Day 42 - Santa Christina Gela to Corleone

# Campari & Soda: 0, # Gelati: 1 (sort of)

Actual Distance Walked: 26.2km, Actual Time Taken: 6h 27m
Planned Distance: 26.5km, Estimated Time (them): 5h, Estimated Time (me); 7h 6m

The distance is a little shorter than planned because I didn't bother going all the way to the church here in Corleone, instead I just stopped when I got to my hotel.  This is an old pilgrimage route so I could get a certificate stamped by the local priest in each town I stop in but you can guess how keen I am on doing that.  Their estimated time is absurb because they claim they calculate it by assuming people will have an average speed of 3.5km/h.  Basic arithmetic shows whoever put the route notes together actually divided the distance by 5.3km/h.  Basic commonsense also shows that whoever put the route notes together doesn't hike as they would know how implausible their estimated time is.

Officially the first day of this pilgrim route is from Palermo to Santa Christina Gela but these days this route is along busy roads, many of them quite narrow.  It is also mostly uphill.  Most modern pilgrims, regardless of their piety, do what I did and cheat by getting driven to Santa Christina Gela.

The taxi driver who picked me up in Palermo took one look at me and one at my surname and assumed I was Italian.  He started chattering away and I was forced to confess I didn't understand anything he was saying.  He didn't know any English but we managed a stilted conversation where he pointed out the sights to me and asked me about how long it takes to get to Palermo from Australia.  It was awkward because, while I could understand him since I knew the topic, my ability to reply is very limited.  I did understand when he claimed the best cannoli could be found in one of the bars in SCG.  I had one before I set out.  It was not bad but too sweet for my taste.  Italians have a really strong sweet tooth.

The hike today was mainly through farm land.  It was pleasing to see here that most of the fields were under some sort of cultivation, unlike Puglia.  However, there were a lot of abandoned farm houses and most of the farmers I saw were elderly.

I had an "interesting" dog encounter today.  I was walking by a farm and there was this massive black dog.   It looked a bit like a St Bernards but all black.  I was keeping an eye on it and giving it a wide berth.  Perhaps because I was staring at it, it got agitated.  It didn't growl but it did get up, walk calmly over to me and then snap shut its enormous jaws with its big teeth a few inches from my arm.  It was clearly sending the message that if I tried anything funny it would rip my arm off.  I got it loud and clear.

Today's walk is the longest of the whole trip.  It was a little longer than I think it strictly needed to be.  If you peer closely at the map you can see my path (in red) does a big loop to the right of the road (white) at the edge of a range of hills near Corleone.  This is not a result of me going astray.  This is the path for walkers.  It starts by going along a service road alongside the main road.  Then when the main road goes around the left hand edge of the range, the path detours up the northern side of the range, through a pass, and the down the southern side.  Why?  

Shortly after joining the road again, do you think the path continues along the road?  Of course it doesn't.  It crosses the road, drops down sharply through fields, crosses a stream and then climbs steeply up the other side, where it once again joins the road.  

I finally staggered up to the front door of my hotel, the Leon D'Oro, only to find it firmly shut.  I rang the bell and eventually a signora came to let me in.  I arrived at 4:30pm so well after the earliest check in time.   I don't understand why there was no-one at reception.  They must be busy.  I'm in a triple room and there is only one of me.  A double for single use would make more sense, so I can only assume they don't have any double rooms available.  I guess I will find out at breakfast tomorrow.  My hotel in Palermo was full of bus tour groups.  They descended on the breakfast buffet like a plague of locusts.  I hope things are a little more civilised here.

The hotel here is an odd shape.  I had imagined a single building with reception and a dining/breakfast room on the ground floor and then guest rooms on the floors above.   Just an ordinary sort of building.  However, this hotel is a wedge shape.  The entrance to the restaurant is on one side and the hotel on the other.  On the hotel side there is reception, a breakfast room and some guest rooms but you can also leave that building and go down a covered corridor to a pool.  Around the pool are more buildings with more guest rooms. My room is at the far end of the property since I clearly need the extra steps.  To get to the restaurant part of the property I have to go out a gate into the street and then walk up the street to the pointy end of the property and go back inside.

I had dinner at the hotel restaurant.   It had decent reviews. Even if it didn't I would have still eaten here. I couldn't face the thought of walking any further than I had to tonight.  When you go into the restaurant side of the property there is a reception desk and a pizza oven (because why not).  Opening off reception, towards to the pointy end, is a small room with half a dozen tables.  This is where I was ushered when I showed up for dinner.  I was the only (paying) guest.  There were half a dozen free range children plus several adults coming and going.  The adults all seemed to work at the hotel or were their spouses.  They were having their dinner in the same room as me, but with much to-ing and fro-ing and child wrangling.  I just had a (quite decent) pizza and a glass of wine and then left.  It felt rather like I was in someone else's house and I didn't feel comfortable lingering.  As I left I noticed that on the other side of the restaurant reception there was a quite classy restaurant.  I may have agreed to eat in the pizzeria section when I was checking in.  Most people's English here is as bad as my Italian so I'm not sure what we are all talking about at times.