After about 10 minutes of sharing a motor scooter on the winding mountainous road of this small island, I released my death grip around Dirck’s waist and just enjoyed the ride and of course the scenery. There is one main road that runs around the island and it’s narrow, with lots of steep switchbacks. fortunately there wasn’t much traffic once we got out the town, except for the occasional whizzing past us scooter or car. Only encountered one tour bus and the public buses look more like vans.
we stopped for a hike on the southwest side of the island to a gorgeous somewhat secluded beach (Valle mare). After a longer rougher hike than expected, we arrived at a tiny bar on the beach with two tables with a thatched roof– one just waiting for us. perfect place for our picnic, especially since it started to drizzle. I had some of the local amber colored wine (yes, I am drinking wine. A little) and Dirck had a beer. We had a spectacular view of the rocky shore and mountains leading down to it and other rock formations and actual rocky islands in the sea. A handful of people were swimming and we met a few hikers on our way back up but overall very quiet. Lovely. We stopped twice in the smaller town, Canneto, known for its popular beach but we liked it because it was much less touristed than where we are. We stopped twice at the same little bar and had gelato (Dirck) and granita (me). Rental was from Bruno, nice guy who seemed amused by our adventure.
At night we had one of our best meals of the trip (and that is high praise indeed since we have had NO bad meals) at the Kasbah, which serves”modern Sicilian” cuisine in a very stylish environment with an international crowd (lots of French and Germans) but not snobby or stuffy at all. I had the best swordfish I’ve ever had, grilled over spinach with a little prosciutto and some delicious guitar pick shaped frites; Dirck had ravioli with ingredients we don’t really know what they were (no English menu here) but delicious. Chocolate panna cotta and limone Tiramisu for dessert. (Kasbah is not to be confused with 25 restaurant, located at the former site of Kasbah. We mistakenly ate there two nights earlier. Good but not as good.)