We arrived back into Rome Fiumicino from Sofia at about 7PM hoping for a quick exit. No such luck. Even though Alitalia had delivered us 20 minutes early we had the misfortune to arrive at the same time as a fully loaded Emirates A380 from the Middle East. These things hold 500 people more or less. All these people of many and varied nationalities arriving at the same time as normal Rome air traffic is dumping people at the airport is a recipe for very long lines especially for those without EU passports. And of course even after a decade of thinking about it Bulgaria still hasn’t been accepted into the visa-free Schengen zone so we were locked into being processed.
Airbus keeps building these mammoth planes and airlines keep buying them. You would think that one or the other of these organizations would let the airports know about it so that they could have more than 4 immigration desks open.
In the end it wasn’t as bad as it looked and we were only about 45 minutes waiting for a bored looking immigration officer to flick through our passports for the sole purpose of finding a blank page to put the perfunctory stamp on. The apparent immigration crisis that Northern Europe keeps harping on about hasn’t been communicated as widely as one might think.
Italy is also one of only a few countries where immigration officers have the important job of searching for a blank page in traveller’s passports on which to put their stamp. I don’t know what that’s all about (except perhaps the style issues with having to mix it with other countries stamps) but its very frustrating to have multiple pages with only one stamp if you are in and out of Italy.
And, Fiumicino is one of the world’s most egalitarian airports. Our one hour long process off the plane, through the terminal and through immigration had us arriving at the baggage claim area at the exact same time as our bags. An hour…that’s worse than Pearson Toronto, which can be pretty long winded. The EU citizens who had spent only 10 minutes going through their expedited passport process looked really happy about their baggage carousel wait.
Oh well, we recovered the fiat and found a hotel close by and crashed there for the night. The next day, Monday, we headed south from Rome. Having driven into Naples a few years ago in a downpour in rush hour we knew what to expect. But it still never ceases to amaze me how different the south of Italy is. The further south you go the more…rustic I think is the appropriate word, it gets. And these guys challenge Romanians for mayhem on the roads. What I didn’t know is that it’s a continuum not a step change. As you keep going south mayhem turns into straight out madness on the roads.
Clearly the road signs with the posted speed limits are for decorative purposes only. And it also seems that the little dings our GPS gives when we come up to a speed camera location are simply competition for the ipod music. I can’t imagine there are cameras in any of those boxes. If there were the sheer weight of speeding fine notices would completely overwhelm Post Italiane. I suppose I shouldn’t speak too soon. And that’s only the highway and country roads. The cities and large towns are like a constant Le Mans style race start. No lines, lots of noise, scooters weaving in and out of cars, inexplicable signs, unwritten rules that everyone but visitors know about, and suicidal pedestrians.
We tried the coastal route south but as is often the case with European coastline (except for parts of Greece) we were rather underwhelmed. We had driven the Amalfi coast before and that’s pretty stunning but decided on this occasion just to press on. We ended up on the coastal part of the Cilento region in a village a few minutes from Pisciotta. We got an apartment for a couple of nights with a great view out to sea and explored the area.
Pisciotta is a small hilltop (of course!) town with a smaller “marina” town below it on the sea front. The town is perched precariously on its steep rocky outcrop with many small alleyways and piazza’s and at this time of the year the locals appear to well outnumber tourists. There was a large display of locally carved walking sticks in the municipal building that was pretty cool
The marina town is just that with a few buildings sitting along the edge of the sea and along the protected marina area with its collection of small fishing boats and a few pleasure and charter boats. This little area isn’t easy to reach and does renew ones enthusiasm for the Italian coastline.
We lunched at a restaurant there in the Marina called Angelolini. It is competing for food of the trip so far. On exploring around the kitchen area of the restaurant I found a lot of awards and a copy of a book of recipes from outstanding chefs from slow food Osteria’s around Italy. And there was the photo of the guy serving our food right there in the book. He looked a little more harassed in real life than in the book and it was because he didn’t have people out front that day and he and the kitchen staff were doing the whole thing. I got photos of the recipes and will have to start the food page on our website. He was also genuinely happy to hear us tell him how much we loved our lunch.
We looked around the rest of the coast that day but it just wasn’t as good as that little corner and we left the following morning (Wednesday) heading further south into the Italian wilderness. We got onto the A3 through Calabria (one of our favorite “Franco” recipes calls for a sweet red onion from Calabria) and ended up in Villa San Giovanni late in the afternoon. The only thing going on there is the ferry across to Messina in Sicily so we steered the little fiat right onto the boat. That might have been a mistake because our GPS since then has refused to cooperate in any way shape or form and we hadn’t made any plans about where to go or stay that evening.
She (GPS) still talks and shows a map, but her directions are completely meaningless and perhaps even a little sinister if you subscribe to conspiracy theories. The first confirmation that she didn’t like being in Sicily was when she insisted on going down one-way streets the wrong way. If we refused she would even have us go around the block to try and get us to do it again even though we were closer to the destination using our alternative.
We ended up by-passing all the normal tourist destinations like Taormina and Syracusa to go to a town on the south coast called Licata. The road there from Catania was inland winding through very dry hills and rocky mountains. It’s a two lane road and our 100km/h just didn’t cut it. We were tailgated, passed on blind corners, and generally informed by gestures and noises that we were an inconvenience for about 70km.
We had found an apartment in Licata near the old town and booked two nights but by the time the GPS took us through what could only be described as some very odd neighborhoods on her crusade to turn us completely mad we were just a little skeptical about…everything really. It was dark by the time we found the place, which didn’t help.
However, as usual, Italian hospitality won the day. The hosts were very nice, got us settled in and pointed us into town for dinner along with recommendations and advice. We drove the 5 minutes into the heart of the old town and found it not anywhere near as intimidating as the outskirts appeared to be, parked and walked to the restaurants that had been recommended. We ended up at a place called El Diablo. No menu only what the chef decided his guests would eat that day and the wine was red or white. Friendly people and good food eaten sitting at tables set out in a narrow street. One of the menu items (eggplant based) the chef proudly told us was an old Sicilian recipe of his grandfathers. We ate Octopus and fish.
This part of Italy is south of Tunis. It faces south into the sun and gets the wind off North Africa and the deserts and mountains to the east. If we thought Southern mainland Italy was rustic then Sicily (at least this bit) was starting to look downright Saharan. Dry and hot…35 to 38 degrees in the shade even in the beginning of September. The towns all merge into the landscape, they are all built of stone and brick that is, or goes, the same color as the land the towns sit in. It’s a stark and quite beautiful landscape. The only color is in the litter and rubbish and crap that lines the highways and streets.
And…the Greeks (and others before them) were here first. Although, like everywhere in Italy, there are signs of the Roman Empire, down here in Sicily there is much more.
In the morning we set off from the apartment for an early walk, which ended up being 2 or 3 hours in the searing heat. The early part was fine, we headed up the hill above the apartment in a round about sort of way to a castle…Castel Saint Angelo I think. It’s quite modern in fact…around the late 1500’s. But it is built near or on some remnants of Greek times. Its also adjacent to a cemetery like no other. They build little houses for their dead people here.
Then it was down the hill into town (at sea level) for a coffee and pastry before the walk back up hill to the apartment. A quick check of Google confirmed what Linda suspected….we had hiked many kilometers and climbed more than 500 vertical meters. Licata is a nice little town
In Agrigenta about a half hour drive (using Sicilian driving technique) west there are perfectly preserved Greek temples and the archeological remnants of the associated town. Although there have been “restorations” over successive centuries there is one almost complete original temple and one where the architecture can still be clearly seen. It’s as clear and well preserved as the temples and buildings around the Parthenon.
The Greeks really understood math, beauty, and engineering. The Romans really advanced the engineering side of things but in all the politics and taking over the world probably forgot about the other things that might have made a lasting difference to their empire. If the Romans had got that other side of things (as hard as they tried they just couldn’t emulate Greek philosophy) and the Christians had just stayed at home there would never have been the need for a renaissance I reckon. And then we wouldn’t have Da Vinci or Michelangelo. And then where would we be? Living on Pluto probably.
So anyway this site in Agrigento is pretty fantastic. We struggled around it in the heat and then when we had enough we headed back to Licata to cool off in the air-conditioning and reflect on all this history around us. Dinner that night was at another Michelin recommendation. We did the 7-course degustation. Something else for the food page.
Next day (Friday) we headed off around the rest of the southern coast and then inland before going down to the western extremity of the island; Marsala. The western tip of Sicily is covered in vines (as the name would suggest) but despite our best efforts we didn’t see a winery or anything resembling a cellar door. And in Sicily they appear to go to sleep between 1230PM and about 5PM. So there was nothing open… not even anywhere to eat. We managed to find a bar selling Panini, which we ended up eating sitting in someone’s olive grove, and which we ate with wine from somewhere else.
We were heading around the island to our next apartment near Cefalu, a beautiful small town on the northern coast about 40km east of Palermo. The intent was to take the autostrada around Palermo to reach our apartment. The apartment has a pool and it was calling our names. This is when the evil GPS started to really screw with us.
We were doing as I planned; going around Palermo on the expressway and she was cooperating and being very nice. Too nice it turns out. Suddenly she told us to get off the expressway (which we did but later confirmed it actually went straight through in the direction we needed to go in) and dumped us into the center of the old city at 5 oclock. It was bedlam. I don’t know how the fiat is still in one piece because I pretty much closed my eyes and hoped for the best.
She took us through down town and then out along the old coast road and her calculated arrival time kept stretching out further and further until it was well over an hour later than it was when we got off the highway. If I had hair it would have been standing straight up. Finally we ignored her after a half hour or so and took a turn toward where the highway should be. Lo and behold she basically said in GPS speak “oh yeah, I should have thought of that and your new arrival time is now an hour earlier than I said before”….. She is going in the Ocean quite soon.
We arrived at our villa after much round and round (we finally turned the GPS off and used my ipad). Very nice. Our strategy is to go out to lunch and wherever possible cook and eat in for dinner. This place has a full kitchen and a terrace with barbeque as well as the pool to cool off in, so it was a little slice of heaven.
Saturday included a sleep in (to offset the excess of the walk the day before) then off to Cefalu. Cefalu is all its cracked up to be and deserves its “beautiful town” status. I bet in the tourist season it’s awful though…it was busy enough when we went there. Its a coastal town with a small marina, a church, and all the usual stuff.
Lunch out in Cefalu, barbeque in for dinner, you gotta love that. The next day we risked the trip into Palermo again. It was Sunday…it had to be easier and Shannon had been there and thought it was pretty cool. Nope. D-Adjectives;
Dirty
Dodgy
Difficult
We tried. We drove past some of the things we might have stopped and looked at and then decided Palermo was no longer on our itinerary. We found a nice little restaurant right on the water on a nice little bay about 15km out of town and settled in to recover.
Great food. But…we were seated outside by the sea and next to table with a 3 generations Italian family doing the long lunch thing. The men all had the same uniform. Black shoes (shined), black trousers, and very white shirts and the wait staff was very attentive. The old man looked like Don Corleone and they all sort of looked the same. It is Sicily after all and Palermo is just down the road. Not scary but maybe just a little disconcerting.
So it was back for a swim, barbeque dinner, a nice glass of wine and whiling away the evening on our terrace. The following morning (Monday) I decided we needed a walk. I consulted the map and got it completely wrong (is this becoming a habit?). I don’t really need to say much more than that we were up in the hills and by the time we got back (uphill) the sun was quite high and it was fairly warm. I think Linda made quite an effort to maintain a high degree of civility in her dialogue with me.
We had decided that the day would involve going inland through an area that is still covered in original oak tree forest, a trip around Etna and then either a hotel or the ferry back to Calabria. The drive through the national park was fabulous and we saw several groups of wild pigs. Pigs and acorns. Yep, I couldn’t help but think, “ham”. They might not have been Iberian but I bet they tasted good all the same. Once we were over one set of mountains we got a great view of Etna. Etna has been active for as long as mankind has been keeping records, which in this part of the world is quite a while. My guess is that as long as it’s continuing to spew out a bit of lava and smoke it probably wont explode. It’s a mammoth volcano though and living in its shadow must be a little scary. There are many vineyards on its lower slopes and these guys are leading the resurgence in Sicilian wine both white and red.
We drove as far up as the fiat and its insurance policy would allow. There are relatively fresh lava flows all over the place and the road is moved around the flows as required. And the biggest surprise is that they ski up there in the winter. It’s upper slopes are covered in snow for several months a year and there is a rudimentary chair lift and a whole lot of equipment and ski/boarding club buildings in amongst all the lava.
By then we were done with Sicily and so we headed for Messina and were on the ferry to the mainland by about 6 PM. Too easy and we are now in a nice coastal village north of Reggio Calabria for the night. I’m sure I have missed plenty out but will dredge the memory banks and make up for it in the next post.