Trapani is Sicily's westernmost town. The westernmost point of the westernmost town has an edge-of-the-world feeling: a single road runs along a promontory to a squat stone building, beyond which a few rocks tumble into the clear sea, then nothing but an eye-squinting sky meeting a dark blue horizon. If you were to set sail from here it feels like you would go on forever. You wouldn't of course. Before very long you'd bump into Sardinia to the west or Tunisia to the south west, but it's a romantic idea.
My rooms at the bed and breakfast I Colori del Vento felt a bit end-of-worldly too, in a comfortable sort of way. Staying here on my own for a few nights in an enormous apartment, with two double bedrooms, a sitting room and kitchen and bathroom, I imagined this as a place of anonymity, a place where you could disappear from the world for a long time. Maybe forever. (Well it was hot, and the sun may have heightened my imagination.) The windows of my room, full length and shuttered, looked over the treetops and across the road onto the port, where the ferries between here and Tunisia dock and depart. At night the sounds of mopeds and the shouts of boys and the thud of a football against a wall drifted through the open windows on the warm air, and often the low and steady engine-throb of a ferry at anchor. I settled and relaxed here: felt at home. When I first arrived, late at night, the owner appeared from the darkness to greet me, give me maps, tell me where to eat and offer me a glass of limoncello. All I really wanted was a bed, but I was touched by his concern. When I struggled to open the front door, returning one morning to collect something from my room, one of the young cleaners climbed out of the window to help. And late on the night before I left, when I went upstairs to the owners' rooms to pay, I was offered again the limoncello. This time it would have been impolite, I judged, to refuse.
Not everyone, apparently, agrees with this assessment. I Colori del Vento's reviews on TripAdvisor are at opposing ends of the spectrum: 'five star fantastic' to 'avoid it like the plague'. It's all about expectations, I think, and whether you consider yourself lucky or unlucky to have bagged the 'apartment' on the first floor. I did, and if I ever travel to the edge of the world again, here is where I would stay.
I Colori del Vento, Viale Regina Elena 62, Trapani, Sicily
Tel 347 2504630
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