The old town
Gorgeous little harbour
I can hear the music from Cinema Paradiso!
Don’t know what it is about towns beginning with ‘C’, but we seem to love them! Cefalu is no exception – we have officially added it to the list of favourites. The only problem is that we have one night here and not more.
Check out the old vine coming out of the wall!
Cefalu houses
Piazza Duomo (and quad bike!)
We decided to drive straight from Taormina instead of stopping along the way to check out Messina (will have to do that another time) and with the autostrada it only took two and a half hours. Were so glad we were in town before lunch because it really gave us time to explore it a bit. Had a speciality of the house at ‘L’Antica Corte’ which was seafood couscous. It was pretty fabulous (and, yet again, filling!). We found our digs in the old town over looking the sea and far enough away from the action to be quiet and relaxing, yet only around the corner from the narrow main drag with shops, restaurants and bars. The host, Franco, was charming, friendly and easy-going which helped the whole laid-back atmosphere of the B&B (easy to be relaxed on a terrace overhanging the Mediterranean with a chilled glass of the local vino!).
Lovely detail on the tap
Cefalu is such a pretty place
Checked out the tiny bay where they filmed a pretty wonderful scene in Cinema Paradiso. Gorgeous. Decided to abandon any hope of climbing the big rock hovering above the town (still recovering from our jaunt in Taormina!) and instead bought a cheap beach towel from a street vendor (to share) and headed to the beach in the afternoon where we hired two lounges and an umbrella and pretended that we were the types who did that sort of thing as the norm. Actually got in the water! You couldn’t really call it swimming because technically we were not propelling our bodies through the water using our arms and legs, but we got wet up to our necks! Noticed there were only foreigners in the water – the Italians knew it really wasn’t warm enough yet – they were just baking on the sun lounges. Mastered the art of getting in and out of cossies on the beach, too. Not bad. Hopefully will get the opportunity again in Agrigento.
Seaview restaurants at dusk
You can see why we fell in love with the place!
Spent the evening on the terrace chatting to other visitors, in particular a group of 5 Scottish ladies who have stayed at ‘Dolce Vita’ before and have a lovely banter going with Franco. They were having a ball! Got some more blogging done (was a little bit behind!) and then went for a walk in the evening. That is one of the best bits of the travelling – watching a town or city change with the setting sun and seeing it come alive in a completely different way without the day time tour and school groups crowding the streets. It’s really lovely.
Our lovely Cefalu at night…bellissimo!
Charming bench with a perfect view
We must come back here!
