After breakfast, coaches took us through the city of Trapani. Our goal was the hilltop town of Erice, just outside of Trapani. Overlooking the northwestern tip of Sicily and perched at the top of the mountain, this town has a long and important history. Elymians, who claimed descent from the Trojans, founded Erice. The city was known to the ancient world as Eryx, and a magnificent temple dedicated to Aphrodite Erycina, Mediterranean goddess of fertility, once topped the mountain and was big enough to act as a landmark to sailors.

Today it is a town with cobblestones and narrow streets, making it to a perfect place to walk around. It is a typical medieval town, with streets that are impossibly small for American cars to get through. Maybe it's a good reason why some Italian cars are so tiny?

Our local guides took us around for about an hour. Later on we could stroll and explore on our own.

By lunch we were back in Trapani to embark the Caledonian Star and to continue our voyage in the western Mediterranean. Where we were docked we found a statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi (see the photo). He is known as a soldier and later the leader of the army that took part in establishing Italy as an independent nation. He was born in Trapani. Later he was the leader of the uprising against the Bourbon rule of Sicily. Today we would call him a guerilla leader. Remember that the nation of Italy is a young nation by European standards; the Kingdom of Italy was declared on March 17, 1861.

In the afternoon we had a lazy and relaxed sail towards Corsica. The sea was flat as a pancake and we could enjoy time on deck. Some saw a sea turtle and dolphins, others saw lots of migrating birds. Some birds even landed onboard the ship to get a free ride, unfortunately in the wrong direction, since we were sailing to the north. Bad choice, they have to do the long flight again!

After 4 o'clock tea, Tom Heffernan gave an interesting talk about the origins of the Indo-European languages.