GREETINGS FROM SICILY

Robert Hemphill
Sep 7, 2018 · 32 min read

Posted on August 26, 2018

Dear Aunt Janet–

It all started badly. But it’s just another “missed airline connection/expensive rebooking scramble” horror story, so feel free to skip down to the middle of page 3 if you are so inclined and have experienced more than enough of these yourself.

We left on Saturday but our Southwest flight was three hours and twenty minutes delayed by weather in getting into Newark. We had a three-hour connection window with a “bargain” carrier, La Compagnie, that would take us to Paris. And then another generously timed on another carrier to take us to Palermo. Sicily is harder to get to than you would think.

We missed the La Compagnie flight, there was no one at the ticket desk, no customer service number available except nine to five on weekdays which this was not. We sent an email. No response.

Notified hotel in Palermo that we would be a day late, they were quick and helpful and sympathetic. Obviously, they were not an airline.

Since we were clearly going to be late, we changed the ongoing flight from Paris to Palermo on the Air France site on the internet, paid ticket change fee. Little did we know that we weren’t on Air France, but on a code shared piece of doo-doo airline called Transavia which has not yet discovered the Internet.

Called six hotels before getting a room for the night in Newark. Worried about the quality of the manger.

Hotel dining room in “Best Western Plus” was not open despite info from the front desk saying it was. Did have cheap red wine served at the bar in plastic glasses. The coke machine had Doritos so all was not lost. Wondered what the “Plus” was.

Sunday finally got LC on phone after being on hold for 30 minutes. All tickets canceled including return. Which obviously we had not missed. Goodbye bargain $5k.

Instead bought Icelandic Air tix. Always wanted to go to Iceland. Got wish.

But Icelandic Air didn’t leave until eight-thirty, so we went to next door Wyndham for lunch, walking along the edge of the freeway as there are no sidewalks in Newark. Ate at the lovely Starlight Dining Room. The menu had black piping and brass corner brads holding the plastic down. It’s not often you get to see menus from the fifties, both the cosmetics and the substance. Considered ordering Jell-O salad. Instead ordered a beer. Not available. Not 1200 yet–1145. It is Sunday, you should be in church, not drinking beer before noon. Did not realize that NJ was a theocratic state.

Huge mess in TSA screening. How many people can possibly want to go to Iceland? Fortunately, we have a magic green dot on our boarding passes (biz class I guess or native color of Iceland) so we bypass huge line, thus it only takes us one hour to get through. Good thing we started early. Newark airport not a particularly fun place to hang out.

Finally, we’re on. The airline crew wears Jackie Kennedy pillbox hats, at least the women. Probably not in honor of the 50th anniversary of RFK assassination which is coming up. Not for sale in the Icelandic magazine, pity. However, reindeer filet is one of the choices on the dinner menu. And some good movies. Unfortunately, Blade Runner 2049 is gorgeous but a completely incomprehensible mess as a story. And Harrison Ford should stop taking cameo roles in movies where he once starred.

The trip to Europe on Icelandic Air includes the added benefit of a stop in Reykjavik. Wow. Airline magazine boasts Iceland is the third windiest place on earth. First two not mentioned.

This site lists “ten windiest places on earth” but Iceland is not among them. Not even tenth. It also didn’t make the cut on the “seven windiest places on earth.” After that, I stopped looking. BTW, the consensus on the first two seems to be Antarctica and Mt Washington in New Hampshire, but there is great internet disagreement. Kind of like trying to answer “What are the three best beers in the world?” or “Name the three stupidest things Donald Trump has ever said.”

We land with no trouble ( the wind had the day off) except it’s five in the morning. All around is moldy green moss, flat, vacant, cold. No ice. Inside the airport, mostly white people. No, entirely white people. And no place to sit.

Other useful Iceland facts — snyrtingar means hello, despite being easily confused with the capital of Kashmir, thank you is bakka per fyrir.

Iceland looks like Kazakhstan but less Slavic. And less attractive, if that is even possible.

It’s cold. Remember, “Ice Land.” Must be a reason for the name.

Airline code for the airport: REK. Appropriate.

We are required to go through passport control (nothing else to do with a two-hour layover, so what the heck) but it just got you into another restricted section of the airport, not into Iceland. At five in the morning puffins all asleep anyway. Welcome to the EU, of which Iceland is not a part.

We are in Saga class — is this really a good name? Against my will I am already part of a saga, so where’s the blue cheese? Another benefit: the Saga lounge in REK — rocks in the floor and in the walls at various odd locations. Wonder about having rocks in my head for airline selection.

Best feature of the lounge other than rocks: Large video screen playing over and over a picture of several small very wan girls modeling Iceland clothes while auditioning for the local coven.

There are graphics of large birds with yellow crests, six feet tall pictures, decorating the walls as you head into the toilets, both sexes — kind of makes you shrink up and wonder if you really need to go. Are there real birds inside the john?

And finally Sicily. The real story starts now.

General observations:

#1: It’s more hilly than I thought, actually the place is full of hills and in some cases mountains. Big surprise — lots of mountains, or at least sharp and steep hills. And therefore valleys. Mt Pellegrino is to the immediate north of Palermo. No, the water doesn’t come from there. We drove through a lot of it, and it was mostly fine, but took longer than one would have thought. Especially if you ignored the directions from the rental car man who said, “Don’t go this way” and made a big X on the map over the route. But then that was the only road we could find, so…

GO #2: It’s more beautiful than I imagined. Maybe we just picked the right season, but there were flowers everywhere. Not just in careful gardens, but in the medians of all the freeways, and along roadsides. I saw oleanders in bloom everywhere, literally everywhere. And if it wasn’t oleanders, it was bougainvillea. Other plants in profusion: Queen Anne’s lace (daucus carrota for the Latinophiles) in a white and a yellow version, acanthus mollis, wild petunia (either ruella humilis or ruella simplex, couldn’t determine), yellow mullein with many branched stalks (verbascum thapsis), dark red thistle, hollyhocks, yellow broom in profusion, centranthus, artemesia, fennel or dill, and cactus (opuntia family) in bloom. And since Sicily is largely agricultural, many groves of citrus, almond, many fields of olive trees and lots of grapes in tidy rows in vineyards. In San Diego, we’re no slouches on roadside flowers, but this was impressive.

GO #3: the ocean is beautiful. Ever since L inadvertently (we hope) tried to kill us both by putting us on a zodiac in 12 foot seas in Kauai so we could go see some alleged native home sites of previous Hawaiians, accessible only on death-defying tiny inflatable and thereby also deflatable boats, we have had a solemn mutual agreement whose entire text can be quoted here: “No small boats.” The definition of “small” is less displacement than the aircraft carrier Midway. And that agreement has worked fine, except that she loves boats, swims well, and is fearless. So we relented and took two tourist boat rides, one on a moderately sized boat off the island of Ortygia, where we were accompanied by 19 young American women, probably college freshmen from a not very good but expensive school (USC perhaps?) who sat behind and around us and chattered the whole time about clothes, where they had bought clothes, future plans for clothes, and which of the waiters they had met were “hot.” As required they also continuously looked at their cell phones rather than the pretty nice shoreline with ancient sites, working fishing boats, and other bay-like things. But they were harmless in a “boy if their parents only knew what their money was paying for” sort of way, and besides the ride only lasted half an hour. The other nautical excursion was off Taormina, just us and a boat driver who was very good and so we toured around Elephant Rock which really does look like an elephant, and went into some small and not deep grottoes, and looked at the expensive hotels on the slopes and marveled at the amazing clarity of the water. It was better and clearer than anything I have seen in California. You could see the fish, lots of them, mostly 8 to 12 inches, blue and grey and swimming in schools and fish-looking. No sharks. L jumped in and “swam with the fishes” but not in the Godfather sense. I monitored the distance to shore and the location on the boat of the life jackets. And drank the Prosecco that was part of the deal.

GO #4 — You could have put an annex to New Hampshire’s White Face Lodge here, no Africans except selling beach shoes. Not hardly any brown persons either. Despite huge hue and cry about refugees, none were in evidence. Maybe they’re all in camps like in the kindly US. Could have been Montana except that Sicily and Montana are completely different.

GO #5 — there were lots of girls with lovely Caucasian skin but frizzy black hair, now dubbed “Sicily hair” by me, and black eyebrows. If not black enough, apply eyebrow pencil to make blacker and add a fine edge. Almost no blondes. We’re not in Scandinavia or Montana. And btw, who sold these women all this really bad red hair dye? Red as inflaming carrot red if carrots burned. Not subtle. And used without concern (or skill) by women of all ages. Sometimes the whole head, sometimes just the top, sometimes streaks, sometimes just the bottom strands. Nice contrast with the eyebrows.

GO #6 — Jeans and running shoes have triumphed everywhere, over all ages, races, and sizes. Nobody dresses up. Saw maybe two or three men in each of the major cities in coat and tie. Of course, we weren’t doing business. But everyone we saw was casual plus — slacks, shorts, jeans, sandals, running shoes, sneakers, t-shirts with logos or pictures, polo shirts. One could have gotten by on two pairs of pants, two pairs of shoes, 4 shirts. And then you would be able to lift your luggage. There is laundry here and Woolite is portable. All that talk about fashionable Italians? Not in Sicily. Marcello Mastroiani has left the building. Also fat has triumphed. Not just in America.

GO #7: No washcloths/face cloths in the hotels. I did not believe this when I read the advice. Pack a washcloth? To a series of four and five-star hotels? Really? You can always just give up and use a hand towel, but it’s sloppier.

GO #8: for seventeen days, we did not eat a single piece of beef, or chicken. Not because we weren’t trying, it was just that everything else looked so attractive. We also did not read a newspaper or turn on a television set. Not out of policy, we just had more interesting things to do and see. it seems we didn’t really miss much. And they let us back into the US despite this.

Favorite Phrase of the trip: In Palermo, when we were out walking around we noticed a restaurant that was kitty-corner to our hotel. It had white tablecloths, it was full, and the menu looked interesting. The next day I went down and asked the desk person, “Does the restaurant across the street have good food?” He answered, “All right. Why not?” Why not indeed, a useful phrase for much of Sicily. “Shall we take the third exit on the roundabout even though it seems to lead in the wrong direction?” “All right, why not?” “Should we try the pasta with sardines although I have never eaten a sardine in my life?” “Should we climb the 1000 steps to the Saracen Castle even though it’s not in any of the guidebooks?” You can see how useful this can be.

OK, enough of this, on to the pasta.

First things first: The search was to find and eat as many kinds of pasta dishes as possible in 17 days, or “can you eat pasta twice a day with no ill effects?” The short answer is yes. ABC agrees with me. If any of our hotels had offered pasta as a part of their breakfast buffets, I would have had pasta three times a day. One of them, the Caportigia hotel in Siracusa, did have tomato bruschetta every morning, and so did I. Here are the findings of the experiment:

Durum spaghetti with pan-fried broccoli rabe and Sicilian anchovies — sauce too thick, anchovy taste didn’t really come through — Villa Igiea fancy restaurant, Palermo. Very good Sicilian red wine.

Fettucine amatriciana with Sicilian ham — ham looked threatening, like the “sliced pressed ham” you buy in American supermarkets but it was really good, especially with the very fresh grated parmesan. Trattoria on the sidewalk in Palermo.

Spaghetti with sardines and bread crumbs — a couple of sardines on top, then big heap of spaghetti and bits of sardine and other stuff. Bebop restaurant across from Grand Hotel Wagner — and another excellent Sicilian red wine, this time from a winery in the Etna DOC. This is said to be a traditional Sicilian dish, and we did see it a lot.

Spaghetti with tiny shrimp and dried tuna eggs — thin tomato sauce, hard to find the tuna eggs. Maybe this was a good thing. Lo Scopeto restaurant in Palermo near Grand Hotel Wagner

Another night in Palermo at the fancy hotel: lobster soup with broken up pieces of fettuccine in it. I decided to count this as a pasta dish, and it was wonderful. Just a hint of tomato, generous chunks of fresh lobster and lots of quarter-inch pieces of broken fettuccine. We could do that. And all the while, the background piano player was giving us a rendition of “The Girl from Ipanema.” One more reason to hate piano players.

Tubetti, large cylindrical but short pasta tubes, with fresh cherry tomato quarters and a pesto of almonds, modest garlic and maybe a small amount of olive oil and cheese, topped with toasted sliced almonds — excellent! Small hole in the wall trattoria in Palermo near the hotel. As a peculiar aside, L. ordered a calzone which usually looks like a large turnover in the US. In this case, it was a full-sized pizza, and sitting on top of it was a somewhat conical pizza dough hat, not connected to the underlying pizza. You could pick it up to look at the pizza underneath. Or wear it. Or rip it into pieces and eat it. Or take it home to use as a Frisbee substitute. Very interesting.

Ortygia Trattoria — egg pasta in small strips with broad beans and their broth and big-leafed spinach. Kind of a sort of a soup or stew but just yellow pasta, white beans, and wilted bits of green spinach — wonderful and simple.

Fancy hotel restaurant — squid ink pasta with fresh ricotta and datterino tomatoes (a breed of tomato that resembles a half-sized roma plum tomato and, this being Sicily, is always dead ripe) and probably olive oil. I have always wondered about squid ink but culinary cowardice has kept me from trying it. No longer! The pasta in small short tubes was a streaky black, not the sauce which was a bit of olive oil. It tasted like, umm, pasta. Well, that’s either good news or bad news depending on what you expected. It did not taste fishy or salty or like tennis shoes. It did, I was informed, make my tongue black but this wore off. So there we are.

Restaurant in Ortygia called Da Salva — L ordered fettuccine with small bits of tomato, maybe a little-chopped parsley, sitting in the middle of the plate, and surrounded on three sides by a half of an entire lobster, meat still in the tail and body and especially the large claw. No cracking hardware, none of those little tiny pointy things to use to pry out the meat. However, there was a small flatfish knife which is all a determined person needs to go after it. And she did. I note that L was wearing a pristine white dress while making this attack. I suggested politely that she might want to tuck a napkin in at her neck since there was no lobster bib. She couldn’t make that work but proceeded apace and ended digging, cracking, tearing and otherwise successfully assaulting the lobster while getting nary a bit on her person. If this had been me, I would have ended up covered with lobster goo down to my sneakers.

Same restaurant, cascadere pasta with small shrimp and julienne of smoked swordfish. The pasta looks suspiciously like larger spaghetti but the waiter drew me a picture that looked like relaxed macaroni. Maybe it was what we know as bucatini. In any event, it was quite good although much fork spinning was required.

Random drop in at seafood trattoria named La Spigola for lunch after morning of hiking and birdwatching — we each ordered pasta, L got a fabulous spaghetti Fruiti di Mare with tomatoes and parsley and every kind of seafood, mostly mussels, clams, dime-sized small shrimp, pieces of some white fish, chunks of squid, etc. — we teamed up and ate it all. I got spaghetti amatriciana in a great tomato sauce with small chunks of some sort of smoked ham, also wonderful, and a couple of glasses of house red wine as good as any bottle we had had in Sicily. We debated just staying there for the rest of the day and drinking more wine. When we entered this eight-table place at 1330 there were four tables occupied, all by real Italians, and none by tourists. Usually a good sign, and in this case, it proved to be.

Rosmarin restaurant in Taormina, first night — spaghetti with black truffles, Nubian garlic, artichoke hearts. Excellent! I didn’t know the Nubians raised garlic. I didn’t know there were Nubians anymore.

Second night in Taormina, a restaurant along the street — fettuccine with gorgonzola, radicchio, and walnuts — yummy.

Third night — large tubes with octopus and chickpeas — very good. Learning to really like octopus. Easier if it’s chopped up in bits. Also would be easier if I hadn’t in January read “The Soul of an Octopus” by Sy Montgomery. A very good book.

Food observations #1: After much data collection it is clear that Sicilians at least do not think that any pasta except one with red sauce needs or deserves or requires parmesan cheese to top it off. So they don’t provide any and as we are trying to fit in, we don’t ask. If you make the pasta the right way, it doesn’t need any cheese you stupid American. I think this is the message.

FO #2: If you go to a wine tasting location and they serve you tiny helpings of wine in thimble size plastic cups like you’d find with your pills if you were in the hospital, then the chances are not good that this will be drinkable wine.

FO #3: Why can’t the Italians, of Sicily at least, make decent desserts? They make everything else so well! Then it comes to desert and common sense and good judgment just desert them so to speak, and they decide that if a little gelatin is good, a lot is better, and while you’re at it, why not take perfectly good cream puffs and douse them in not very good rum, or take lovely cannoli and add twice as much sugar as the recipe calls for? Or twice as much ricotta (and twice as much sugar) as will actually fit?

Palermo — We stayed at the Villa Igiea Palace hotel, a fine old historic set of buildings built on a hill on the north side of the large working port, with a great view of the port and the whole harbor. A lovely swimming pool and a fabulous dining room, and a certain courtly décor to it all. Pictures of visiting and well-dressed dignitaries from the 20’s and 30’s decorated all the hallways. I half expected to run into Wallace Simpson rounding one of the corners.

The dinner process was initiated, both times that we ate there, with a complimentary glass of Prosecco. You didn’t even have to ask, they just brought it. Maybe I hadn’t done enough work on this, but I have never in the US had a glass of this Italian champagne equivalent that struck me as better than “ok.’ Not so at the Palace, it was crisp and cold and lovely. I even asked to see the bottle and wrote down the name — “Bordo Molino Prosecco” — but I have my doubts that this will be available at the local BevMo. Probably not in Iceland either.

We walked around Palermo several times, especially the downtown part where all the neat buildings are — a great cathedral with outside decorations of Islamic motifs, all geometric, no images of living things. The explanatory material constantly points out that Sicily has a long history of being ruled by Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, French, and maybe the East India Company. And thus the local food, architecture, culture, religion etc. is a composite of all of these various rulers. The Greeks got the prize for longest tenure, ten centuries, and left behind the best stuff. Normans came in second.

Best cathedral/church/chapel/chiesa/cappella of the trip and there were many: the Cathedral at Monreale. This is a small mountain village above Palermo. It translates as “mountain of the king” as I suppose it was at one point. We hired a driver and a car (which turned out to be a Porsche sedan) with a knowledgeable guide. The Cathedral from the outside was fortress-like since it began life as a fortress sitting on top of a mountain with a nice view of Palermo. Two large watchtowers on the front. And since this is Norman architecture, it is very boxy, no buttresses, no gargoyles.

Inside it is soaring as befits a cathedral, with rows of columns, several domes, a large altar, and backdrop. The windows along the sides are quite small with no stained glass–fortress architecture again. There is virtually no sculpture anywhere other than a small altarpiece with six saints in a row. Ho hum — but wait! While the lower walls are unornamented, the upper walls on two levels are completely covered with large mosaics of biblical scenes including much from the old testament. And it is all gold all the time– everything is mosaics with gold. Our guide says 250 lbs. of gold were used in the artwork. It is not clear who measured this or how it was measured, remarks the analyst inside me, but it is clearly a lot of gold. Each separate scene had Latin lettering so you had a clue what it was. I got Noah and the ark right away. But Lot’s wife looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah and turning into a very pure white figure of salt wasn’t so immediately clear, esp. as the representation of Sodom and Gomorrah in flames looked like a couple of dollhouses burning in a trash can. But that is a small quibble, the art was wildly impressive.

Attached was a cloister, largest of the middle ages. Lots of complicated iconography on the capitals of the columns surrounding the four sides and holding up the roof of the large courtyard. Where they grew the vegetables for the monastery, all in the courtyard. Well, it’s on the side of a mountain for goodness sake, flat land was at a premium.

And, as always, an entry for the “Untrue Things our Guide told us.” In this case, he pointed out a grove of Ailanthus near the Cloister and noted that if you cooked the bark for a while it became an effective source of poison. But…there is nothing conclusive in Wikipedia to support this claim. The note that it is much used in Chinese traditional medicine, and for making steamer baskets, would argue against it being poisonous.

The next day we walked to the Norman Palace which is supposedly a big deal, an exemplar of the Norman style during the four centuries that the Normans ruled Sicily and much of southern Italy. You stand in line to get in, pay 12 Euros each (senior discount only applies to EU citizens) and then all you get to see is a small chapel about half the size of Monreale, beautiful but very similar (125 lbs. of gold?) Also a showing of 17th century Flemish paintings from painters who weren’t good enough to make it in Brussels? (Flanders? Flemville?) So they moved to Sicily. Not impressive. I wanted to see the castle and the moats and the old cannons and all that. Disappointing.

Stopped for a beer and a pizza at a little place overlooking the Palermo Cathedral and this was better and a better deal than the Palace. Happily fortified, we then walked all the way to the port and the botanic garden (“Orto Botanico”). Because hope springs eternal, we had sought out this out, such soughting being noticing it on the city map. We have done this with poor results in a number of locations, but are slow learners. As generally happens, it was a bunch of trees and an occasional bedraggled rose bush. Not a good plan, am forsaking all botanic gardens not made by the English or the Americans, everyone else seems to believe that trees are what it takes, not flowers. Although truthfully none of the guidebooks even mentioned the place which might have been a clue to someone less hard-headed. All the flowers are along the highways.

The garden was located on a street labeled Via Abramo Lincoln and immediately next to Palermo’s Chinatown. Globalism in unexpected places? These are the guys bringing the shipping containers into Palermo harbor full of goods labeled “Made in Italy.” We persevered and walked back to the hotel (see “hard-headed” above although also it was not possible to find a taxi) for a round trip of 4.5 miles. Took off shoes and socks and laid down.

Agrigento

Palermo is on the northwest quarter of Sicily, with Agrigento and the Valley of Temples on the south in the middle. The map shows some freeways in various places, but this may be invented since we only found the ones on the far east side of the island. So we spent a bit of time driving slowly behind other lines of cars and trucks, on pretty hilly and twisting roads. But we had plenty of time and plenty of itinerary flexibility.

The result of this was that we finally got to Agrigento at noon rather than our plan of being there earlier. Then we walked all around the site — no little tour-buses for us, by God! — for about 10 km in the midday sun.

Agrigento is well worth visiting. The clever Greeks and then the clever Romans picked a site on a ridgeline about a mile from the ocean but with a beautiful view of same. It is also possible that they wanted a defensive barrier so that the next occupiers would not be able to seize their temples immediately. There are twelve temples in the park, nicely laid out and with good signs.

But along with number six one begins to think about what actually qualifies as a “temple.” And to develop a Temple Evaluation System. In simplest terms, temples with columns are better than a site with clumps of big marble lying around, and nothing standing on top of anything else. In my system, a bunch of recumbent marble or sandstone or limestone in a big mess is not a “temple.” It may be a “temple site” but a temple it ain’t. To qualify you really have to have at least one column standing, even a foreshortened one. And you also get points for sheer size, with the Parthenon in Athens being the best temple I have ever seen. So, a two-part designation: A-F for size and 1–10 for percent of columns still standing, compared to the original design. The Parthenon is the gold standard and gets an A-10 rating. It has 46 columns, all standing and arranged in the classic 4 to 9 ratio. The fact that it has been repaired or rebuilt several times is OK.

Of the seven temples of Agrigento only six really qualify as temples, rather than temple sites. Of these six, the top ratings go to Concordia (38 columns, B10, and Juno (19 columns, B 7). The others range from 17 to 15 to 7 to 4. The only real disappointment is the temple of Zeus which has nothing left standing. For reference, the Parthenon is a 46 column monster. See what fun numbers can be?

Finally, we have seen them all, and stop to sit down, have a beer, and see if gelato is any different than ice cream. No, at least not in Agrigento.

Syracusa

The first day’s exploration was of Ortygia island, an island that is approximately 100 feet off the coast of Sicily and downtown Siracusa and connected by two wide streets/bridges to Siracusa. It is small and interesting with the usual neat things — a fascinating bunch of stalls arranged into a food market, with the fish probably the best part. One stand has an actual big swordfish sitting there on a cutting table, sword and all. Dozens of cuttlefish and squid, in all sizes, more ripe tomatoes again of all sizes than you ever see in the US, none of them in plastic, brilliant zucchini blossoms, cheeses, fresh fruit, and on and on. Of course, since we are staying in a hotel and not cooking anything, it’s all a bit of a tease, but the ratio of actual purchasers to gawkers is probably ten to one, which seems healthy and makes the place probably authentic.

A large ruin, Apollo’s temple, is also right there at the start of the island. In accordance with the recently developed temple rating system, this one clocks in at 23 pillars/columns for a rating of C8. It is pretty well preserved and doesn’t have a lot of stray blocks lying around.

The Fountain of Arethusa is a nice piece of round marble with mythical figures spouting water, located in the center of the island. This is confusing if you read it because the original “fountain” is instead, a freshwater spring near the western side of the island, but there is also this big fancy multi-character installation. The myth: one of the nymphs of Artemis (Diana in the Roman characterization) was being harassed by a hunter named Alpheus. Diana was the goddess of the hunt, of animals, of war, of the moon and perhaps of five card monte, the internet is unclear. The harassed nymph, Arethusa, appealed to Diana for help but forgot to add #MeToo to the message. The helpful Diana/Artemis turned Arethusa into the aforementioned spring. The hunter, not to be put off, somehow turned himself into an underground river and thus “mingled his waters” with the now liquid Arethusa before the whole thing arrived in Ortygia. This does not look like it was a good deal for Arethusa. Why didn’t Diana just take her bow and shoot the jerk? It does upon reflection make one note that there is a whole lot of boy chasing girl when the girl isn’t interested in the mythology of the Greeks. Leda and the swan, Zeus turned himself into a bull to pursue Europa, Zeus pursuing Callisto who got turned into a bear, and so on. It could further be argued that if this was OK for the male gods, then it was ok for the male humans. Role models matter.

Since we had lugged our binoculars and a couple of bird identification books along in our luggage, we took a day and went to the Vendicari nature preserve — a 400-acre rectangular property fully protected along the ocean south of Siracusa. Lots of sand and scrub vegetation, and two long lagoons, it was described as a good place for migrating species and waterfowl. We got a driver, got there at ten and saw many tour buses and people including student groups hiking into the park. Response: “uh-oh, this doesn’t look good.” High school groups of bird watchers? But with one or two exceptions, no one had binoculars. We soldiered on and soon found that there is a “free” beach associated with and part of the reserve, a very nice beach, in fact, fine sand, tiny waves, beautiful clear and warm water, long gentle slope. But the price is distant parking, a long hot walk to get to the beach and no facilities — no hot dog stands, no bathrooms or changing facilities, just a lovely beach. So anything you want there needs to come in on your back. Despite this, the beach was the destination of 98% of the people we saw, and all of the school groups. We did hike around the trails and saw an egret, doves, magpies, swifts, and lots and lots of flamingoes. Impressive standing in the water although quite white in color, but beautiful in flight where their pink wings show. Like a long pink spear flying through the air. We saw black-winged stilts, though fewer in number, a water bird with striking red feet, equally beautiful in flight. This is the official bird of Siracusa. That’s the $1000 question on Sicilian Jeopardy. We saw many small swifts with a white patch on its back. Our books assured us that it was not found in Italy. We queried the bird on this but it was too busy flying around swiftly to respond.

Ragusa and Noto– Our plan of not driving (hard to park, hard to figure out where to go, hard roads to navigate) was used again for these two world heritage sites, with a driver and a capable tour guide named Chiara. The originals of both cities, which are probably 15 kilometers apart altho it seems longer given the twisty and narrow roads, were simultaneously destroyed in a very large earthquake in 1693. Guide says 80% of residents died and when you see the “old” part of Ragusa, which resembles the icing stuck precariously on the sides of a tall irregularly-rounded cake, with buildings all built right into the steep mountainside and all the internal roads being switchbacks, you can see how this could have been catastrophic. One house at the top starts to slide, it takes everything below with it. Not clear what happened to all the other cities in the area like Modica which probably also got destroyed, but they get no press. The residents (such as they were) rebuilt these two in the then-popular ornate rococo style, with all buildings conforming to this stylistic approach. Lots of churches with big paintings lining the walls and one cathedral with same, lots of “palaces” which are really just very fancy big houses for the aristocrats, lots of piazzas with city buildings and opera houses fronting them. Hot and sunny and crowded and impressive. One of the painted ceilings in one of the churches in one of the cities had around painting on its domed ceiling of Mary and the 12 apostles standing around, arms waving in what looked to me like they were at a rave. Is Jesus going to do stage diving? After a while cathedral fatigue sets in.

We walked up the street from our hotel in Siracusa to the Archeological Park, home of the few ruins in Siracusa worth seeing. There is a large Greek amphitheater set steeply into a hillside facing the sea, which one can see from the top level. Great site, but–really gummed up with new seats made of grey painted plywood and section signs. Could be a Greek theater, could be a class B ballpark in Oneonta.

There is also a Roman mini-colosseum in the park. It really does look like the Colosseum in Rome, if the Colosseum were one eighth of its size and sunk into the ground. The floor is not even big enough for arena football whatever that is. But it is nicely preserved and has good signage explaining each section. However, like so much of the rest of the park, half of it is closed off. Why? The place is overrun with tourists, trust me, who each pay ten euros to get in, and half the walkways in the park have “do not enter” signs on them. It’s not because they’re being renovated, no work at all is going on there. Disappointing, stupid and expensive for the product offered.

The Latomia del Paradiso is a peculiar place inside the park, rated 48 out of 150 attractions in Siracusa in Trip Advisor. Believe me, there are not 150 attractions in Siracusa, a pretty small town. Unfortunately, Latomia does not mean garden, it means limestone quarry. “Limestone Quarry of Paradise?” Three-out-of-four guidebooks don’t list it. No quarrying going on, it is now a so-so garden, not well maintained, with wild raspberries growing out of the top of the hedges.

While one is wandering around the city, which does not take long, one inevitably comes across not one but two large modern circular churches of the 1960 era, the heyday of round churches. One is called “the tears of the Madonna,” and when you get up close to the design you can understand why she was crying, it’s really ugly. The other is even less well recognized and, if possible, uglier. They are within 1KM of each other. Was there a “round church contest” in Siracusa in 1962?

Many of the souvenir stores have in their windows a set of ceramic planters, of medium-size to full-scale size, of two heads. One is of an elegant woman and one of a man in a turban, usually the former white and the latter black. We see these all over. Finally, we ask our concierge. We are told that this is the legend of the beautiful maiden and the Turkish soldier. This was one presumes during the period when the Arabs had their turn in ruling Sicily. The young maiden was on her balcony when a handsome Turkish soldier passed by. She invited him up, a night of passion followed, but in the morning, the realization that he was leaving and besides was married and had two kids caused her some upset. So she chopped off of his head and used it for a planter. For basil. It is not explained why her head has also become a planter, but it does make you think about whether there is some core violence/revenge thing in Sicily. Maybe the Godfather had it right?

Taormina

Located on the side of yet another mountain in northeast Sicily, this is “the most visited city in Italy.” We are told this by the Taormina Chamber of Commerce and our hotel. We were not told this ahead of time, but our homework isn’t always perfect. The good news is that it is a fabulous town, with a fabulous hotel and views and food and on and on. And because we are cleverly (but unknowingly) there the week before school lets out in Italy, it is not very crowded. Huzzah!

We spot a brochure for a local cooking class and under the “All right. Why not?” doctrine, sign up. We make busiata pasta by hand starting with just semolina flour and water, plus maccheroni and orecchiette and the small one with lines in it. We cook fresh tuna baked in Italian stuff. — olive oil, tomato sauce, white wine, olives, capers, parsley, fennel fronds, and it is among the best fish dishes I have ever eaten. We even make caponata, with my second least favorite vegetable, eggplant, and it’s very good. Besides the teacher says you can make it with potatoes.

Our room has a view of Mt Etna, the second largest active volcano in the world. It actually is quite big, and steam keeps coming out of the top of it. OK, Kilauea is the most active, you don’t have to go look it up. We sign up for a trip up to close to the top (10,000 feet), but we only get to about 8k. We drive around, we are shown lava fields, we climb into a lava tube and thankfully out again, we walk through the forest and climb several (dormant) craters. Because volcanos follow the laws of geology and not of second-grade art, they are not all perfect cones. This one has 300 craters of which we climb around in two. Not active, but steep and interesting.

Everything has a story. Jupiter was always trying to kill his sons before they grew up and killed him. It wasn’t always great to be a god. One of the sons got hidden in a cave in the mountain, grew up there and decided to stay underground, and became Vulcan god of the underworld. Hence volcanoes.

And then there’s Florence Trevelyan. An orphaned English girl of good family, she was raised by Queen Victoria but had a “liaison” with Victoria’s son, Prince Edward VII, the future king. She was rusticated and ended up in Taormina, where she established a lovely English garden along the edge of the town, full of fancies and an Italian two person torpedo which was to be ridden underwater and guided by aforementioned two persons until it ran into an enemy ship. The plaque explaining this does not explain how the two riders got off before the explosion, or if they did. This may help explain why Italy did not win the war. Florence subsequently married the mayor of Taormina and led a classic English expat life.

In addition to Florence’s large and lovely garden, there are beaches here. The water is very clear and clean. The weather is warm. You take a cable car to go from the hillside perch of Taormina down to sea level. The beaches are covered with two unattractive things: rocks ranging from golf ball to softball size, and hundreds and hundreds of people, most of them not very attractive but wearing small bathing clothes. Tight small bathing clothes. Speedo has much to answer for.

We check it out and find that the small island in the small bay below our hotel was also owned by Florence — Isola Bella. Her husband bought it for her as a present–nice. One is reminded of Dorothy Parker’s lament about lovers who always send her ‘one perfect rose’ instead of one perfect limousine. To get there you take a cable car down to more or less sea level, then you walk down one hundred steps to the narrow, crowded and rocky beach. Our hotel told us at least six times about the “one hundred steps” so we figured they had complaints. We chanced it, and it turned out to be 105 steps but that’s just the accountant in the back of my head. Florence planted the island generously with tropicals and built a house into the sides of it, about eight rooms in six stories, all with big windows, some with glass doors opening out erratically onto patios. Very exotic and English design.

The island is covered with a beautiful shrub called Caparis Spinosa which the ticket taker gave me the name of and also said, “Capers.” This is a spiny floppy thing with gorgeous pink many-stamened flowers blooming all over the plant. No capers in evidence so I figured I misheard her or she meant to say “thank you” or “gesundheit.” In fact, later research reveals that this is, in fact, the source of capers which are the flower buds. And if you let the flowers mature you get caper berries from this plant. I thought they came from Japan or the Malay highlands or somewhere in English.

After walking all over Florence’s quite peculiar house, and watching the small beach become even more crowded, we decide to go back and sit by the lovely pool in our hotel which has clear and beautiful water, one or two people in it, free chairs, no rocks to walk on, and a kiosk where you can order lunch and wine and charge it to your room. Not to mention a fantastic view of the Naxos bay stretching out below, and Mt Etna to the west.

On our last night in Taormina, we went into the town, principally to find some more Kleenex for the trip home. You never pack enough, it seems. As we came up to the main street we noticed that large rectangular paintings surrounded by leaves or flowers had been executed in the middle of the street, as if part of a path. Everyone was walking on the sides of the road, being careful not to step on the street art. Many people were taking pictures. Several side streets were the same, although the pictures were more elaborate — whole 4 by 12-foot art made with bright flower petals or seeds and beans or in some cases chalk. The images were largely religious — crosses, doves, lilies, etc. We were told it was for a celebration in honor of St. Pancreas, the saint of internal organs. At least that’s what I thought they said. It turns out to be St. Pancras. According to BeliefNet, there are saints for cancer and infertility and so on but not for internal organs. Oh well. Wikipedia seems not to agree on dates: “His feast day was entered into the Roman Martyrology as April 3; recently this was amended to July 8. More often he is celebrated on July 9, the traditional day of his martyrdom.” No mention of 3 June.

We were variously informed that the procession would begin: a. at sunset or b. in thirty minutes or c., not today, which seemed to cover all the options. We found a small bar in the Piazza Victor Emmanuelle near the church of something that was the procession’s destination and had a glass of prosecco and several handfuls of peanuts. All right, why not? By nine thirty and another Prosecco, no procession had shown up, so we walked along the main procession route — no processioneers in evidence– to the cutoff to the hotel, admiring again the elaborate street decorations, the strings of lights across the small streets, and the many people out strolling and eating and drinking. We considered selling all our possessions and moving to Taormina but instead went back to our hotel room to pack.

Going home: We got to the front of the Alitalia counter in Catania, after a long, long wait during which at least three of the counter agents decided it was, we don’t know, coffee break time and took off, leaving one to deal with the roughly 60 customers still in line. When it was, at last, our turn, we needed really hard things: two boarding passes for a ticket we had bought 30 days ago and confirmed, and to check two pieces of luggage. “Your baggage did not make a reservation,” it was announced. One pondered a response — “I don’t let it use the internet, it just downloads luggage porn.” No, better to just look befuddled, which at this point is easy. Twenty minutes and €106 later, the baggage had a reservation at least through Paris. The airline is being privatized, and whoever buys it has work to do.

One final note: because of, wait, never mind, no more explanations of airline problems, it took us three days to get back. At one point we found ourselves at Paris Orly. In the men’s toilet, a small sign had been placed over each urinal, just above the button you pushed to flush. It read: “Interdit de boire, eau nonpotable.” Thinking about the necessity for this sign amused me all the way back to Iceland.

Love and kisses,

Bob (your favorite nephew)

Mr. Hemphill is the Chairman and CEO of Sunshine Soldiers, a non-profit focused on education activities happening in energy, especially with regard to the adoption of renewable energy technology by utilities, commercial customers and homeowners, and strategies to benefit from it. Hemphill is also the author for two business travel books, Stories From the Middle Seat: The Four-Million-Mile Journey to Building a Billion Dollar International Business and Dust Tea, Dingoes & Dragons: Adventure in Culture Cuisine & Commerce from a Globe-Trekking Executive.

Robert Hemphill

Written by

R.F. “Bob” Hemphill is a pioneer in the renewable energy industry & CEO of Sunshine Soldiers, a non-profit focused on education activities happening in energy.

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