Cefalu to Marina di Massa…..departing Sicily for the Italian mainland

November 17th

Another beautiful morning and it is our last morning in Sicily…we had discussed for some time whether to return to Nice (car drop-off) by car or otherwise. In the end, we opted for a ferry from Palermo to Livorno …Grimaldi Lines runs this service and the Tripadvisor reviews were, in a word, GRIM. We figured how bad can a 19-hour ferry ride be… well the day is here and we will soon find out. We have an exterior cabin shared by no one but ourselves and we are bringing some food and wine just to be on the safe side. The ferry departs at 18:30 and we need to be out of our unit by 10:00. The game plan is to take our time getting there and then simply hang around…missing this ferry is not an option! Last look out the window and we are on our way…

 

It is only about 1 1/2 hours to Palermo but we manage to stretch it out to about three hours stopping for a snack at a nice little spot on the outskirts of Palermo. 

An easy drive although once inside the city limits it does get busy and a bit hectic but not anything like the stories we have heard or read about. Arriving at the port we are told we cannot queue up until  3 hours before departure. We are directed to a secure parking area nearby and we decide on a bit of a walkabout to while away some of the time…there were some very nice trattorias on a pedestrian street but we just stopped for a quick bite at the Antico Caffè Spinnato…

Back to the departure gate and the guard tells us the license # of the car is not on the electronic ticket, after some back and forth he says we have to go to the Grimaldi office to sort it out…always something to tick you off…at the office, they rectify the matter post haste we then we drive back to the guard post, the man is now happy and waves us through to join the queue, do not arrive minutes before your ferry departure, as you will NOT get on! Great, now we only have to wait a few hours, haha. Our vessel below, the Zeus Palace is enormous….

Finally, the vehicles start to move, I start up the car…not, what the hell??? it seems to start but will not move forward, MAJOR PANIC ATTACK, this is not the time for a mechanical, after a few moments of increasing stress it suddenly dawns on me the car door is slightly ajar, close door car goes forward, WHEW, …. this has to be the most safety conscious car I have ever driven !!! Where we live we use ferries constantly and are very used to the boarding process, we thought…after driving we are told to wait, then after some time they direct us to drive down a narrow ramp to the next level down, no problem, more waiting…then we are told to advance, ok, then directed to descend BACKWARDS down another seeming narrower ramp…I refuse and insist on parking where we are, a screaming match with the attendant ensues, and finally, a supervisor arrives and calms me down (btw I hate backing down anything, let alone a narrow ramp on a boat)…I slowly back the car down and we squeeze out of the car (thank god I am of medium size, as a large person would not be happily extricating himself) and head up an interminable number of stairs …it seems they put us into the deepest dungeon on the boat.

On the main deck, we are handed the key to our cabin, while certainly not luxurious, it sure beats the Pullman seats we spent the night on when we ferried over from Nice to Corsica. Two single beds, bathroom w shower, and even a porthole (although it is now dark)…..after our less-than-elegant boarding experience, we are happy to crank open a bottle of Prosecco and toast the island of Sicily as the ferry heads out into the sea. The ferry is surprisingly nice and as it turned out the food was decent….so don’t always trust the reviews!!!

Early to bed after all the excitement but midway through the night we wake up to find the boat rocking quite a bit and in the morning along with breakfast the crew hands out “barf” bags, hmmm, seems like this should be a fun trip. Sure enough, we carry on rocking and rolling making walking the hallways a little challenging, lunch while pretty good was accompanied by the sound of the hull slapping into waves and the occasional tray taking flight from folks’ tables…we felt ok but were glad when we finally made port.

We arrive in Livorno about 45 minutes late but the ferry takes forever to dock and by the time we disembark (no, no drama this time). It is about 16:00 an easy exit from the port and we are on the Autostrada which gets us to Marina di Massi in short order. Our hotel is a two-minute walk and as soon as we finish checking in we check out the beach…the incoming waves are still quite strong as we catch the last of the sunset.

The town is quite pleasant although it is cool and blustery with not many restos open as it is clearly the end of the season ….we grab some pizza….still delicious a carafe of wine and head back to the hotel. We are safe and sound on the mainland and are now only 4-5 hours from Nice.