Three seas, three capes, three mafia dons – this must be Sicily, with a flag of three legs with a gorgon in the middle you know that this is a Classical Isle – a Dairylea triangle with quality cheese. A land that had the Biscuit Wars between Garibaldi and Bourbon; where they killed anyone who couldn’t pronounce ‘chickpeas’ in Italian (mainly the French but I can imagine there was collatoral damage); a people who accidentally wiped out the indiginous Griffen Vulture and a history written by just about every major culture including Phoeniceans, Greek, Roman, French, British, Moors and Spanish. A land with active volcanoes and a major fault line that they are building a bridge over. I couldn’t wait to get there, especially before I had to drive over that bridge.
Easyjet from Edinburgh to Gatwick, hang around for ages in Gatwick Limbo then Easyjet with a camp steward trying to sell a ‘Wish Upon A Star teddy bear for Auntie Muriel’ to Palermo. Boarding was class led (A for Ace and B for Bastards and probably C for C*nts) but the flights were comfortable and the food selection onboard was intriguing (I went for olives and shortbread and red wine to stop those pesky DVTs).
From Palermo airport we switched on the sat nav and the gentle plummy voice led us onto what I thought was a Nintendo racing game – cars in any lane they fancied and travelling at high speed flashing lights and beeping horns. Lots of lengthy tunnels, some looking a lot more decrepit than others, one in particular having a dark roof so it looked like the light were suspended like stars. After a gruelling ride we reached Milazzo at 1am and abandoned the car down a dark side street and booked into La Bussola hotel to sort out our baggage for a trip to the Isle of Stromboli on the 6am ferry. At 5am whilst I was sitting on the loo Kim decided to turn the air conditioning on and successfully killed the power to the entire room – so in between the sounds of farting and shouting there was Kim falling over our bags looking for a torch. The lift didn’t work so early so we struggled down the stair with a bad and managed to wake up a grumpy hotel attendant to get our passports back and then head out into the dark streets of a Sicilian port in search of a hydrofoil, with Kim soothing her insect bites from the hotel and munching ginger for the journey.
An hour later we were in Stromboli on a small motor bike carrier and rumbling along the narrow streets under the volcano to the hotel which was closed, but managed to feed us breakfast whilst reception opened. This is the first time I have checked in at 7:30am in the morning but it was great to dump everything in the room and then march off along the Stromboli streets sightseeing and trying to find a volcano guide to take us above 400m of the active Stromboli volcano. We walked along the black beach and I swam in the Tyrrhenian Sea emerging like the creature from the Black Lagoon. The weather over the volcano was not good and the guides were all booked up – but we still held hope as Magmatrek said that often people arrive and were seasick or just didn’t bother turning up. Unfortunately today was the day when they all turned up so we set off for a 400m walk around the volcano waiting to pick off any stragglers on the official guided walk. We met a Dutch woman who had taken our place on the walk but had abandoned it – she came so close to falling off a ridge I can tell you – but we did see an eruption of billowing multi coloured smoke from beneath and the street of fire at sunset which was gorgeous. Walking with head torches down the volcano in darkness and in between the high sugar cane was quite spooky with crickets chirping away and we walked back to our hotel in a thunderstorm with lightning flashing around – storms are often caused by the erupting volcano which is lit up in profile against the lightning flashes. Stromboli was unsurprisingly where the film Stromboli was filmed with Ingrid Bergman’s affair with Robert Rosellina a bit obvious from the photographs on the hotel walls.
We woke early and made the first ferry at 7:30am to return to Milazzo via the other Aeolian islands of Volcano (no surprise why it was called that) and Lipari with Salina in the background where the wonderful Il Postino was filmed. With heart in mouth we turned to corner to find the car still there remarkably and so on a packed itinerary it was driving out of Milazzo with Marialle directing us (we called our Sat Nav Mariella after Mariella Frostrup as they both sound frightfully plummy). Tyndaris was the first stop after a series of hairpin bends were sending Mariella a bit loopy – turn left, turn right, turn left, turn right – we turned her off to let her calm down. The cathedral at the top was magnificent and ruins including a Teatro Greco and roman mosaics overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea were splendid. Kim got caught up in a huge tour group being not so quick as I at avoiding such things.
Our plan was to head to a gorge called Golo Alacantra, but we misread the sign and were tumbling down some rocky path when we realised from the froggy signs that we were actually driving along a nature walk. With large clunks from boulders hitting the sump we were glad that hire companies don’t check underneath cars when you return them – and turned back to avoid the more blatant pot holes and waved goodbye to the frogs. The actual Golo Alacantra is magnificent – a lava made gorge with waterfalls and flash floods – we dressed in waders and waded up a freezing cold river up to our chests dipping our rucksack bottoms in the water. Kim’s wellies naturally sprang a leak and I almost fell in – but that was not unexpected from past experiences. And so dried out we drove to Tiormina, abandoning the car in a multistory car park, walking to the Greek Theatre overlooking the Ionian Sea and the picturesque town and returning to forget where the car was…
The plan was stay at the art hotel in Messina – that was when Stuart informed us that it wasn’t actually in Messina but lots of kilometres back on the road to Palermo. After a brief exchange of various swear words I accepted this possibility, abandonded my plan of visiting each of the triangle point capes and headed to Catania for a hotel Stu was booking using latebooking.com. We walked around the black lava streets of Catania and found a traditional restaurant where I had sea urchin and Kim bought a dalmation dog yapping lighter from a deaf and dumb beggar. I squeezed into the thin shower to find that the other panel actually opened, and the toilet flushed with 32 jets of high pressure which always left a floating piece of toilet paper in the middle. A morning walk through the fish market was rewarded with clams spitting water at us and we played Spot the Bellini in the cathedral looking for his memorial but only found a priest who stopped Etna’s lava flowing by taking some sacred bit of Agatha to the spot in front of the village – timing is everything. Mariella took us right through the fish market again (she liked to take us through the suburbs of Catania (turn right through someones garden then left down that one way street the wrong way). We escaped to the high ground heading to Etna taking out someones wing mirror on the way and headed left, right, left, right up a torturous path watching lava surrounded houses. One chap was cycling up the hill the Panda was having problems getting up – he had a hand pedal as well.
The route up Etna is via cable car then jeep then a short walk around the new crater. The weather was closed in so we travelled up the cable car barely seeing the other cars through the fog to find that the jeeps had no intention of travelling to the crater. We watched a fascinating DVD aboiut Italians dropping explosives on the lava to slow it down to allow it to cool (as opposed to waving bits of a saint in front of the lava) and then a big group hug on success (described in the English commentary as shaking hands). Incidentally I was glad to see that the English translations are still shown by the Union Flag rather than the stars and stripes at least acknowledging the debt the world owes Britain. With the weather not improving we decided to walk to the crater (a couple told us it was a couple of hours up and one hour down) and I have to say that it was a splendid walk across a moon like landscape. With steam falling over the landscape from hot rocks and the only life being ladybirds bizzarely crawling around the black surface. At the top was the new crater and I immediately looked around, whipped out my firehose and urinated into the crater with a satisfying sizzling. Behind me came a ‘Hello, I am from Manchester’ cry as I hurriedly put my equipment away and turned with open flies to reciprocate. At that point I managed to breathe in a sulpherous cloud and with a coughing fit vomited a stream of yellow bile which sizzled on the hot ground. On returning the doctor said it was probably a virus so typically I catch a virus from a volcano and then immediately pass it onto Kim. We walked around the crater and then into it walking through sulpherous clouds before spotting the steaming top of Etna emerge from clouds. We walked back to catch the last cable car and wound our way down the mountain to head to Syracuse and the Island of Ortygia.
There were two opportunities for accommodation – the junior suite at the hotel Roma and a bed and breakfast – Kim went for the latter and we came close to divorce again – especially when the B&B parking was on the other end of the island and I had to wait amongst the local prostitutes and traffic police in Piazza Archimedes whilst Kim dragged the heavy luggage as penance up the B&B steep steps. I managed to reverse into a flower pot and was convinced that all the police cars following us was looking for the Flower Pot Man. The B&B toilet also had a death defying step which caused me to fly into the room everytime I left the loo. Dinner was sea bass presented by a waiter who removed head and tail, took out the bones then stuck the head and tail back again. Ortygia really tested Mariella which we ended up ignoring as she had no ideas on the one way system. We walked around the next morning to breakfast outside the Duomo and wandering around came across the debris of the flower pot – I was going to pay if it was some Sicilian mama but it as an expensive hotel so I figured they would be fine and they would figure that they were late on their protection money this month.
Syracuse has an archeaological park with a Teatro greco and a slave quarry called the Garden of Paradise. The slaves also quarried out a cave that looks like an ear and we arrived just as a lady broke into song testing the acoustics – it was a magical moment as she could actually sing although my accompanying whistle wasn’t appreciated at all. Kim was told by a policeman that the parking was ‘Libre’ which came as a surprise to the chap collecting money but the phrase ‘Polizia Libre’ saw him walking swiftly away. We had a delicious glass of freshly squeezed orange and Kim was presented with a green orange which we devoured in the hotel later that evening – delicious indeed.
Drove down to Noto on a whim – I had read Julian Cope’s European Megalith book and there were catacombs outside. Noto was a joy with fantastic gargoyles and wenches holding up balconies and a delightful cathedral square where we gorged on huge ice creams in the sunshine. Outside Noto is Noto Antica which has catacombs although not the ones that Julian was harping on about, but it was a splendid limestone valley with a castle and absolutely no-one around and we came across magical circles of trees and stone tables at the start of a 46km walk.
Who else but the Italians would dress their law enforcement in fuschia – and so many different types – tax fraud, anti-mafia, traffic police (who almost caught us speeding) and military.
Over the hills and far away to the lake of Persephone – where she was raped and dragged down by Hades and where mum Demeter recovered her but not before the anorexic gal had eaten 6 pomegranate seeds for lunch giving us Winter and Autumn returning in Spring and Summer.
The lake is now ringed by a race track and is protected as a nature reserve. The hotel had the feeling of The Shining, large and empty – normally stuffed full of wedding guests it was deserted for the night – it even had a little girl who run around speaking Italian all she needed was an identical sister or a three wheeler.
Dinner was off the menu as there wasn’t one and was delicious served with a recommended Nero D’Avalo wine. Breakfast was chocolate croissant as it should be every day. We raced around the road parallel with the race track and waved enthusiastically to the bin men who insisted on me taking a photo of them.
We raced to the roman villa with famous mosaics to beat the coach tours. The mosaics were awesome and more interestingly they were in progress – people fixing and making potions and reconstructing. The coach tours arrived as we left which was good – it would have been chaotic in the narrow walkways with more than the other 2 people in the whole villa.
Mariella decided to make a stand – she drove us down an unmade road past a rubbish tip, bumping our way down a road getting much more like a nature trail than anything else – what kept us going was the huge multilane highway ahead. We bumped and crunched our way on the sump for half an hour before arriving at the multilane highway separated from us by a 40 foot bridge and even when heading up what must have been the road worker track which ended up at a substantial barrier separating us from a high speed exit. Low on fuel we bumped and crunched our way back to the little town with the inhabitants having witnessed our plight and must have enjoyed hte fact that the petrol station in town sold just that – no diesel which our thirsty Panda was desperate for. She then shutdown and refused to grant us her petrol seeking abilities so we used our own instincts and sure enough we were outside an unmanned automated diesel pump which refused to take our credit cards and seemed a trifle fussy over our 20 euro notes too. Eventually it accepted one after I had sat on it a few times and we used the 20 euros of fuel to take us to Agrigento and the Valley of Temples over very high bridges in an earthquake zone – I was going to use that as a speeding excuse but fortunately the various branches of the colourful police ignored me, I suspect they didn’t think a Panda could really go that speed.
The valley of the temples was disappointing in that you couldn’t wander around the ruins of the impressive temples but had to gaze from afar as they were protected from the Italian grafitti artists by fences. We wandered in the midday sun and retired to a well placed cafe for icecream and a delicious deep fried globe of rice and mozerella cheese fortifying us for the next set of temples (which we could wander around a they were in the phase between ruins and gravel. The Telemann lay like a broken man with no temple roof to hold up – looking similar to Kim’s play dough version of me. After a hot hot day it was time for the beach and after a few false starts leading to cliff edges or fishing harbours we found the most delightful beach surrounded with limestone cliffs and with a beach cafe. I swam in a shallow Mediterranean Sea filled with seaweed and we ate ice cream in the afternoon sun. We found the gallery where a Sicilian had gone to America didn’t like it and returned sculpting a forest of wooden figures of people he hated, however it was closed so we headed for temples at sunset at Selinunte.
We parked outside a Colditz looking hotel and Kim disappeared – fearing another B&B scene I was going to suggest the rather nice looking 4 star hotel opposite when she returned saying the 3 star hotel was shut for some health reason and we were going to be put up at the nice looking hotel for a 3 star price. The room had a contemporary feel the aesthetic of which was somewhat damaged by us hanging up our washing to dry. We sat sipping sparkly stuff watching the Italian version of The Weakest Link and an interminable Who Wants To Be A Millionaire – where one question was still being deliberated over half an hour later as we left for the trough. Dinner was more entertaining with the combination of an American woman emphasising to her dim companion that 300BC (which was SO old) was 3 HUNDRED years before Christ was born, a mincing waiter and an entire conference of building documenters who sat in cliques and, although there were sufficient tables and chairs for them all, the hotel staff had not counted on people not wanting to sit beside particular individuals so extra tables and chairs were minced in for the handbag wielding ad picky documenters.
A road sign for Marsala caused a quick itinerary change and we quickly headed through delightful countryside with lots of empty houses – Sicily has more houses than people due to Mafia money laundering. Marsala was a delightful town – home of the fortified wine and a bottle of ‘Terre Arse’ graced my backpack and Kim managed to ask for a packet of Sicilian Strepsils for my Etna virus which had hit my throat. There was a student riot and demonstration in progress in the Trumpton like town square surrounded by police. Marsala has a futurist cinema and delightful winding streets – the scene of Garibaldi’s mille (his thousand men army who kicked the ass of a 15,000 enemy). North is an area of salt pans which look fabulously gorgeous in the sun with windmills used to transfer water between the pans until evaporation leaves the white gold which is shovelled and wheelbarrowed into large white piles covered in pantiles for storage. A video explained the process and we left with a bag of quality salt.
Over the mountains to Monreale with an impressive set of Old Testament mosaics in the cathedral and then to the Mafia centre of Corleone and the anti-mafia museum. The museum is fascinating – a room full of photographs of judges and priests and police chiefs all gunned down by the mafia. One of the heads was on the run for 43 years yet still running the organisation all from Corleone where he was finally arrested after they killed a people popular police chief and the tide turned against them. The girl who showed us around told us her friends were sons of the main men which seemed quite chilling. There is also a Castello Soprano there.
And so to the art hotel which we missed the first time around – Castel Di Tusa was found my Mariella by taking us down an old road hugging cliffs. We stopped outside where she reckoned hte postal code took us and I looked around saying – I wonder which one is the art hotel. Kim replied – perhaps it might be the one with the large yellow naked woman holding up the roof.
The entrance is amazing with art works everywhere and it turned out that the chap that checked us in was the artist himself. One of his enthusiastic assistants showed us four art rooms and we chose the lovely Journey room – where the bed is a raft and the floor is blue tiles and a large bath is at one end of the raft with a mast and curtains acting as sails and a window which opens onto the Tyrrhenian Sea itself. Toilet and washhand basins were in oil drums and it was simply the best room I have ever stayed in – magnificent hotel. Dinner was at a retaurant under a railway bridge and everything shook when the Palermo express thundered past. Our evening walk heard the sound of millions of birds flocking in the yellow lit trees and we returned to our raft to hear Kim snoring then her waking up to nudge me in the ribs and say ’stop snoring’. Our morning stroll was along the beach collecting the pebbles that talked to us and put our baggage over the Easyjet limits with our Etna lava bomb (do not mention you have a lava bomb in your baggage it doesn’t go down well as Stuart found out).
Last day meant a trip to Cefalu to see the cathedral stained glass as the artist also did our stained glass in our art room. Cefalu was a wonderful town to stroll around with a broken pipe spewing water across the narrow street and soaking everyone.
Palermo was chaotic to drive into – 2 lanes of road with 4 lanes of traffic and the scooters. I started to use hte scooters as pawns effectively to maneuver and we found a parking place eventually and rushed up to the building named ARS – at least the Sicilians have the honesty to name their tourist organisation appropriately – we have VisitScotland whereas if one was going to be honest…. The mosaics were all covered up for restoration and we left disappointed only to be knocked over by the cathedral. We turned the corner and it was breathtaking in its beauty and scale. Our mission was to find the tooth of a saint – and not only did we find it but it was held by the preserved forearm of Saint Agatha. A meridian line runs through the cathedral and possibly connects to the one on Etna.
Teatro Massimo was magnificent from the outside and a bit rundown inside, there was a great crossroads with fountains and statues on all sides and the Fountain of Shame (naked statues shock the populace), the minimalist palace of justice and the very fantastic catacombs. Nothing prepares you for the Cappuccini catacombs – you file down the steps and there 2 inches in front of you are dead preserved bodies hanging there – no waxworks, no glass – just death straight in your face.
We parked outside and a mafia thug offered to not steal our car for 1 euro – it seemed a good deal.
We had time to kill so headed north to be near the airport – and out to a small village by the sea which used to be a tuna processing area before the Japanese pinched all the tuna.
The area had had its telephone lines cut the evening before so we had to use the last of our cash to buy gifts and some red bull to keep me going.
We returned the car – flew to Gatwick with a couple of women from Welsh Wales who had travelled by themselves for the first time with their husbands on a golf holiday elsewhere. I had helped them with their luggage leaving Kim to struggle with our two large bags. Kim and I stayed in a Yotel in Gatwick airport – a great idea – small room with a couch which on the press of a button turns into a very comfortable bed; shower and toilet and LCD telly with internet access and a button which promises much (it has two set of feet in the missionary position) but when pressed simply dims the light and turns them purple in preparation for sex. We had 7 hours for 60 quid which I thought was a damn good deal (it is 25 quid for 4 hours which is much better than taking your chances in the airport itself). The lady who was changing the room near us showed us around and we could see how single rooms backed onto each other and how it had all been so well thought out – designed by the British Airways 1st class cabin designer – this was first class at a budget price and ideal when in between flights.
Sicily was a fabulous place to visit and has so much to offer. I am now working my way through a collection of Sicilian wines and Kim’s Pasta A La Norma (after the Bellini opera) and grilled sea bass reminds us of our trip with every munch. I got a bottle of Cariddi from the local store – described on the label as a sea nymph and daughter of Poseiden, wikipedia has a different slant on Charybdis-
She takes form as a monstrous mouth. She swallows huge amounts of water three times a day and then belches them back out again creating whirlpools.
I guess they couldn’t fit that on the wine label.
Photos of the trip, including one of Kim peeing in Grecian ruins, are in a flickr collection
