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A Visit to Sicily
Sicily is a land of contrast. There is much that is beautiful--buildings with marble steps and balconies with intricately worked iron railings; ruined castles or similar buildings topping most hills; medieval hill towns sloping down to wonderfully panoramic views of curving beaches and the bluest sea.
My husband Jim and I, together with our friends Lyn and Larry Moses of Whidbey Island, visited South and South-east Sicily in April, just ahead of the tourist season, during lovely spring weather. The rolling green countryside features more orange groves than olive trees, and also palm trees, prickly pear-bearing cactus, bamboo, scarlet poppies and the yellow flowers of growing artichokes. Tile roofs are everywhere, many of them red, some so ancient they have weathered to a patina that begs to be photographed.
The contrast? Many buildings are slowly crumbling away, some more modern buildings were never quite completed, and have evidently been abandoned, their windows gaping empty. Litter is everywhere, along with junkyards stacked high with damaged automobiles.
One on one, Sicilians, who see themselves as Sicilians first, Italians second, are courteous, helpful, friendly and charming. Picture this: a young man with shining brown eyes and coal black hair, smiling, his teeth white and even, one hand to his heart as he apologizes for not being able to speak English--he is desolated, "Scusi,scusi," but all the same willing to help in any way he can to make you the happiest of women.
Here is a young woman, slender, dressed smartly in black, dark eyes kohl-lined, straight black hair framing perfect features, walking gracefully on a cobbled street in very high heeled shoes. Here's another with dark curly hair springing wildly, explaining that she can speak Deutsch yes, and Spanish yes, but no English, but with her gestures and expression she manages to answer whatever question you have and to inquire with fluttering hands if the thunder and lightning during the night scared you--now shivering, arms clutching arms across her chest.
Next you meet an older couple, the woman pleasingly plump, putting an arm around your shoulders, the man gap-toothed but smiling, and with a twinkle in his eyes.
The contrast? Put the same people behind the wheel of a car and they become suicidal and homicidal, cutting in front of you on the narrowest of roads that has a line of cars parked along it. At the same time another car is passing in the opposite direction, the driver shaking an index finger at you if you dare to pass him later! And quite often, someone will drive right down the middle of all this. On occasion, there's even a herd of sheep and goats surrounding your car too!
A driver will also aim his car right at you as you scramble across an alley and will give you the evil eye for making him slow down. (I've never seen that evil eye thing done quite so well elsewhere!) And if you walk on the extremely narrow sidewalk, someone is sure to walk directly at you as if you are invisible, resulting in a game of chicken to determine who will blink and step aside first. (Usually me!) Even the children will walk right at you-but they are also beautiful, and will often recognize you as American, smile and say "'ello, 'ello, 'ow are you?"
Listening to the people talk to each other, you understand why Italians have such great opera--every conversation could be put to music and staged with its inherent dramatic gestures and much emphasis.
The food-ah, the food! Ambrosia is a Greek word--the food of the gods--but it fits here. An omelette is a work of art. Antipasti is incredibly delicious, starring the ever-present olives, green and black, sun-dried tomatoes, salami, eggplant (I never liked egg-plant until I visited Sicily) fresh ricotta cheese, zucchini. This is usually accompanied by great bread, surprisingly served without the olive oil that usually accompanies it in our Italian restaurants.
We had pizza of course, though we discovered it wasn't served at what we call lunchtime, but only in the evening. Usually it had only one or two toppings. Lunch was available from noon until three p.m., most places, but if you missed that three p.m. deadline you were out of luck until 7 or 8p.m. when dinner was available.
It's worth noting here that most Sicilians nap for an hour in the afternoon. This is called riposo. And when the restaurants and stores close, they don't just close the doors, they pull down all the metal shutters, even over the doors. A town can look like a ghost town if you don't know the local customs. But then at four o'clock everything opens up again!
The coffee of course was wonderful, and we are fortunate in the U.S. to now be trained in how to order Cappuccino and Espresso etcetera, though I did goof once on Mount Etna and asked in lazy Washington State parlance for a latte, instead of cafΘ latte, which brought me a large cup of hot milk!
We didn't sample much wine but did go to one wine tasting, where we enjoyed Inzolia-a good and cheap white wine, and a good-tasting Pino Grigio. The beer was good and so cheap we often ordered a Grande instead of a Piccolo.
We didn't spend all our time eating and drinking, of course, though it was a temptation. But we managed to get quite a bit of sightseeing done, between meals. We climbed up steps to see the ruins of a couple of Teatro Greco and a Teatro Romano, rode a funicular down the hill in Taormina to visit the beach, and walked the fabulous Via Umberto in the same town to look in designer stores, view the marvelous views of the clear blue waters of the Ionian sea and watch kids playing soccer (with some very tricky footwork) on the piazzas. We also admired the artists doing portraits of tourists, and ended up, surprisingly, in an Irish pub called O'Seven, drinking Guinness! We loved Taormina, which is rather touristy, but absolutely beautiful. We even saw the King and Queen of Thailand, who were doing some shopping, surrounded by guards and the local carabinieri. In Taormina we stayed in a pensione where the proprietress spoke five languages, including English.
Mt. Etna tends to dominate the landscape here and there, steam issuing from its summit. We drove up it almost to the summit and marveled at the amount of recent lava rock-and a house half-buried in lava; the last eruption was in August 2001! Touching the rock, we discovered it still felt warm. At the same time, a light snow was falling.
We visited Catania, mostly black and white, the buildings built with lava rock. There's an eighteenth century lava statue of an elephant in the main square, Piazza del Duomo, and an opera house with perfect acoustics, where native son and composer Bernini played and worked. He wrote one of my favorite pieces of music, Cavalleria Rusticana.
We also walked all over Caltagirone looking at the famous ceramics, most of them in the blue and yellow colors that were introduced by the Arabs. We took photographs of the 142 steps up to a church named Santa Maria Del Monte, each step riser decorated with a different majolica design. At Easter, lumineria are placed on these steps in fabulous designs that are changed nightly. We also visited the beautiful Giardino Publica, which were very well designed and full of flowers and trees, with many benches, all sporting graffiti, mostly of the amorous variety.
We especially loved the Roman Villa in Piazza Armerina, that was built in the early fourth century. It has the most fabulous mosaic floors we've ever seen. We were especially impressed by the room of the gymnasts, which featured mosaics of lissome young ladies in bikinis!!!, one of them holding hand weights that looked remarkably like the hand weights I work out with at home.
Because I'm a writer-and reader-I had to look in the bookstores we came to. Many of them had large displays of American bestsellers translated into Italian. John Grisham and Danielle Steele, Sue Grafton, Patricia Cornwell, Michael Connolly, Stephen King-of course! When I wrote romance novels, all my books were published in Italy, but alas that was a while back and none were on display.
In Adrano we saw a wedding in the church of Chiesa Madre. First the groom and his mother were photographed on the steps, mother holding a bouquet. Then the bride arrived in a gorgeous white gown with a long train, with one attendant in white. The guests were all beautifully dressed but mostly in dark clothing. The bride entered the church alone, followed by the guests. There was no music, everybody talking. Then the wedding march was played-people still talking. Than a man sang (beautifully) Ave Maria, people still talking. Then the wedding began.
In a neighboring Castello we entered a museum and looked at pottery from the Bronze Age. Perhaps the most impressive thing about Sicily is the tremendous age of its buildings and artifacts.
One of the most interesting sights to me were the Sicilian Cemeteries, which from a distance looked like small walled towns, with peaked roofs showing above the walls. Inside were hundreds of huge, sometimes marble, mausoleums, different from any I'd ever seen. They were glass-fronted, and against the back wall inside were portraits or photographs of all the people whose remains were buried there. Fresh flowers adorned each one, and sometimes brief histories of the people. Sometimes a statue or portrait of Jesus or Mary or an angel was included. On the outside the name of the particular "famiglia" was carved into the eaves.
I guess this is about all I have room for here. I could go on, but it would take a few more pages. However, rest assured, wherever I go I'm quite sure there'll be a book in it, and Sicily is no exception. Watch for it!