Day 5: Salt mining, Greek Ruins, and Making Pasta

We made our way out of San Vito lo Capo early in the morning as we had a long day and drive ahead of us. We fueled up with some sugar packed pastries from the local bakery and we were off to our first stop in Trapani, the Salt Mine Museum. Yup, Sicily has been mining salt from the ocean for nearly 3,000 years. It's still a thriving industry and we were excited to check out the salt pans where the sea water sits for months allowing the sun to evaporate the water and leave behind the purest salt money can buy. We saw one of the old windmills used in the salt production but of course everything is now electric.

Our next stop was the town of Selinunte to visit Greek ruins. That's right! The Greeks ruled Sicily for 500 years before the Romans took over. I was pretty excited to visit the archeological park but unfortunately it was a bit of a let down. Primarily because the "ruins" were not actually real. They were all reproductions as remnants of the real stuff were at a museum in Palermo. Go figure. But silver lining, the reproductions were still interesting to see and the views from the park were quite a wonder.

Our visit to the park was significantly shorter than I had planned so we had plenty of time to kill before our pasta making lesson later. So of course, we searched for lunch first. I found a local joint with great reviews nearby and we ate some freshly made arancini and a strange but tasty concoction of fried chickpea fritters called panele. Christina wasn't a fan of the fritters but I happily destroyed them.

I had booked us an AirBnB experience that took place on a small farm near Selinunte. We were welcomed by a young guy and his mom as we pulled into the driveway. They led us to the kitchen where a table was prepped with bowls and ingredients for the pasta making. Since we were a bit early and there was another couple to join us, we waited out in her beautiful garden rehydrating with water and wine. When the other couple arrived, the host gave us our cooking smocks and we washed our hands. We gathered around the table and watched the mom demonstrate each of the pasta making steps while her son translated. We first made the dough from eggs and semolina flour. The mom helped us knead our dough as we were all failing a bit. But while we let our dough rest, our hosts led us back to the garden table and brought us wine and snacks to enjoy. The other couple was very friendly. They were from Holland and immediately asked us about US politics when we said we were from the United States. They apparently had watched the debate the other night and were absolutely enamored with Kamala Harris and disgusted by Trump. They had great questions particularly about healthcare and energy so of course I was happy to share my thoughts. Just as the conversation got good, our hosts called us back in to begin the pasta making.

We made seven different types of pasta using a variety of methods: gnocchi, penne, rigatoni, busiate (the local specialty), farfalle, pappardelle, and tagliatelle. After all was completed, the mom showed us the proper way to cook fresh pasta and then we sat down to eat our creations. I could identify some of my "Frankenstein's monster" pasta pieces I made but they were still good despite the misshapen results. The hosts packed up the rest of our uncooked pasta for us to take home with us. Luckily, our next BnB had a kitchen so we could actually cook it. It was a really fun and educating experience.

Our next stop was our BnB located in the hills of Agrigento about 2 hours away so we hit the road. Although, not before getting lost as my GPS could not figure out where we were for while. Eventually, we were back on track and checked into a beautiful BnB located high on a mountain top grove of olive trees.