Touring Mazara Del Vallo

Touring Mazara Del Vallo Today was a bit of a relaxing day as we had a half day tour of the Kasbah of Mazara Del Vallo. Before getting to that yesterday when we were Erice a tour group passed. It was clearly from a Royal Caribbean ship, tour group 18. Here we are along the coast of Sicily and a cruise ship passed us. We found out later that big cruise ships are now stopping so that they can visit the same ruins and this town that we had seen. Another ship was stopping today. Also someone on our tour met a neighbour touring with a different company. Small world.

Today Mazara is widely considered to be one of the most important fishing and agricultural area of Italy. Its port has the largest fishing fleet. We started out tour at the portion if the old wall that surrounded the city and then went into the Kasbah which is the old Arab part od the city. However all the groups from the Greeks, Arabs and Normans have left their mark on the city. As we were taken through the “maze” of the area, it quickly became obvious that any invader would get lose here. Lots of twisting narrow “roads” as well as dead ends.

A few years ago in an attempt to “upgrade” the area a series of tiles depicting various historical scenes were embedded in the walls. The original inhabitants were the fishermen and very poor people. We followed the guide through a previously developed walking path. Plazas and churches seemed to be at every turn. There are at least 15 churches and of course the main Duomo.

The highlight of the a museum that has the Dancing Satyr that was found off the port of over 500 meters. It was caught up in a fisherman's net. A head was pulled up and the later the r7est of the sculpture was retrieved. They have determined that it was produced by a Greek artist. A very interesting museum that displayed artifacts that have been caught up in fishing nets. The tour ended with the tour manager treating everyone to a gelato or a cold drink. Having finished with the tour we wandered around the main part of the city but returned to the hotel for some needed rest.

Tonight we went to a local pizza restaurant for dinner. We had a choice of about 20 different types of individual pizza with a whole host of different toppings. I ordered mine with sausage and it came with cut up hot dogs. You can see what they looked like What was really nice was that the whole group was sat at one table. It was another nice mixer. Everyone (26 on tour) seem/s to be getting on quite well. Everyone has interesting life stories Tomorrow is a day at leisure. We plan to wander the town a bit more.