Return to Mozia

 That perfect sunset lured us back and this time we brought a group of friends. We spent Labor Day back in Mozia in Western Sicily. In addition to the stunning sunsets, crab hunting, and kayaking, we also ventured over to the actual island of Mozia where we visited the lovely little museum packed with Phoenician treasures and explored some of the trails leading to excavation sites. We also spent quite a bit of time sucking down granitas and ice cold water at the small cafe...it was cloudy and cool when we first arrived but once the sun emerged we all quickly wilted.  The bad part about our trip to the island was that Camille had a very prickly encounter with a cactus. Seriously, there were tiny yellow cactus spines all along the left side of her body. It was a very slow and painful removal process for all of us. Word to the wise: always steer clear of the cacti!

The culinary highlight of the weekend were the lemony mussels that we all inhaled two nights in a row at Incanto. I don't think I mentioned this in my previous post about Mozia. On our first trip to Mozia in July we didn't originally intend to stay in Mozia. We had reservations for an apartment in the old part of Trapani, but fifteen minutes before our arrival, the landlord called to inform us that there were serious plumbing problems and we couldn't stay in the apartment. It was dinner time and we had just spent three hours driving across Sicily with two very hungry and grumpy children. So while trying to feed them, we also tried in vain to find another place to stay on a Friday night in Trapani. Nothing was available. Things were starting to get pretty tense and we were starting feel a bit desperate when we expanded our phone calling to areas outside of Trapani. The first place that had availability for us was the Residence Santa Maria and it felt like we had won some kind of strange lodging lottery. The place was perfect. Nothing fancy and it never came up in my original research on the area, but it was exactly what we had been searching for all along: simple little apartments right on the water, next door to a great little restaurant (the lemon mussels really are divine), free kayaks, and those perfect sunsets. I have a feeling we will be returning to Mozia again.