Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Birding at the salt pans - Marsala - Silenunte and Catellammare del Golfo

We had a busy day today, /first stop was the WWF wildlife centre and saltpans. Lots of windmills were around...


And flamingos! I used my big lens for most of my shots, these are just a couple of phone photos and it doesn't have 420mm capacity unfortunately!


The GPS then wound us around roads of Sicily, past ploughed fields and little buildings like this...


We found more salt pans - and more windmills - and yet more flamingos!


/This one had excursion to a nearby island - but we didn't go as we had the day planned already.


Then we visited Marsala. Marsala is built on the ruins of the ancient Carthaginian city of Lilybaion, and includes in it's territory the archeological island of Motya which is an ancient phoenician town. It is the biggest town in the Trapani area, and the 5th most populated in Sicily. Although to us, it didn't seem like that. 


We wandered around the streets...


In the middle of the main square a dog was sleeping soundly - people just stepped around him. A dog's life!


 Marsala was famous for sherry - so Anne and I did a tasting. It was rather nice.


We then drove to Selinunte - an old archeology site and we wandered around the ruined temples. I got in free because I was deaf, and Anne because she was helping me! Before we went in though we stopped for an amazing lunch!


The temples...



The ruins of  one of the biggest temple in the world...


We caught a taxi to another ruin on the same site - it was a fair way away. The view down to the coast was lovely..


It was very hot - about 29C. Anne sitting down for 2 mins for a photo under a lovely tree!


More ruins behind another temple - and you can see the first temple in the distance.




After wandering around the temples for a couple of hours we drove to Castellammare del Golfo for a look.






We wandered the streets and found a market where a girl was making beautiful jewellery - we ended up buying quite a lot as it was a very good price - 5 euros for a pair of earrings (in fact she charged us 4 euros!) I had a pair made up to match a necklance I bought! Here she is in the process.


And that was our day - no dramas - just sightseeing and enjoying Sicily wonders!

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