"Erasing Erice from my Memory" Erice by Ekaterinburg

When I think that I considered pushing the boat out and paying through the nose to stay in Erice, I shudder. Why would I have considered staying in Erice , you might well ask ? I wanted somewhere really beautiful and special and for a day or two, flirted with the idea that 'this enchanting hill town' might be the place I'd been looking for. But the more photos of Erice I saw, the more I went off the idea and I can only thank providence for those photos.

But I certainly thought it would be worth a visit, especially as I planned to get there by cable car. The cable car was indeed thrilling. It's a long trip and the views over Trapani were wonderful. Far off in the distance I could see the windmills and the salt flats that had first spiked my interest in the area.

The sun was splitting the stones in Trapani but suddenly, our cable car was surrounded - almost submerged by - thick, grey fog. A fitting introducton to Erice where we shivered and slithered on wet cobbles and prayed for a break in the clouds.

We tried hard to tap into Erice's charms but everywhere we went was dismal, creepy and GREY. Erice brings a whole new layer of meaning to the colour grey :- grey houses, grey cobbles, grey streets, grey skies. Grey-t fun ? Afraid not.

Every so often the sun broke through the clouds but by the time you turned up your face to it it was gone. The only flashes of light came from the multi-coloured ceramics in the souvenir shops.

Maybe if the sun were shining, I'd have felt differently but I have to admit that after an hour or so in Erice, all I wanted to do was leave.

• Pros:The ride up there in the cable car
• Cons:An overwhelmingly morose, grey atmosphere
• In a nutshell:I can get damp and grey at home, why look elsewhwere ?