“Hey, You With The Tooth, Smile Big”

From Palermo, we caught the airport shuttle in order to rendezvous with Reegz, a long-time hometown buddy of Vik’s and one of his groomsmen. Brussels-based Reegz and his wife Elizabeth were meeting up with us for a one-week vacation in Sicily. After locating each other in Palermo Airport’s arrivals hall, we shared stories while waiting in an interminable line at the EasyCar rental counter. When we finally started the ignition to drive off the lot two hours later, we discovered that our car had barely an eighth of a tank of gas. Instead of waiting another two hours for a fully-fueled vehicle, we opted to endure a nerve-racking gas station search from the highway while the car’s orange gas light mocked us from the dashboard.

Once our chariot was sufficiently fueled, Reegz (the appointed chauffeur for the week) drove us 90 minutes west to the seaside resort town of Cefalu, where we had rented a furnished, three-bedroom villa for the week. After collecting the keys from the villa’s animated rental manager, we quickly found our way to our new digs. Walking through the front door, we were struck dumbfounded both by the magnificent wraparound views of the Tyrrhenian Sea from the villa’s rear patio and by the laughably-tasteless furnishings filling every square inch of the interior. Taking in the tacky kitsch from around the world, much of it seen before on street corners from the various destinations of our trip, Vik silently celebrated Kaberi’s restraint and good taste.

Despite the failings of its interior decorator, the villa proved perfectly suited for two couples with its separate bedrooms, private bathrooms, thoroughly-windowed central living and dining areas and multiple, open air terraces. We also discovered that we had access (down a winding 107 steps) to our own private beach. When Elizabeth arrived the following day, she whipped the gaudy tablecloth off of the dining room table and set up lounge chairs on the terrace. With our sensory overload sufficiently diminished, we settled into the villa to fully enjoy our surroundings.

We soon found that Cefalu was an easy town to explore. Making our way to the old city center, we quickly located such important landmarks as a homemade gelateria serving Kaberi-pleasing dark chocolate/pistachio and fig/melon combos and a modest coffee house providing Reegz’s morning espresso, Elizabeth’s cappuccino and Kaberi’s sinful caffe de crema. In deference to his wife, Vik (a staunch non-coffee drinker) had to pretend to order a demitasse cup for himself so that Kaberi could enjoy it surreptitiously. By the end of the week, however, the much-amused shopowner overlooked Italy’s unwritten one-coffee-per-person rule and served Kaberi her preferred second cup directly.

During the week, in the interest of taking full advantage of our accommodations, we became regulars at the nearby local supermarkets. We soon began finding difficulty securing refrigerator storage space for our voluminous purchases. Early in the week, we prepared an Italian feast featuring a mouthwatering caprese salad and Elizabeth’s home-made red sauce recipe. Midweek, the four of us, as dutiful Americans, joyfully fired up the outdoor grill to commemorate the 4th of July with an obligatory barbecue and a somewhat-less-patriotic puff on a Cuban. With the generous amount of rations on hand, the duration of our respective hunger or thirst during the week invariably extended only as long as the time it took to walk to the kitchen.

Despite the week’s clear focus on eating and lounging, we still found time to enjoy a number of adventures on the island. On our second day in Cefalu, after unwittingly driving down an unmarked pedestrian beach access road, we found ourselves trapped between an unforgiving embankment and a deserted car boasting a flat rear tire. After locating the car’s remorseless owner and directing Reegz to perform a nervewracking 52-point turn, we returned home in time to enjoy a spectacular Sicilian sunset.

A few days later, we took a circuitous route to the old town of Monreale and its celebrated church. On the way back, we drove out of our way in search of a rural Michelin 1-star restaurant heralded on a fellow traveler’s website. After a bit of backtracking, we eventually discovered that the eating establishment we were seeking had been replaced by a pizzeria (Kaberi and Elizabeth were not especially impressed with their husbands’ ensuing boasts about the subsequent monetary savings).

Our week also included other memorable road trips. One evening, we made our way up treacherous heights on Cefalu’s outskirts to yet another non-existent eatery before finally finding an excellent restaurant in plain sight on Cefalu’s main drag. Another day, we drove to Sicily’s northeastern quadrant for excursions to a fuming Mt. Etna, a roadside restaurant with dentally-challenged proprietors (one of whom served as the inspiration for the title of this post) and the upscale and panoramic resort town of Taormina.

On our last full day on the island, we journeyed to the southern coast to visit the impressive World Heritage recognized Greek ruins at Agrijento. Shamelessly snoozing in the back seats, Kaberi and Vik left the driving and navigating of Sicily’s counterintuitive roads to a magnanimous and perseverant Reegz and Elizabeth whose Sicilian vacation perhaps involved a bit less relaxation that they had been expecting. Our friends’ driving responsibilities concluded the next morning after stops at Cefalu’s own cathedral (where our visit coincided with a wedding) and Palermo’s airport. Bidding Reegz and Elizabeth a warm farewell, we could scarcely believe that our joint vacation had come to a close.