Josh and Colleen in Sicily

At the top of Via G. Fardella in Trapani is a cable car station, with cars running to the town of Erice 800 meters above the sea level port town. Erice shares a lot in common with the more famous hill towns of Tuscany and Umbria -- built entirely from stone, seemingly one church per house (officially, 64 churches operated at one time in this one small town), ludicrous driving and parking situations, and general old world charm. Erice was probably the most heavily-touristed sight we visited over the course of the trip -- four or five tour buses were parked at the lot outside town, and there was a lot of English and German echoing around the streets -- and for good reason. The town has a well thought-out itinerary from church to church, having rescued a number of them from neglect and delapidated circumstances in recent years. From Byzantine-era frescoes to Arab-Norman watchtowers, the art and history is pretty tightly packed in, and the views are, as expected, spectacular:

We had one of our best meals at La Pentolaccia, as detailed earlier, to wait out a rainstorm. It didn't work -- the cloud hanging over the mountain emptied itself onto streets that weren't really designed for drainage, and we walked back to the cable car completely soaked through.

My shoes (stupidly didn't wear my Gore-Tex boots) didn't dry until we got to Agrigento.