Erice – 2300 feet above Trapani overlooking Tyrrhenian Sea – and yes there are magical pastries too!!

A trip to Erice, the mountainous village sitting above Trapani is an adventure. There are a couple of ways to get there. You can take the funicular from the town of Trapani to the top or you can drive the nail biting S curves while taking in the vistas below. We unknowingly did both. My husband Chris and I thought we had put in directions to the funicular, but no, we had directions all the way to the top. Once committed, we took our time up the steep hill while glad for the views we did not expect. The town has been a special place worshiped by the Greeks,Romans,and Normans for ages. The village is full of stone houses, monasteries, churches, and convents. In the cloistered convents, the nuns baked many delicacies. One young girl Maria Grammatico learned how to bake these local pastries while spending years at one of these cloistered convents. My favorite is the Genovesi. A flaky tender cookie filled with custard scented with a little lemon zest. They are served warm from the oven sprinkled with powdered sugar. After your sweet day, enjoy your ride down the funicular, or in our case the scenic switch back curves in our manual Ford Focus rental car.