Thursday 5th November 2009 – Finale di Polina, Sicily, Italy

Another very windy night, stronger even than when we were in Marsala but it had died down by morning.
We had an early start as we wanted to visit the church in Monreale, just outside Palermo, famous for its Christian mosaics, the most extensive in the world. However, it was not to be. We drove into the town but parking was impossible and returning to the ring road we found the road to the main car park was blocked by a large market. At that point we gave up and pressed on towards Finale di Polina.
We had already decided not to visit Polermo but our route took through the outskirts until we reached the ring road. That was an interesting drive. The road in was lined with many shops and improvised fruit and vegetable stalls, often simply a lorry parked on the side of the road. It seemed that all of Polermo was shopping in this street and they all had cars that had to be parked. This problem was solved easily by double parking. This constantly reduced the road to a single vehicle width, causing traffic chaos and we had to hop between gaps big enough for us to fit. I felt sorry for a car trying to join the traffic from the left. Unusually, he wasn't just forcing his way out so I waved him on. I got a thank-you wave from him and the passenger and he then proceeded to stop right in front of me, double parked and blocking my progress.
We needed to do some shopping and we had passed many shops in Palermo but there were no supermarkets with large car parks. In fact we didn't pass a single supermarket with a car park between 09:00 and 12:45. However, just as we thought that we wouldn't find one until they all closed for their three-hour lunch, I spotted one. Serious shopping followed and the fridge was once again filled to overflowing.
This was actually a day without archaeology, although I did glimpse the large stone block base of a 'Temple to Victory' as we drove past.
We arrived at the Camping Rais Gerbi in Finale de Polina just after 13:30. The weather was warm, the pitch was large and we soon had the chairs and table out and laid with lunch. Rais Gerbi is one of the campsites that operates the ASCI Card discount scheme - €15 per night. It is a very comfortable site, good facilities, lovely sea views and the village of Finale just half a kilometre away.
Photos: Our overnight pitch in the Zingaro National Park car park – we had the whole car park to ourselves!; The view into the national park from the pitch; A tower guards a bay at Scopello just outside the park.