What a comedy of errors it was bring this ship into port this am. First the ship had to sort of parallel park. Then these little tugs were stringing up ropes and trying to pull this big ship to dock….back and forth. Oh my! I would have thought this ship could have used its bow thrusters but then maybe the harbour was not deep enough if that could be a reason or not. For the second time recently I saw the “meeting of the waters” ….Sicilian style this time, when the bottom mud got churned up.
I am not on an organized tour today so Janet, Jeanette and I decide to find something from outside the ship that would take us to Erice. Janet tried to make a deal with some independent drivers in the parking lot. We lost out on that but found that we could get something from inside the terminal that included the bus ride, the cable car and a pastry there and back for 20 Euros. We ended up getting the last 3 tickets. Phew!!!

Apparently they couldn’t run the cable car until 10:15 cuz there had been a fire up there. We will see.  You can see it in the pictures.

Well it was another 3/4 hour before they opened the gates to the cable cars. That leaves it a little short at the top since we have to be back by 1 to catch it back down in time for the bus back to the pier. Finally! There are around 50 cars. I know because i forgot to keep checking after 47. Anyway……the cars continued on and on to the top, 571 metres. It is another great example of a town that is built high up a hill for protection. There are indications that it was first inhabited around 5000BC but that the city was built around the 12 th century AD. Now there are very few people living there, most of which are in their 80’s & 90’s.