It’s been a bit of a whirlwind tour, usual for me, as I go quick-in, quick-out anyway.

Bang. Segesta. Long befeore the Romans, a temple built by the Greeks that Athens wishes it had still in Greece, Parthenon included. The thing is immaculate. Better yet, it’s January, almost 60 degrees, and there are NO tourists - I have the place to myself. There are 36 perfect verticle columns made up from massive cylindrical stones standing a meter in diameter making up this temple. Huge. Green grass, yellow flowers, blue sky complement. I can’t tell if the temple was built yesterday or 2000 years ago, it’s so perfect.

I walk along, mouth agape, wonder if I’m going to wear out my camera or the CD first.

Bang. Selinunte. The Westernmost of the Greek colonies founded around 650 BC. This cluster of ruins that was once a city overlooking the Mediterranian is therefore 2700 years old. I find myself just walking across massive fallen stones and jumping from one to another imagining the history involved. Carthage destroyed it in both 450 and 209 BC. In the middle ages it was a recluse for religious hermits. In the Byzantine age an earthquake devastated it. The temples, both standing and fallen, and the ever-present sunshine provide a journey back into time.

Bang. Cefalu. Towering over the rock-strewn craggy promenade was once a mighty Norman castle protecting the waters from all ancient marauders. Nearby proudly sits the massive cathedral - started in 1131 by Roger II and finished a century later - is certainly one of the most beautiful in all of Europe. Winding down the meandering streets to the picturesque sandy-beached harbor I stop for the best fish this side of the galaxy.

Bang. Big bang. Taormina. The hits keep on coming. This is one of the great places on the entire planet. Ok, I’ll stop here for awhile.

I look outside my hotel window and see the snow-capped volcano called Mt. Etna in the background outlined by the pearl-shaped deep blue waters and harbor of Taormina just in front of me. Outside there is a balcony almost the size of the room itself and I sit, sun shining down on me propped up in a chair, beer in hand and, well, stare at the blue nowhere.

Time to get up and wander the tight streets, full of smiling people as happy as I am just to be here, find a restaraunt, shop a little, and scope out tomorrow’s itenerary. Damn, time to move on. Knowing I’ll come back.

Bang, bang. Agrigento. Second only to the pyramids outside of Cairo lies the most secreted, undisturbed group of ancient colossal buildings left to inhabit the earth. (Well, that’s how I feel, anyway). Interestingly, they’ve named it the Valley of the Temples, certainly not to compete with the Valley of the Kings, but nevertheless, it holds it own with anything on earth. Up the hill lies the quaint, little old town, the centro, which is arrayed with fascinating shops and restaraunts and is a marvelous companion for the ruins below. I rank this place somewhere slightly ahead of Taormina, which only yesterday was the greatest place on earth.

Trepidation? Nah. Nerves? No way. I mean, the old mafia movie was thirty years ago. The Godfather, I mean. I go for wine from Corleone, postcards from Corleone, lunch in Corleone, and a photo of something that says Corleone on it.

Nevertheless, an uneasiness lurking in a small way.

The wine, the postcard, the picture and the lunch pass without any bloodshed. As a matter of fact, Corleone represented one of the best afternoons of vacation in my life. I buy an antique picture of the main square in the 1800’s and walk the streets looking for some tough Cosa Nostra types, and only find some youngish kids, trying to look tough.

Running out of time now. Monreale, situated above and overlooking the great city of Palermo is a jewel unto itself, as Palermo is. Well, sure parking is absolutely impossible, as it is everywhere in Italy in a town of over 100 people. However, here it doesn’t phase me so I bludgeon on unawares. I park at the foot of a hill half-way up against an overloaded dumpster feeling some degree of safety from the dreaded parking-ticket-cops with all this bio-dread around me.

To no avail. As I return to the car to dump my first load of shit I notoriously accumulate, another ticket.

Boy, if I ever paid them I would really be pissed.

However, the walk about the old-town proved fruitful. A little two-star hotel on the other side of the hill that Monreale populates was found and employed. Since I knew I’d have to wait for the small festival in the centro to end and the crowds to thin out before I dared drive through the town and repark I felt the initial ticket would suffice and I could leave my car for another few hours.

I eat, like I always do (like all Americans do) at around 6:30, or in Italian time, several of hours before anyone else and an hour before most of the restaurants even open. A quick, delicious pizza is located and is heartily consumed but the real business at hand is to repark and get the truckload of stuff out of the car and into the hotel room.

Finally, the marching of paint-faced children subsides and I can see the streets opening up again. The car fires up, the ticket is shredded and off I go. One way streets abound and I catch a fleeting glimpse of the great hotel - my holy grail - in the distance, coming and going, appearing and disappearing, but for now I lack the courage and disposition to make the 500-meter plunge the wrong way to end the journey.

Several more frustrating attempts at circumnavigating passageways come to futility. And then, it happens.

I wind up an ever-spiraling single-lane road (more like half-lane) further and further from the city lights - further and further from creation it seems to go - cars are parked along the side of this narrow road at their apartments or houses, and an occasional double-parked soul sticks out even further still. I’m close, and although I can’t see my hotel, I can feel it, another jog to the left, then right, then left again, and I just KNOW that I’m home for the night.

I traverse through several little arch-ways in this ancient street by literally pulling my side mirrors inwards and find I have to jog my car back and forth just to address the tight U-turns up this winding Hill from Hell.

Well, it can’t go on forever.

Oh fuck. After a mile of this, the last jog in the road dead-ends at a small house and the only way out is to barrel down some pedestrian steps.

I consider this. The stress level is approaching a breaking point. I get out to survey the steps and consider the bumpy ride down to safety. Thank God the temptation is thwarted by a steel bar down the middle of the steps which would block my car.

I never imagined this road not having its route run through this hilltop neighborhood and suddenly the realization dawns on me.

I have to go back down in the middle of the night about a mile or so, BACKWARDS, with literally millimeters to spare on what I remember was a thousand or so instances coming up in the first place.

Yeah, no problem.

Shit, shit, shit, shit.

A shot echoes in the dark and I realize that I’ve only gone 30 meters or so and I’ve just hit and destroyed my first obstacle. A side mirror of a Fiat parked unknowingly outside of his house was my first casulty. The crunch sounded like a bang of a pistol. The noise was deafening with my current state of panic. I immediately imagined a mob armed with torches and axes gathering to meet me. No way in Hell that went unannounced.

Bang. Another shot. Shit! Believe it or not, another mirror crumples and pops as I misjudge a hard, backwards 90 degree turn down and around a corner. This time though, the guy had parked a little obnoxiously, certainly raising the ire of his neighbors, and definitely in my way - and had therefore paid the price.

The first arch followed by that horrible screeching sound. A little paint gone and a perma-scratch, but I’m racing now. I see two groups of people looking at me and I don’t know if they’re interest is personal or not. I don’t want to know. My neck starts to cramp as my body is inhumanly twisted and I have to strain it to keep focus backwards riding the clutch, brake and gas. I start to speed up, actually getting the knack of this backwards stuff.

Finally, a place I can turn around. Quickly I perform this task and soon after am at the point of no return at the bottom of the hill.

The decision makes itself, what’s one more illegal violation – I finish the journey going the wrong way and sixty seconds later I shut down the car for the night.

Tomorrow is always another day.