And so it begins. Three intrepid travelers, my wife Donna and myself from Grand Rapids and my sister Lise from New Orleans are off to Sicily. We met up in Newark where we boarded what turned out to be a ratty old Airbus 300 for Rome. 23 hours… half of which was trapped on a plane with 280 tour patrons and family reunions looking for their roots or crossing Italy off their bucket lists. Grand Rapids to Newark was easy. Newark to Rome boarded on schedule and the doors closed just in time for a storm system to roll in and shut down the airport, trapping us on the ground for the next three and a half hours. The crying child in the row in front of us, the clogged toilet and the surly stewards just competed the experience. Of course we missed our connection in Rome for Palermo. To their credit, their only credit, Alitalia had scheduled a flight just for the people on our plane that missed the connection. They had boarding passes waiting and we were on our way. We had a car reserved but we had scheduled it for nearly 4 hours before we actually arrived to pick it up. We reserved a Ford Focus… ended up with a BMW. Same price… it took a little bit of the edge off what was a marathon of misery that was the journey so far. It took 5 minutes to figure out how to start the little car but after that we were on our way.

First stop, Segesta and our first Greek ruins. A remarkably well preserved theater and surrounding buildings from the 3^rd century BC. Where we were treated to an impromptu song by some funny French tourists. There was also a beautiful Doric temple that has miraculously survived the wars and earthquakes and time itself from the 5^th century BC.

After an hour and a half our sleep deprived eyes were starting to see actual 5^th century BC Greeks so it was off to B&B Solaris in Sciacca. Here we meet the proprietors, Lidia and Alberto, their 19 year old deaf, blind, Chihuahua/dachshund mutt named Fanny and her progeny one of whom is named… drum roll please… Lise!! Our apartment (with kitchen and terrace overlooking the Mediterranean sea) is at the top of an outdoor 32 step spiral staircase. Our luggage is hoisted to the door by a little crane attached to the wall at the top.

Lidia and Alberto take a shine to Lise (sister) and bring us wine and beer and even go into town to buy us some arancini (big rice balls stuffed with vegetables, meat and cheese and deep fried.)

This, we decide is sufficient for dinner and by 9pm (three in the afternoon at home and 31 hours after leaving our house) we were in bed…