Lori and Troy do Europe 2025

Today is 69 and partly sunny. We decided to walk around Enna. It was a surprisingly nice little town. It is located on a mountain top with beautiful views of the Sicilian countryside. We started our walk after dropping our luggage at the car. There was a promenade that walked along a cliff side to a castle. Lori was starving so we started looking for a place to eat. She found a restaurant that was about a 5 min walk away. We arrived in this alleyway that had no evidence of a restaurant. It was about 10:30am and there was not much activity. There was a small Coop (grocery store) a couple of blocks away so we stopped there. We picked up some salami and cheese and went to sit by the castle. We had a little picnic and then went for a walk around the castle. Lori said that the center of Sicily spot was on an elevated cliff on the other side of the castle. We climbed the treacherous ancient stairs to the top of the bluff. I found what looked like a marker and stood on it, as to claim that I stood on the center of Sicily. We walked back down the ancient stairs to the modern path and headed for the castle. Then Lori told me that she wanted to visit a cemetery and possibly the center (naval) of Sicily. What!? I thought we were just there? Nope, maybe she was speaking Italian because that is not what I heard. All of a sudden that climb was not worth it. It really was because it had spectacular views up there. We walked back to castle and looked for a way in.

We walked around and took some pictures of the countryside. Lori decided to sit at a cafe while I toured the castle. I walked up a stairs that ended up being a dead end. There were 3 stairwells to the castle but only one went inside. I found the correct entrance with only one failed stairwell climb. I made it inside and found what looked like a vagrant collecting money to tour the grounds. Just walking into the castle was enough for me. They are usually not impressive and are usually 4 walls with grass and overgrown weeds inside. These are usually more of a fortress but you would think that as much effort that was put into the exterior would be evident inside. They are not like what I pictured on the Game of Thrones. I walked back out and met up with Lori.

We walked back towards the car on a different path and found a totally different experience. We found several local cafes and amazing churches. It turns out that this city is one of our favorites. We may come back on an immersive trip where we stay for a month or so and live as Italians. It is the perfect town to learn the Italian life and language. We passed by the City Duomo which was beautiful. The pictures don’t do it justice!

We continued towards our car and found a shop where there was another friendly Sicilian. He told us about the traditions of this town which included residents dressing up as saints and parading through town. This happens during Easter Holy Week. Their costumes are actually kind of scary. They resemble a period in American history that we are not proud of. They resemble KKK outfits.

The friendliness of Sicily is a wonderful secret and has added to our love for Italy. As we approached our parking spot we passed by a Barber. Conveniently I needed a hair cut so we stopped in for a groom. Marco spoke nearly no English so we were even on the communication spectrum. We used the Google translate app to communicate. There was a guy that was just finishing up with his haircut and we could tell that we were being talked about. One thing that we have learned is that you don’t need to speak the language to know what is being said. It was along the lines of “have fun with these two”. We typed out what I wanted done with my hair in Google Translate and showed him. He nodded and started grooming me. It ended up being a really good haircut. At the end he said some sentence with the word “ blanco” in it. Blanco means white so I knew he was taking about my hair. We pulled out our phones and tried to translate. He asked how old I was? It turned out that we were the same age, just totally different hair colors. I pointed at his hair and my hair and it was obvious what I was saying because he laughed. He charged me 12euros for the cut. We tipped him an additional $10 which he appreciated.

We walked another couple minutes to our car. Lori wanted to go and see a cemetery that she read about online. She likes visiting them. I am not a fan. We found the location on Apple Maps and headed that way. Parking was easy as I would expect near a place like this. After all people are dying to get out. This cemetery is a must see! Each sight is an individual family mosoleum. They are elaborate structures that date back to the mid 1800’s. They are around 10ft x 10ft and are about 16-18ft tall. There are not 2 of them that are the same. We walked around and admired the many structures. There were many families doing maintenance by cleaning and replacing flowers. One of the structures was shaped like a pyramid, we looked in through the window and saw a spiral stairwell that led to a lower level and there were several family pictures displayed. It was super interesting!

We found our way back out and to our car. We plotted our next destination to Agrigento. Lori has an apartment rented for us until Friday morning. It is about a 1.5hr drive from Enna.

We arrived and found the landlord waiting for us. She had a parking space reserved for us which really helped. Parking is difficult to find around here. We are in the lower portion of this city on a hill. We decided to get some dinner which is a 5 min walk to the Main Street in town. This sounds easy but the hills and stairs are steep! We made it to the Main Street and found the restaurant. Of course it didn’t open until 6pm and we arrived at 4:30pm. We decided to walk around and check out some of the town. It was really nice and flat once you got up there.

We decided to head back to the original restaurant and drink some wine while we waited for the kitchen to open. We entered and ordered a dry red in Italian. The bartender found us a really nice wine. He was a 20 year old bartender that spoke 6 languages. He spoke fluent English which was pretty impressive. His real name is Syed but he goes by Zach. We had a nice conversation with him that lasted for over an hour. He told us that there was a movie being filmed in town currently. Of course that sparked my interest. He didn’t care in the least about the movie or that there might be famous people walking around. He actually was annoyed by it because he had to keep moving their chairs and planters inside because of the filming. There were a lot of police presence and they were taking pictures of places for some reason. We looked up the film and it was a film about a lawyer that was killed by the mafia.

6pm arrived and we ordered dinner. Lori ordered a dish with noodles and mushrooms and I had steak and mushrooms. Both dishes were very good. Afterwords we went a couple stores down and Lori bought a Turimisu to go.

We walked back to the apartment which was down hill for once. Everywhere we go seems like we are walking uphill. Lori called her parents to catch up and we called it a night.

Tomorrow we have a tour scheduled at the Temple of the Gods at 11am. This is about a 10 min drive from our apartment.