Piazza Armerina to Enna

April 8, 2023

Last night’s meal prepared by Ettore didn’t seem quite as good as Thursday’s, perhaps because we were the only guests. The other diners were his family, including young grandchildren. Or perhaps we weren’t quite as hungry, having had such a big meal the night before. Surprisingly, it was meat. I was expecting it to be fish on Good Friday.

Antipasto: toast with mozzarella and anchovy (Al ate mine), something with ricotta, and asparagus frittata. There was melanzana parmigiana as well, but you saw that yesterday. Very tasty!

Pasta alla Norma, with eggplant and two kinds of ricotta.

In the morning, we packed up and said goodbye to Ettore and Ines.

We did pretty well exiting town but made a blunder just before the 3 km mark. On examining the route I’d created, I noticed a place where it looked better to go left instead of right, but I didn’t edit the route because it’s such a pain to edit in the app or on the website using my iPad mini. Unfortunately, I was still zoomed in on my Garmin for city streets and didn’t notice until the road we were on really wasn’t a road anymore. So if you’re reading this, don’t copy us: go left on Via Robert Baden Powell then right, and not the way we went. We, however, had already pushed up the very steep hill and weren’t going to go back unless there was no other option.

Once we popped out onto an actual, if unnamed, road that took us to SP 12, the ride was good. It was mostly through Riserva Rossomanno-Grottascura-Bellia, on a quiet paved road with essentially no traffic.

There were plantations of these trees with peeling bark…

…which made interesting little “acorns”…

Beautiful riding, if a little chilly on the shady descents.

Thus descent was in the sun! We had left the forest and were now riding through fields. We saw another cyclist going the other way—on a mountain bike.

Perhaps a mtb would be better in the occasional muddy patches.

Looking back toward the stretch of road where we didn’t stop…

From here, we got a clear view of Mount Etna.

We were now on SS 117 bis, which had a partial barrier and warning sign. Sure enough, some sections were covered with sand (or mud) but were quite passable with a bike. Especially with a mountain bike, as demonstrated by the group of six who overtook us.

Al’s track. I walked this bit and no, my feet didn’t get muddy.

Eventually we emerged onto SP 125 and stopped at the Despar in Pergusa for a bit of sustenance before tackling the climb to Enna. We missed the turn onto the quiet road we had been planning to take but continued on, since the traffic on SS 561 wasn’t too bad (and this road didn’t descend into a valley and thus increase the final climb).

I’d been worried about the climb to Enna but I managed yo ride all the way, with stops, of course. We were half an hour early for check-in but found a nearby bench to wait in the sun.

B&B Centro Sicilia occupied the top floors of a building. I lost count because there are doors to apartments at every turn, but I think our room is four of five levels up. Happily, there’s a luggage lift, and Dario has a place to store bikes at ground level a couple of blocks away.

We made a reservation at Dario’s family’s restaurant for Easter Sunday evening but thought we probably didn’t want two big meals in a row. We thought we might go for pizza, but ended up at Ristorante Centrale di Pirrere, right next door to the B&B, instead. We shared an antipasto, a pasta dish, and a meat dish, but splurged on individual desserts. The dishes were very good but not huge; other times they are quite large. You never know how much food you’re going to get! We like sharing because then we get to taste more things.

We demolished most of the caponata antipasto before remembering to take a picture.

Lemon ravioli, a house specialty. Absolutely delicious!

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Today's ride: 36 km (22 miles)
Total: 943 km (586 miles)

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David MathersLove the luggage lift! We stayed here too and really enjoyed our conversation with Dario as he tried to answer all our questions about Sicily.
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1 year ago

Scott AndersonGreat that you got such a fine day for this ride. And what a look at the mountain!
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1 year ago

Keith Adams"...I didn’t edit the route because it’s such a pain to edit in the app or on the website using my iPad mini..."

I've found the same thing to be true on my small Android tablet. In fact, it alerts me that the touch screen interface isn't really well-supported (though it uses a less-negative phrase) and strongly suggests use of a pointing device (mouse or stylus) instead. That, however, is more than I care to lug around though I do carry a small foldable Bluetooth keyboard. I've not really looked to see if I can find a mouse that I could use with the tablet.

What that means in practical terms is that I really really need to get all my route planning done from home, using my desktop computer and the RWGPS web application rather than the mobile app. That makes it a challenge to design / select routes while on the road, unless I simply let RWGPS pick everything then blindly follow its choices.

How Team Anderson manages to get it done is a mystery to me, but they do.
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1 year ago