We awoke in Cefalu welcomed by more lovely sunshine, and headed downstairs, after setting things off to charge once more, to enjoy another wonderful breakfast with breathtaking views out over the sea.
We were a bit luckier today as there was a brief enough spell of slight cloud cover to allow us to enjoy our breakfast out from under the cover of the terrace.
After we packed up our things and loaded up the Fiat 500 once more, we set off on to Marsala. The route took us first along the coast and then in land through mountainous terrain with a string of impressive bridges across the farmlands.
After driving for a couple of hours and taking a quick pit stop, we arrived at the Salt Pans of Trapini (Saline di Trapani). These man made fields designed to capture salt water and allow it to be evaporated to leave the salt behind have been producing salt for Italy since the 1200s. More recently, production and demand for this more precious salt has started to fall, but a niche cottage industry remains. During this part of the summer, the pans start to turn pink as well, which made them more pretty than usual.
After a quick droning session and picking up our very own chunk of salt, we started the short 30 minute journey to our hotel in the nearby Marsala. Through no planning of our own we came in via the, as a Yorkshireman would say, arse end of the city, which was pretty run down with lots of part built houses that seemed to have been abandoned. Eventually, we came upon our hotel (Hotel Carmine), which was built by renovating an old building in the city and so has lots of character and a lovely garden terrace.
After checking in and then parking our car up on the road outside, we chilled out in our room for a while before heading out to our wine tasting. We chose to walk by the water/marina, which was pretty baron, but did make for the odd interesting sight. We were staring to wonder where all the tourist parts of the city were!
We found our winery where we would take our tasting, Donnafugata, which we would highly recommend as it was both great value and very interesting. A tip for anyone travelling here in the future is that if you’re staying at certain hotels, you’ll get a discount on the tour price, so worth asking! 🙂
The winery was set in beautiful grounds and we waited under a roofed area before starting the tour.
We were first given an overview of the history of this family run business and then through their different vineyard locations and wine types. Ironically, they stopped producing Marsala in the 80’s, but I personally wasn’t a great fan anyway! Also, as it turns out, the wines we did go on to taste were delicious. The tour then took us through where the wine was produced and matured, the latter of which was only built in 2007 and was pristine.
After then being shown the warehouse side of the operation, which was a first for me on a wine tour, we were taken to the shop for our tasting.
We were led through what was effectively a four course meal in wines, starting off with a light and fruity aperitif style wine, which was similar to a Gerwurtz, then onto a Chardonnay based wine, which both Lois and I weren’t overly keen on. After that, we were given a full bodied red, which was simply fantastic and the bottle we bought will certainly be accompanying a decadent meal upon our return. Finally, we were treated to their exclusive desert wine, Ben Rye, which was out-of-this-world delicious. It was so flavoursome, but wasn’t too sweet.
After spending far too much on a bottle of the first one, a bottle of the red and 2 small bottles of the Ben Rye, we pootled back towards out hotel, this time deciding to take a more central route. Although still not touristy, there was a lot more civilisation this way until eventually we struck upon a Duomo with a flurry of cafes and restaurants around it! We mooched around for a short while before retiring to our hotel room so that I could put the finishing touches to the previous 3 days blogs and we also had a nice hotel room picnic from things we’d bought from the supermarket earlier that day.
So, it was a nice day, but not a patch on the time we’d had in Cefalu. We’re both very much looking forward to tomorrow though, which will mean travelling on to Agrigento, known as the Valley of the Temples.
Recommendations
Salt pans – Interesting and unique
Hotel Carmine – Great location (if you head the right way), but the parking arrangements are very ‘Italian’
Donnafugata – interesting for wine tasting and delicious (if rather expensive) wine.