At the gate, leaving Heathrow.
The plane from London dropped down over the dark sea, and barely before we saw any lights at all, we were on the ground at Punta Raisi, about twenty kilometres west of Palermo. I peered out the window, across my husband, as the plane taxied in. A Ryanair jet, and one from Alitalia stood outside the small airport, but that was about all: not a surprise, since we had taken one of just two weekly flights offered by British Airways. Sunday or Wednesday, that was the choice. As we disembarked we could see the small group of passengers who were finishing their stay in Sicily, waiting to take the same plane back to London.
The Italian customs official held up my Canadian passport, compared my face to the photograph, and with a heavy flourish stamped the visa on a blank page. We picked up our checked bags -- already far too heavy, I thought -- and headed to the car rental desk, where a dark-haired young woman greeted us with a smile. "Could you please explain about the insurance?" my husband asked. As we had thought, we were covered for injury, but there was a deductible for any damage to the car up to a certain point. "I would advise you to buy the extra insurance to cover the deductible," she offered. "Driving in Sicily is, well, you know, the roads are narrow, there's a lot of traffic in the cities, it's easy to get a scratch or a dent." Jonathan looked at me; I shrugged. I think you'd feel better if you had the coverage, I said. "All right," he told her, wincing a little at the price. "Good," she said. "Is the Renault OK with you?" "Does it have a covered trunk area?" "Yes." "OK, that's fine then."
We walked out into the parking lot. It was warm, and the air smelled slightly of the sea. Our car was a blue Renault, bigger than we had expected; we muscled our bags into the hatch-back, and J. got behind the wheel. He booted the GPS system on his phone, a new application that he had tried out in Montreal and that was supposed to be better than Google in complicated urban areas, and handed it to me. We looked at each other: it had been a long trip, since leaving Montreal the night before, arriving at Heathrow in the European morning, and passing a long layover before our plane left for Palermo in mid-afternoon. "How do you feel?" I asked. "I'm good," he said. "I got enough sleep on the plane. Are you ok? Good, let's go!"
Some of our friends had sounded alarmed when we told them where we were going. "Aren't you worried about the Mafia!" was the most common comment, followed by "Be careful, I've heard there are lots of pickpockets in Sicily!" I'm not sure if anyone mentioned earthquakes, perhaps a more legitimate cause of concern. Someone else, with actual firsthand knowledge of the island, told us that rental cars were often abandoned on the highway a few miles from the airport, by drivers freaked out by the Italians passing them at high speed on both sides. J. hadn't wanted to drive into Palermo after a sleepless night, and I didn't blame him.
But the traffic on this Sunday evening was no more intense than back home in Montreal. It was a moonless night. We could see lights from the towns we passed, but had no sense of the landscape or the proximity of the sea; tall guardrails on both sides obstructed the eye-level view from the car's windows. "I wish we could see," said J. "I can just make out the shapes of mountains, off to the right," I said. "They look pretty big. I think we're close to the shore, but I can't see a thing." The traffic picked up as we approached Palermo; we entered a roundabout that we had studied on the map, but the GPS didn't distinguish between the roads stacked on top of each other. We went around twice, and finally figured out the correct exit. Soon we had left the highway and entered the city streets. Many Italian towns and cities have traffic-restricted zones, called ZTLs, posted with closed-circuit cameras, and there is a big fine for entering or leaving them in a car without a permit, except for certain periods, of which Sunday evening was one. Our apartment was located inside the ZTL, in the historic center. We were on a main street; I followed the blue route as we traced it, but the voice-over kept getting confused, and the arrow indicating where we were seemed to lag behind by half a block. I gave instructions, as best I could. "Now turn right," said the GPS, in her pleasant voice. "That's correct," I confirmed." "Where?" said J. "At the next corner," I said. "I can't, it's closed." "Well, go straight then. and take the next right." "That's closed too, all the entrances to the ZTL are closed. We'll have to go around by the harbor, you'll have to tell me manually."
After twenty minutes we had entered the ZTL by a different route, and found ourselves in a warren of tiny deserted streets. Most were one-way; motorcycles sometimes zoomed past us, and we couldn't see any street signs. From the map, it looked like the apartment was nearby, but we couldn't figure out how to get there. A block ahead, we saw a fire, and as we approached we saw that it was a pile of garbage burning on the sidewalk, flames starting to lick up the side of a building. A crowd of young black men stood around, hands in their pockets, but otherwise the streets seemed empty. We drove past, and glanced at each other. Then we were in what seemed to be an empty market, with make-shift wooden stalls roofed with canvas tarps standing on a wet cobblestone pavement. "Try this way," I suggested, pointing left. The streets of the medieval city wound around in circles and arcs, bordered by ancient four-and-five-story buildings, and in a moment we passed the fire again, in the other direction; now a crowd had gathered, and we heard sirens in the distance. We entered the market area again, but exited a different way, through a street barely wide enough for our car. I breathed deeply; there was no point in panicking. "There are some carabinieri over there, I'm going to stop," said J., pulling off the street to park in a tight spot behind a police car. He took the phone, got out, and approached two of the policemen who were just standing and talking to each other; a young couple sharing a sandwich stood near them. I saw him show the screen to the policemen; they looked at each other, shrugged, then all of them laughed. J. came back to the car. "One guy is going to walk in front of us and show us how to go; he's not quite sure where the apartment is but he's going to point us in the right direction." I looked at my watch; nearly 10:00 pm. The owner had been planning to meet us at 9:00, but we weren't able to call or receive texts or calls because we didn't yet have an Italian SIM chip. "OK, sounds good." The officer walked down the alley to the right, motioning us to follow, and then pointed down an even narrower, curving passage, indicating we should go left at the end. The market area ended, and we came out into a small piazza paved with broad rounded stones -- yes, there was the church we had seen in the photographs of the apartment. We pulled over, and a young man immediately got out of a car parked nearby. "Jonathan?" he asked, giving us a broad grin.
After we apologized ("no, no problem," he assured us, "I figured you'd get lost, I've just been waiting here with my girlfriend") he led us to a tall, very old building that had been restored, and helped us carry our bags up four flights of marble stairs ("sorry, the elevator is broken, it will be fixed tomorrow") to a white apartment with 14-foot ceilings, a good kitchen and bath, a big bed. He answered our questions about buying a SIM, neighborhood restaurants, markets, and said to call or text him anytime. His footsteps echoed on as he went down the stairwell, and we heard the heavy wooden door shut behind him.
We went out on the balcony and looked out over tiled roofs to the church's facade, and the winding streets we had followed to finally arrive there. We couldn't see much, and all we wanted was something to eat and then bed; there would be time to orient ourselves the next day.
