The Catamaran Adventures of Noel and Ceu

Welcome to Marsala

Current Location: Marsala, Sicily
Current Position: 37 47.13 N 012 26.48 E Click to view map.
Distance sailed since last post: 10 nautical miles. View the map of our voyage track here

 

We just arrived in Marsala anchored right outside the harbour, it was mostly weed but were able to find a sandy spot and dropped anchor.


Marsala,view from when we were arriving at our anchorage

 

Got the dinghy down and crossed the ugly green and brown waters of the harbour. Some friendly fisherman from the old rocky pier pointed us into a better spot, that he thought was safer to walk up from. We tucked in between a bunch of fishing boats. I was wondering if we would be able to find it later on in the dark after all the Marsala wine!

Harbours in Sicilly for the most part are dirty, very industrial fishing ports, and not nice Marinas. I guess they all are in the North coast which is sure more popular with sailors. We shall see. The good thing is…behind that, there is always a nice city, or town with its magical touch of beauty, history and friendly people.

Rich 17th century residence leading to the Garibaldi Gate and archeological park

 

We went into town early afternoon. As usual everything closed, everyone having their siesta and Noel and wondered around the nice narrow peaceful pedestrian streets, admiring its many beautiful buildings and Parks. By 4 pm places start to open. We found a tourist office for information. Like with most Info places, the first thing they tell us is to take a sea excursion, because they have beautiful beaches scenery etc..etc. Well….funny, we tell them we live at sea.

The piazza during siesta

 

In the evening the piazza turns into elegant dinning

 

She did advise us to what to see in town that was still open for the evening. So we did the city touristic thing….you know! Museums, elegant Churches and Cathedral. And surprise, surprise! The town was so busy we could barely take a step without bumping around.

The Cathedral

 

Town hall on the left, and street toward the waterfront.

 

Time for dinner out!

Much better meal than that last one I told about….haha (and we now know how to order!)

Finally after so many restaurants and tough choices, we ended up at the end of a street right by the Art Gallery.

We were greeted by Giovanni in Italian who quickly switched to English.

He was able to convince us, along with his friendliness and charm that he could make the best tuna steak that I so desired. After ordering some nice local wine and appys, we indulged in a great tuna steak served with a large variety of roasted vegetables, and Sicilian salad. Noel chose Marsala fillet and good local wine. We skipped dessert….we rather have some of their Marsala wine.

Giovanni. He looked just like a Giovanni too! Secilian, middle aged man, worked his way to pay for school. Son of a plumber. He is a captain in big ships. Can work anywhere and speaks many languages.

He says: met this “beaurriful girl” in 1971. They were together till 2 years ago. “She starte menpause and she went crrazy…gambling, spent all money, had to tell her the American way: to f… off.”

Geovanni was out of a job at the moment and approached his restaurant owner friend , although he had never done this kind of work before .

He says: “I’me not gona bag for my money my friend, I work very hard, I’me very good with the people, I speak many languages, I can do this!”

After all that, he told us this was his first day at work! Wow! He was a great host, a natural at it.

In the end he brought the chef out and we got to congratulate her on a job well done. Realized how late it was and asked for the bill, and said our goodbyes.

We crossed the street over to the Art gallery where we watched a piano concert. To our surprise, it was once again, Chopin. The piano player was wonderful, his fingers were magical……

Concert at the art gallery court yard – another dose of Chopin!

 

 

The next morning we went back to explore some more of this historical town. We had a brochure on this nice place for wine tasting, at sea, not far from us. As we were headed there and then home, we got side tracked. We spotted the Market and decided to go in to check it out. Ohhhh such nice freshly picked vegetables, seasonal fruits…and the FISH. We just couldnt resist. Filled our hands with bags and now headed home.

Some REALLY fresh fish: The fishermen selling the day’s catch, some of them still moving!

 

Ahhhh…not without some wine tasting!

As we were walking along the side walk, just outside the town, it was this little man sitting in front of his shop. Beside him a barrel and some wine bottles on top decorated with few grapes.

I commented to Noel something about the wine display, and the gentleman got up, and in broken English invited us inside for some wine tasting. We really enjoyed that, and in the end we bought 2 bottles of crema mandorla, almond flavored marsala. It was delicious! We bough some fresh capers and few other items from his supermarket. Too bad we couldn’t buy more from him. Our hands were full and getting heavy. We didn’t get to experience the wine tasting in the nice setting and beautiful views at sea, we were headed for previously…..but he was such a nice guy and we were truly happy that we could buy from a small business.

Fresh swordfish. We had two slices off this.

 

We were also happy to go home and barbeque the steaks we got from that sword fish, along with roasted fresh veggies and sweet peaches and nectarines.

 

PS. No problem to find the dinghy the night before, I guess we didn’t have enough Marsala wine.

Next day was time to leave for a small sail down the coast and visit some ruins of Greek Temples. It will be the next blog. I can tell you they were amazing and will have some photos. Today is more than enough typing and photo thing….  (I’m not computer friendly…lol).

Stay tuned for the next adventure

One Response to “Welcome to Marsala”

  • Heidi Swanson:

    You type very well. Since you lost your camera, are youtaking photos on your phone? They are excellent views of what you are seeing. We follow your adventures and envy you, although it would all be much too strenuous for us now.

Leave a Reply for Heidi Swanson