Post 28: Final day, back from Taormina to Palermo

   I woke up early as usual, jut in time to see a wonderful dawn sky above the bay though my window. My camera was left in the car, so I grabbed my phone, and was amazed at the result using a little HDR app for Android:

     I was told by our previous host that a bridge had collapsed, and that the direct expressway to Palermo was closed, so we may have to go the long way through Messina. Still, it shouldn't take much more than 4 hours or so, unless of course we stop on the way in Castroreale, a small charming village mentioned in the French Guidebook.

Post 27: Siracusa to Taormina

    We had to leave our luxury Palace accommodations in Siracusa this morning to start heading back to Palermo to catch our plane to France, and I chose to spend the night at an AirBnB in Taormina. We were there on our only other tip to Sicily in 1975 or 76, and had great memories of the Greek Theatre cut out of the rock high up above the sea, and with a view of the Etna as a backstage.
   We drove the expressway past Catania, a large city I wanted to avoid, not liking the traffic and parking difficulties, even though I am sure it had some fine baroque architecture, having been more or less leveled by the same 1694 earthquake that destroyed most of this region.
  We the took an exit to Acireale, but it wasn't much to see. We found a Supermarket, which are not that easy to find in Sicily, and got some basic stuff for a picnic, which we held on a bench in a little city park with an awful concrete fountain labelled: "Fontana de Neptuna Mid XX". I am not sure whether they were actually proud of it, or just didn't want anybody to be confused and think that it might actually be a 17th Century solid stone original... 
    The access road to upper Taormina was epic, and we had to go round the 5 mile loop twice because our stupid Garmin Girl fucked up again and took us way past the house number, in a busy narrow one way street where we couldn't either back up, park, nor turn around... We double parked the second time around, just long enough to unload and let our young Host Maximiliano take our luggage up, and drive the car to a free parking space. 
    The room is fine, nothing special for 80 Euros (the same we paid for our "Palace" in Siracusa), except for the great view from the window. But then Taormina is a Tourist Resort, as we discovered when we finally made our way to the Greek Theatre though droves of German Elders , French Students on Easter Vacation, Italian Kids, and Regular Sicilian Folks on a day trip. I hate it, and the Theatre was a big disappointment. 
   The afternoon sun kept the only remaining walls of the stage in the dark, and much like the Greek Theatre in Siracusa, this one is outfitted for stage shows, and there is really nothing to see but a wooden stage, and wooden and plastic seats. Show business has taken over Archeology...
   The old town main street was nice to walk down though, full of  clothing and jewelry shop, and with every second shop a bar or a restaurant. Definitely a Tourist Resort, and not my cup of tea. The Old Norman Duomo was interesting, with ancient mismatched columns probably stolen from the Greek Ruins in the 12th Century.
   We returned to the AirBnB room with a big bottle of beer and a Sprite, and enjoyed  a Panaché alone on our terrace watching the sun set on a grand view of the stretch of coast way down. 
   We had to switch to Limoncello to make it to dinner time...

Post 26: Last Side Trip from Siracusa to Ragusa and Scicli

   As planned yesterday, we drove back down South this Morning to check out the two baroque towns of Ragusa and Scicli:

  Ragusa is interesting, because when it was rebuilt after the 1694 earthquake, some of the people chose to rebuild along the same streets, and some to create a new town. The old town of Ragusa Ibla is by far the most pleasant, but the ensemble spreading over hills on the edge of a ravine is amazing, as shown in this panorama:

   The old town is a maze of small streets and alleys on a hillside, with a beautiful baroque cathedral high above the piazza, behind gates, on top of steps. It was unfortunately closed from 12:30 to 4:30, as most everything but restaurants in Sicily, and we could see the interior: 

I  looms over a sloping  quiet square with cafés and grand Palazzos:

   There are many other small churches, and big palazzos, and I photographed more Architectural details for my 3D projects. 
   The infra red shots run through HDR came out quite nice:

   We the headed for Scicli, near the Southern Coast, another of the Baroque towns. The cimetery on the other edge of the ravine was interesting, and absolutely huge, with a lot of high above ground family monuments. Appearances matter a lot around here, and your dead need to be housed better than yourself as much as possible...

   The town itself was up the hill,and din't seem all that exciting, and we decided to save Rachel's feet and head back to Syracuse following the shore.
   That turned out rather more difficult than we though, as if the road seems to follow the water on the map, it is most of the time at least 500 meters inland, with views of plastic sheeting greenhouses and farm equipment rather than blue seas and beaches. The water was deep turquoise and pretty the few times we got a glimpse of it. This by no means the Ciote d'Azur, and one can notice the same thing going across the border to Italy after Vintimillia.
    So we turned back inland towards the expressway, through a landscape of olive groves and yellow wild flower, sometimes mixing together in wonderful vistas:

   Rachel just started cooking sausage, onions, apples and endives for our dinner at home, and it smells wonderful. Except for the first few days, we have cooked as much as possible, and the food had been better than anything the restaurants we tried had to offer.
    We are packing up our bags tonight, and leaving in the morning for one last day of vacation in beautiful Taormina.

Post 25: Another Lazy Day in Siracusa

  Since 6:30 or so, I have been simultaneously checking my e mails, signing liberal petitions, reading some great DAILY KOS posts(check out this one, and that one), and watching the sun rise over the rooftops from my bed.
  Rachel is of course still snuggling and snoozing, and I think we will stay in town today, and just walk around, enjoy the Architecture, and try and see some sights we have not visited yet, like the quarries, and the old Synagog bath.
   Except for the first couple of days, we have been blessed with great cool and sunny weather the whole trip, and it looks like today will be the same. Our last day here will be devoted to a visit to Ragusa and Scicli, two major baroque towns we have not seen yet. On Thursday, we drive up to Taormina for the night, and Friday we drive back to Palermo, to fly out to Lyon on Saturday morning at 8. These 3 weeks+ in Sicily have gone fast...
  We went to market in the late morning, and enjoyed all the produce and the fresh fish, some very long silvery eels:

 Lots of kinds of sardines:

and big bloody tunas:

    After a delicious lunch of coucous and mussels, we took a nap, before heading out in the car to see a couple of distants sights in Siracusa. Not much luck there, I wished I had continued my limoncello enhanced nap instead...
The Catacomba di San Giovanni were closed, with no sign or indication of when they might re open. The Parco Archeologico was the biggest rip off, bussing in tourists by the hundreds at 10 Euros a pop. The Theatro Greco has been outfitted for shows with wooden stage, wooden death covering nmuch of the original stonework, and big towers with stage projectors. It must be great to see a Greek Tragedy there in the Summer, but as an Archeological site, it is uninteresting. The rest of the ruins and quarries are not much either.
  Fortunately, after dropping Rachel at the apartment, I decided to go to the Archimedes Museum, and in the process of hunting it down(it had moved), I ran across the most exquisite 316 years old Jewish "mini palace " at the corner of two tiny alleys behind our grand palace. It is modest, presumably not to offend the gentile neighbors to the North, and the doorway is unusually low, but the balcony and window on the second floor are grand, and even though the proportions could be considered wrong, it is a delightful structure, just Baroque Sicilian enough, but with taste and restraint. It had been restored, but not as much as some other buildings(the Cathedral facade looks too new for me), and is nicely weathered. It is my favorite building in all of Ortigia:

Post 24: A Day Trip to the Baroque Towns of Noto and Modica

    We got to the Municipal parking in the nick of time to avoid a ticket, the cops were checking the car next to ours, and my time slip was way off, like 12 hours off.
   We hit the "regular" road to Noto, or so we thought until Miss Garmin chose to re route us through the Autostrada instead... I am complaining about Miss Garmin with her British accent and terrible pronunciation of Italian names, but I bet the culprit is really some Italian software engineer who either didn't care wether the GPS map was correct, or liked playing practical jokes on unsuspecting GPS trusting tourists and getting them lost in muddy shortcuts or side streets too narrow for a donkey...

   We made it to Noto nonetheless, Famous Noto, World Heritage Site, Patrimoine de l'humanité. The town was basically leveled in the 1796 earthquake, and moved a few miles to a hillside where some famous Architect designed a brand new town from scratch, on a square grid. This basically made it right of the bat a lot less interesting than the older towns rebuilt around their winding original plan, and also it makes for an almost "new" looking town. Eighteenth Century is really pretty new compared to the 2500 years of history accumulated in layers in Syracuse, and 300 year old stone walls don't look all that old. Plus they cheated and used stucco for some of it. Still, it is a very nice place, and the Cathedral is beautiful, atop a huge flight of steps:

 There was a really nice wooden model of the Cathedral after the dome collapsed some years ago:

  It has built rebuilt anew, and the whole structure was so completely restored it looks brand spanking new. 

   In one of the side chapels were two sets of relics in wooden frames that I absolutely loved, and will most likely become inspiration for some more "reliquary boxes" like those I did with icons after our trip to the Greek Islands:

   We walked around the main streets, but I didn't find the "Magic" I was expecting there, so we headed for the next Baroque town 30 kilometers away, Modica, on roads lined with dry stone walls obviously built over many years picking up the stones the plows pulled out of the ground..

   On the way, we had our usual picnic of mortadella, prosciutto, gorgonzola and yogurt , sitting on a wall above a wonderfully green countryside full of olive and pistachio groves, with a small brook singing nearby with the birds: 

   Modica is really made of two twin towns: Modida Alta, and Modica Bassa, each with its very own Baroque Cathedral:

   The rest of the towns had some nice churches and building, and interesting Architectural detail I photographed, but kind of lost in the modern mess of cheap buildings and cars characteristic of most Sicilian towns.

Post 23: A Lazy Day in Siracusa

    We felt like slowing down and being quiet today, so we slept late, and took a toll through the streets full of doorways and balconies, churches, and palaces, including our very own palace:

   Ortigia is definitely being restored, but it is still a long way from gentrified, and still has a not of "natural" charm. It is by no means a tourist attraction, and there are no souvenir shops. The balconies are amazing:

     The cathedral is wonderful of course, built within the old Greek Temple of Minerva, with the 2500 year old column still showing within the walls:

     It has fabulous marble inlaid intricately patterned floors:

with marble inlay gravestones scattered all over:

as well as a super duper bishop catafalc:

   We had lunch on our palace balcony:

Post 22: Driving to Siracusa

  We left our luxury flat in Agrigento around 9:30 and got on the autostrada toward Syracuse. There are a number of attractions to visit on the way, some of which can be day trips from our Siracusa base, where we will be 5 days. So we will see Caltagirone and Palazzo Acreide:

   I talked to our next host, and she will be waiting for us at the flat on the Island of Ortigia (the old part of Siracusa) around 5 this afternoon.

Caltagirone is famous for its ugly ceramics, and its long steps:

which Rachel climbed all the way, as this picture proves(Loud Cheers!):

   It also has numerous baroque buildings, churches and doorways:

    I was particularly intrigued by the bank building:

   We thought the last pad in Agrigento was deluxe, but this one in Ortigia is even better, in a huge restored 18th century Palace. Just to give you an idea, here is the panoramic view from our balcony:

And, even better, here is the view from our bed:

Post 21: A Quiet Day in our Fancy Agrigento Pad, and a Late Afternoon Visit to the Valle dei Templi

  I was awake early, and got on the computer catching up with email, AirBnB comments, and my Blog, while Rachel snoozed on in the morning. We finally got out for coffee and croissants, and took a walk down the main street of the old town. 
   The apartment we stayed at was big, in a nice old building, and had a pretty fancy Italian decor, if a little bit too much. Very comfortable, with full kitchen, two bathrooms, and room to sleep five. See the listing for yourself.
   After a light salad linch and some more computer work while Rachel took a nap, we finally went to visit the "Valle dei Templi" around 3:30. There were no arrangements made for handicapped or disabled people, and no transportation available like other sites, so since Rachel feet are acting up again, she decided to read her book in the car while I walked the huge Acheological site:

We bought frozen "langoustines" and Rachel pan fried them for dinner. Delicious:

Post 20: Driving from Trapani to Agrigento

   I made sure I had a safe parking space for the night, and the car was still there this morning...
  We headed out of town on the Autostrada toward the South East, and made a first stop at Castelvedrano:

   The old town center is charming enough, if not exceptional, but there is an unassuming little church(on the outside) that is well worth the detour: la Chiesa San Domenico:

   The town was the fiefdom of the Taviglia family, and they commissioned the work. It was built in the late 15th Century, and was redecorated in the 16th in a totally over the top Sicilian Baroque Style. The choir is entirely covered with the most exuberant stucco work I ever saw, with painted, gilded high relief figures hanging acrobatically everywhere:

   The older fresco work is magnificent too:

  The ensemble quite unique.

Post 19: A Trip to Favignana Island

     The day started bad, REALLLLLY BAAAADDD. We were up bright and early to take the boat to the most interesting of the Egades Islands, Favignana. But when I went down to the car, it was gone...   

   The AirBnB host had said to be careful with parking, but had not explained what she meant. Apparently, the parking is on one side certain days, and the other side other days. Now, like everywhere else in Italy, nobody seems to give a shit, and there are cars parked all day and all night on both sides of the streets, on sidewalks, just about anywhere. I guess it doesn't matter if you have a Trapani license plate. BUT if you are an out of towner, there seems to be a racket going on whereby tow trucks come by in the middle of the night and tow your car to the pound. You can't win at the game, unless you get up at 24:00 hour midnight to move your car to the other side of the street. I asked the guy at the supermarket and he threw his hands up and said to call the police. I did, and finally managed in Pidgin/Italian/Spanish/French/English to find out where it had been towed. I started on foot hoping to find a taxi, but there does not seem to be any taxis in Trapani, at least not as early as 8 in the morning... All tourist info locations were closed. I finally asked a cop who pointed me in the direction. Luckily, the closed Tourist Info had a map on the outside of the door, and I found the street, a tiny dead end alley near the cimetary way down off the beach road. It took me over an hour to walk there in freezing wind, and find the place after asking my way a few times. There was the car, in a tiny garage with a couple of tow trucks parked in front. I paid my 36 Euros fine (I expected worse), and was on my way back to the apartment fuming mad...
    We finally managed to take the 11 o'clock hydrofoil, and were in Favignana after a 20 minutes or so slightly bumpy ride:

     The Island was pretty much the fiefdom of the Flovio Family, who built the largest "tonarre" (tuna fishing and canning establishment) on the Meditarreanian in the 19th century, processing 10,000 tons of tuna a year. I was expecting to be open, as the guide book said it had been restored and made into a museum with impressive video installations, etc... Well, wrong info, the place looks was closed, and looked abandoned. 
   There was another small half ruined "tonarre" down the street, with an old boat in the courtyard. The gate was almost busted up, and I would have loved to break in there to take pictures of the two huge hangars on the water where the fishing boats unloaded the catch. Probably a bad idea, so I just shot pictures some through the gate:

    There was not much else to see, at least without renting a car, or riding scooters, so we just had lunch on the main square and took the boat back at 2:30.
    We took a stroll down the main street of the Trapani old town, and looked at some beautiful coral and silver work (boxes, frames,jewelry, etc...), but it was all expensive, and I really don't want the Fish and Wildlife guys to take anything more from me when I get home...
   We had a quiet dinner with music, at the light of an antique original 1981 Artemide Design Floor Lamp with a car headlight: