there was no way I was going to be able to understand an opera sung in German. However, during the show there was a screen that offered a translation to Italian that I was able to understand most of.
Today I made it to the island of Ustica. It was amazing. Such a beautiful place. I found the cemetery and saw some old tombstones with "Mancuso" written on them. It was a very moving experience to see where some of my ancestors came from. After passing through the cemetery we proceeded to walk around the entire island. It took about two and a half hours to walk around the entire thing.
I'm so excited for the next few weeks of my travels. I can't wait to go to Croatia, Slovenia, and Austria. Em Parker will be meeting up with me in Vienna, we're going to have so much fun. Partypartyparty.
Shout out to my amazing friend Cecilia Fernandez! I love you Ceci, stay strong and get well soon!
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