As we left Pettralia Sottana, we got a great view of the town.
We drove through gently sloping hills and pastures on to Polizzi Generosa where the small houses huddle on the mountain. A short way on we reached our destination, the beginning of Walk 21: Vallone Madonna Degli Angeli from our Sunflower Sicily guide, which is 5 miles and should take 2.5 hours.
We had a great walk, following a good track, with several climbs but some fabulous views and clear instructions.
The spring flowers were lovely …
… and we also saw several Nebrodi firs which only survive in this valley, relics of the ice age with candle like cones …
… and an intrepid walker!
We found a couple of good stopping spots too …
We finally got back to the car 4hrs later, but had two rest stops to admire the view and took lots of photos so I think we did pretty well.
We drove to a Rifugio on Piano Battaglia which we had booked for a night stop, only to find nobody there, a closed sign in the window and no answer to the phone, so after a ponder, set off instead to Collesano and ended up staying there two nights instead of one. Casale Drinzi is a restaurant just out of town with rooms, and I’m sitting on the terrace early evening writing this to the sound of cow bells across the valley, with the sun making the yellow flowers in the meadow glow.
We awoke to a windy morning with flashes of sun and large clouds scudding across the sky, and very large grey clouds obscuring the top of the mountain outside our room. We had planned to walk up to Pizzo Carbonara, the second highest peak on Sicily at 1979m, but since the purpose is the view, we’ve decided discretion is the better part of valour and have changed our plans.
Instead, we visited Caccomo castle, built by the Normans, then owned by the Chiaramonte family and very picturesque commanding a great view over the artificial lake made by a dam in 1993.
On the way back we stopped at Cerda for lunch, which hosts the Sagra del Carciofo – the annual artichoke festival. They’re carciofi crazy here and even have a sculpture of a giant artichoke in the town square. I’d read about Trattoria Nasca that served artichokes every which way and we had mixed antipasti including artichokes served plain boiled, stewed, battered and fried, grilled, in a salad and our personal favourite – stewed sweet and sour with fennel.
We’ve had two excellent dinners at Casale Drinzi including pizza, pasta, and wild boar stew complete with complimentary digestifs and local spiced fig nut biscuits called cuccidati.
Tomorrow we head to the south coast.
Off Travelling Together 