Part Four: Sicily 1

After 13 hours on the ferry, we arrive in Palermo in the morning. We are lucky with our booked apartment in the old town, the nice landlord opens the door for us in his robe, clears the garage for our bikes, and we can use the beautiful apartment right away.

So we have two full days to visit Palermo and Monreale. We take the bus to the Monreale Cathedral, which impresses us with its mosaics and the cloister with over 200 double columns. On a tour of the cathedral's rooftops, we enjoy the beautiful views of Monreale and Palermo.

Palermo is a very lively city with a huge cathedral, many churches, squares, and fountains. We really like it.

Already here we notice that there is a lot of garbage lying around away from the sights. Unfortunately, over the next few days, we see and smell that garbage is also dumped along the streets everywhere.

From Palermo, we cycle counterclockwise around Sicily. On the way, we visit Castellammare de Golfo, Trapani, and Marsala. And of course, we also try the highly praised Marsala wine!

On the flat west coast, there is a large salt mine area with well-preserved windmills.

We don't particularly like the landscape until Agrigento. Again and again, we switch to the main road to spare ourselves the intense ups and downs of the small roads.

The Valley of the Temples in Agrigento extends over two kilometers. It impresses us with the remarkably well-preserved Greek temples from 500 BC.

The weather is still much too cold for the season. The Sicilians still feel like it's winter!

Total kilometers: 2137

Total altitude: 18762