Orto Botanico & Cerda

Wow - the botanical gardens here are just lovely and the citrus fruits were really fun. The royal we tried 4 oranges and we all consumed the grapefruit. Who knows whether we should have or not, but hey! They were good.

Then the adventure to the Cerda artichoke festival began. I thought we had it all worked out. The Cerda train station is 7km from the town and all uphill. Sigh. Our friends were smart and hitched a lift into town, we toughed it out and hiked. That was a rather tougher option than I thought. By the time we arrived the parade was over and things were slowing down. We were also rather foot sore and not looking forward to the return journey. We managed to procure a taxi cab of sorts that took us from Cerda to Termni Imresse where we caught a train back to Palermo a mere 5 minutes after we arrived. The walk to the festival was probably the best part of the adventure - at least the first hour. The second hour was a bit of a grind. I did managed to find the speciality of the day roasted on a grill with salt, pepper and olive oil. It was good, a nice treat, but not really worth the walk. Wait til you see the photos though. The landscape was picture postcard material.

Tomorrow, the bike trip begins!