For 30 euros more, we could have had it all. Instead, we went for the cheaper hotel. And we paid for it.

Standing in a piazza in the ancient Sicilian hill town of Enna, my mom and I anxiously flipped through a crusty phonebook attached to a phone booth with no phone, searching for the number to our hotel. Paradoxically, we were stranded in the center of town, at the top of the mountain, where the bus had dropped off all its passengers. Our hotel was somewhere near the bottom, over two miles below.

An hour before, we were in a bus climbing a mountain sprinkled with yellow flowers, flying past our elusive hotel, happily going to Enna. Had we known where the hotel was, we would have told the driver to stop, and we wouldn't have been so happy.

Now, under the fading Sicilian sun, shadows were spilling all over the piazza, and the situation was beginning to deteriorate. The wind had sharpened its teeth, biting through our clothes. Our stomachs contemplated mutiny with angry growls. Jet lag weighed heavier than our bags. And our dogged search through the brittle pages of the phonebook was fruitless.

Plus, the old man with the long nose hairs was really starting to irk us.

From the moment we stepped off the bus, this old Sicilian caricature had been following us around asking us if we needed help. We kept telling him no. He kept asking.

The more he asked, the more we didn't trust him. The more we didn't trust him, the more he irritated us.

Through his badgering, he was able to extract bits of information about our hotel problem. When he heard the name of the hotel he cried in muddled Sicilian, "That's down the mountain. Follow me, I'll take you there." Then he tottered off to the bus stop. This is when we dashed to the phone-less phone booth.

When he saw that we hadn't followed him, he scurried over to the phone booth, undeterred. He watched intently as we rifled through the crackling pages. When we crunched the book closed, dejected, he took out his wallet and began picking through it. With a huge smile on his face, he pulled out a card for a different hotel, the Hotel Sicilia, and said, "It is close! Come, I'll take you there. Five minutes." Then he reached to help us with our bags.

This shattered my patience. Our subtle hints to leave us alone had gone unnoticed up to this point. Now, the situation pressed, and his persistence was no longer charming. We were cold, tired, and hungry, and we wanted to go to our hotel, not someplace he pulled out of his wallet. So I told him, politely, that we didn't want his help and to please leave us alone.

Devastation.

It looked as if his heart had just exploded, as if I had just told him his family had been killed, as if [insert something really terrible here]. His eyes fell to the ground and he turned from the phone booth. Then, with a deep sigh, he limped away, without a single word, holding his chest.

(A word to the wise: this may seem harsh -- to tell an old man, only wanting to help, to get lost. But it was the prudent thing to do. When you're in a place where you don't know where you are, and neither does anybody else, always err on the side of safety and selfishness, despite what quixotic travelogs say to the contrary. I have many stories, perhaps not suitable to talk about here, where I wasn't assertive enough and I got manhandled. Literally. It sucked. So, if a situation leaves you feeling uncomfortable in any way, break hearts and hurt feelings; you'll never see these people again anyway.)

Out of ideas, we sought the help of a real estate agent working in the piazza. Miraculously, she was able to find the number to our hotel. Her trick was using a current phone book. (All the numbers the hotel gave us were obsolete.) She dialed the number and handed me the phone. The conversation went like this:
"Pronto?"
"Ciao, I have a reservation."
"Name?"
"Fiorentino."
"Eh, Fiorentino?"
"Fiorentino."
"Eh, no, I don't have a Fiorentino."
"Look again."
"Eh, are you sure it's Fiorentino?"
"Yes, it's Fiorentino."
"Hmm. Fior-en-tino..."
"Fiorentino."
"Fior-en-tino..."
"Fiorentino."
"Fior-en-tino... Ah! Here it is!"

Then they called a cab for us. It took six minutes and 15 euros to get to the hotel. Once we arrived, we realized we should have followed the old man to the Hotel Sicilia.

Despite the total blackness of the night, we could see the rotten situation we had gotten ourselves into. On its website, the Hotel Moderno boasts a modern building immersed within the green hills of Sicily, on the outskirts of town, yet within walking distance of Enna's center. Standing at its front door, we realized this celebrated verdancy was all that the hotel had to offer; it was in the middle of nowhere.

And the only restaurant close by was being renovated. There was nothing else.

You know you've got it bad when you can't find food in Italy.

We had to order our pizza through the front desk from someplace in town, two squiggly miles, and another 15 euros up the mountain. I was able to watch the Italian version of Sleepy Hollow before the pizza arrived. Over two hours after the front desk made the call, the pizza showed up, soggy and lukewarm.

The next morning, due to a three-hour gap in the bus schedule, we were forced to call a cab to take us back into town. Chalk up another 15 euros.

During the ride, I was able to bulk up on Enna's etymology. Most likely, the name Henna is rooted in the Greek en naien, meaning to live inside. The Romans added the Latin for fortress, making the name Castrum Hannae. This moniker was appropriate because every power that conquered Sicily was delighted with Enna's strategic position. After the Romans, the name took an Arabic course to become Castrogiovanni. This was the town's name during the domination by the Normans, Swabians, Angevins, Aragonese, as well as through the Italian revolution, until, in 1927, Mussolini had had enough, and changed it back to Enna.

Enna is one of those unique places in Italy that's worth going to, but nobody does. The only tourists you see are German and Italian. Perhaps because most of the tour books written in English bill Enna as a town with a beautiful view, but without the creamy filling.

Which isn't exactly accurate, but there is a hint of truth to this. Enna is no touristic powerhouse -- there are no grand churches, no sprawling museums, no sinking sidewalks. What Enna has is something better.

Authenticity.

In Enna, you don't find English in the menus, on the signs, or in the windows. There aren't a million places to change your money. There are only a handful of cabbies. There's no souvenir shop; if you want to buy something you'll remember, buy a cannolo from the Roma Cafe' on Via Roma. There are no gypsies to beg for your money. There are no people handing out pink flyers for bad restaurants. There are no scraggly looking men trying to sell you wooden letters on wheels from a dirty bed sheet. There are no fake Gucci purses, Dior sunglasses, Movado watches, or pirated DVDs. No Disney puppets dancing to techno beats. No portrait artists. No street musicians. Basically, in this central Sicilian town, it's as if tourism never existed.

And this feels good -- especially when you're standing at the edge of town next to the Castello di Lombardia, where Frederick II of Aragon declared himself king of Sicily in 1314, with the Sicilian countryside over three thousand feet below and the largest active volcano in Europe swallowing the northeastern horizon. Etna's peaks are covered in streaks of snow, falling gently outward as the cone expands monstrously into the earth. To the left is the town of Calascibetta, crawling up the side of the verdant incline of a nearby hill. Turning around from Mount Etna, you can see the western side of Enna slouching into the steep slopes and the roads scattered among them, swerving with the curves of the mountain.

Unfortunately, we only had time for a quick walk through the city before we had to catch our train back to Catania. So, we flew by the Duomo (which is said to have the most important religious architecture in Sicily) and the Castello di Lombardia (which is supposed to have the most important military architecture in Sicily), and many other important sites worthy of closer inspection. We were able to get the general flavor of the town, but didn't have enough time to stay for the main course.

This was because of the location of our hotel. We should have listened to the old man. Had we followed him to the Hotel Sicilia, for 90 euro a night, we would have been staying in the middle of town. We would have been able to go out for a nice dinner, take a walk throughout the cobbled streets, admire the ubiquitous arches, and finally crash for the night. The next morning would have been simple: eat breakfast in the hotel and then go and see the sights. Instead, for 30 euros less at the Hotel Moderno, we had more hassles, more stress, more waiting, and the real kicker: transportation costs that made up the difference in price between the hotels with only two trips.

Listen, the lesson is simple: It pays to stay where you go.

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