So it has been an action-packed spring! We returned from Northern California on Sunday (where we joined in the joyous celebration of Harvey R.’s 75 years), and now, on Saturday evening, we’re heading for JFK.
For complicated reasons, we’re flying the newish budget airline, Norse Atlantic Airways, to Rome; there have been some quirks already (and more to come: our flight departs JFK at 12:30 AM), but where else can. you fly to Italy for $700 return?
As it happens, our most frequent traveling companions both have names that start with B, so maintaining incognitos is a bit of a trick! Let’s just say that we’re delighted to be joining Connie and Vladimir on this adventure to Rome and Sicily!
A very nice driver picked us up at 8 PM; Connie was already aboard. An extremely entrepreneurial Pakistani immigrant (he owns a limousine service with 15 cars and a couple of small businesses), he told us about life in a Muslim family today.
Although Norse has no online check-in, the process turned out to be fast and straightforward. We were soon in a wine bar having an anticipatory glass of Etna Bianco.
Opinions were divided on Norse Air! It does give new meaning to “no frills:” You get nothing, not even coffee in the morning. I had to virtually beg for a cup of water (the first flight attendant told me water was only for passengers who had purchased meals). And Sue found the seats unusually uncomfortable and slept very little. I, on the other hand, genius of sleep that I am, slept for six hours, surely a record on a transatlantic flight.
Fiumicino is an easy airport and we were soon in a taxi rolling into the center of Rome. We were staying in a place we knew from a decade before, “serviced rooms”called Dimori degli Dei (the abode of the gods); the rooms are simple but very comfortable, and the location is unbeatable: 40 yards from the Pantheon. Vladimir had already arrived from Croatia, and the B’s and Sue put their feet up for an hour while I did a quick refresher tour.
My first sight of the Piazza del Rotondo almost sent me scurrying back to the airport. We knew in the abstract that Rome was one of the places that had become “overtouristed,” but until you experience the crowds surging through the square, you can’t really understand the term.
Things get better as you move away from the sites on the greatest hits list. I turned south to get a look at Bernini’s elephant in front of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.
I finished my circumnavigation with a quick dip into Piazza Navona before returning to the hotel to pick up the rest of the tr0upe.
We then recreated the walk I had just done, stopping this time to go into Santa Maria. The church was built by the Dominicans in 1280; as a pure Gothic structure it remains a rarity in Rome. The picture below shows the fine bones of the original church, but also the rather ridiculous nineteenth century reimagining of the Middle Ages, with the garish colors of the ceiling and pillars. Curses on the head of Viollet-le-Duc!
Sue popped into Sant’ Eustachio for her own “welcome to Rome” coffee. We then decided it was time for a welcome to Rome drink as well, so we found a ringside table in Piazza Navona for a spritz (Aperol for the other three, Campari for me). The huge piazza, once the stadium of Domitian, is surely one of the great public spaces anywhere. The central area is dominated by Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers of 1651.
The bearded figure with a punt pole and an elephant beneath him represents the Ganges. The Danube is personified by a figure with his hair tied back, a huge fish beneath him and a horse below. The Rio della Plata (holding his arm up) has a pile of coins beside him, a reference to the riches of the New World. Lastly comes the Nile (veiled), with a lion on the rocks beside a palm tree.
Behind the fountain rises the remarkable facade of Borromini’s Sant’ Agnese in Agone (Agone is a false cognate: it is a reference to the agon or competitions that once took place in the stadium, and not to the saint’s agony).
The interior offers a surprisingly harmonious vision of the Roman baroque.
And the dome isn’t bad either.
Dinner was at the Hosteria Grappolo d’Oro in the Piazza della Cancelleria; we had a wonderful succession of Roman food.
A trio of appetizers: panzanella (a kind of composed salad of tomatoes and bread), a polpetta with beef and salsa verde, and baccalá with artichokes. Connie and I had the kind of carbonara you dream about, while Sue and Vladimir ordered Tonnarelli, a kind of fat spaghetti, with cacio e pepe. Just when we thought we couldn’t eat another bite, they brought our main courses; braised beef cheeks for Sue and me, roast lamb for Vladimir, and more baccalá for Connie. Dessert was a marvelous zabaglione with caramelized nuts. The price of this bounteous prix fixe? 34 Euros! We drank a lovely 2018 Barbaresco Rabat-Bas from the Castello di Verduno.
On the way home, I snapped a few illuminated monuments.
Both of us woke up in the middle of the night and had trouble falling asleep again; Sue woke with a start and realized that it was after the time we had agreed to meet the B’s for breakfast.
Once on our feet, we settled in at a cafe around the corner for excellent fresh cornetti and cappuccino. Connie’s Italian charms the locals, and we were soon in deep conversation with our waiter, who admitted to a feeling of loneliness: too many rude customers, too few who interact as if he’s human. There is another side to the staff at tourist locales!
We started the day with a double dose of Caravaggio. First the three St. Matthew panels in San Luigi del Francesi.
The church itself was built between 1518 and 1521 after a design by Giacomo della Porto.
The Carravagios are found in the Contarelli Chapel; they were created in 1599-1600. The cycle begins with the Calling of St. Matthew.
St. Matthew and the Angel
The Martyrdom of St. Matthew
Even on repeated viewing, these remain astonishingly moving; some of the great works in Western art.
Then we dreamed we saw Saint Augustine, alive as you or me…or at least we saw the Basilica of Sant’ Agostino. Dedicated to Augustine himself, it is the motherhouse of the Augustinian order. The church, with its Renaissance facade, was completed in 1483.
The church houses a lot of wonderful art, but two things stand out: Caravaggio’s Madonna de Loreto and a small pillar fresco by Raphael of the prophet Isaiah.
The Caravaggio shows a peasant madonna with dirty feet, a scandal in the day. But she is shown in a ravishing light; no wonder she has two worshippers.
The Raphael is mostly interesting for its obvious leaning on Michelangelo: all muscles and pent up force. Nothing limpid about this prophet.
Two churches were enough for one morning for a certain Croatian, and he headed for the hotel for some R&R. The intrepid three forged ahead, passing first by Richard Meier’s museum housing the reconstructed Roman temple called ara pacis.
The building has been controversial: the Roman right wing resents its replacement of a fascist predecessor of 1938, while others find it an intrusion in one of the oldest quarters of Rome.
Across the street is a long-term project that hopes to do something with the remains of the mausoleum of the Emperor Augustus.
We found a shady table in the Piazza del Popolo while we waited for Vladimir; it wasn’t a scorching hot day, but it was warm, and a cool glass of water was restorative.
Here, far from the more famous sites, the crowds were manageable. The huge space of the Piazza del Popolo (Popolo is usually thought of as “people;” it originally referred to poplar trees growing nearby) felt almost empty. Its current shape dates from 1822, the work of the architect Giuseppe Valadier.
The obelisk at its center was carved during the reign of Rameses II; it was brought to Rome in 10 BC by order of Augustus. Fun fact: there are 13 Egyptian obelisks in Rome. And 5 in Egypt.
The piazza is closed off to the south by the twin Santa Marias: dei Miracoli (1681) on the right and di Montesante (1679) on the left.They were completed by Bernini and Carlo Fontana after designs by Carlo Rainaldi.
Our Caravaggio trifecta was ruined, though: Santa Maria del Popolo was closed for restoration, so no Conversion of Saint Paul or Crucifixion of Saint Peter for us. Here they are for you, though, however virtually.
We then ascended a series steps up the Pincian hill. The top of the hill holds a series of gardens: the gardens of the Villa Borghese to the north and those of the Villa Medici to the south, as well as those of the Pincio itself. They were laid out by Giuseppe Valadier in 1809-1914. A belvedere overlooking the Piazza del Popolo offers expansive views across the river to St. Peters and south to the Renaissance buildings of the Campo Marzio.
The Blue Guide fails to mention the tennis court, so I’m afraid I can’t help you there.
It was a beautiful, sunny day in Rome.
We strolled through the gardens, surrounded by busts of famous Italians (some of them apparently famous only in Italy) and then along the edge of the hill to the Villa Medici and on to Santissima Trinità dei Monti (1585) at the top of the Spanish Steps. Given what we’d seen outside the Pantheon, we weren’t sure we’d be able to force our way down the steps. Perhaps because of the unseasonable heat, though, the crowds were moderate.
The steps themselves were built in the early 18th century, linking the church above with the Piazza di Spagna below. At their foot is the Fontana della Barcaccia (1627-29), attributed to Pietro Bernini, the father of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
We made our way home through the thicket of luxury boutiques clustered at the foot of the piazza.
After our obligatory siesta, we headed southeast; first stop was the Gesú, the mother church of the Jesuit order.
Your view of the church no doubt depends on. your background. It is the supreme product of the counterreformation, a reaction to the protestant stripping away of ornament and riches. So, for us, it is hideously overdone.
And this is the tomb of old Ignatius himself.
From here it was a brief jaunt to the foot of the Campidoglio, the Capitoline Hill. Vladimir took a break in a park at the foot of the Wedding Cake / Vittorio Emmanuelle Monument while we ascended the Cordonata, Michelangelo’s magnificent stairway leading to the plaza at the top of the hill.
In the picture below, the steep steps on the left lead up to Santa Maria in Aracoeli (altar of the heavens); those on the right to the Piazza di Campidoglio.
At the top of the stairway is a simple balustrade designed by Michelangelo; the statues of the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, are much restored late Roman works and added later. Behind our own twin heroes is a modern copy of a Roman bronze: Marcus Aurelius on horseback, and behind that the Palazzo Senatorio, the seat of the mayor of Rome. The original medieval building was given a new facade by Michelangelo, including the elegant dual stairway that leads to the entrance.
Behind the palazzo is a viewing platform that looks out over the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill.
We had wanted to take back streets to the Campo de’ Fiore, but we didn’t make it that far. We found a bar with seating in an exceptionally pretty little piazza, and had our drinks there. Vladimir went straight home, but the three of us made a small detour to the Palazzo della Sapienza, once the University of Rome. Borromini was commissioned to construct a chapel, and the result is Sant’ Ivo della Sapienza, often said to be Borromini’s masterpiece. It is open only three hours per week, but at least we saw the facade and rather remarkable steeple.
I had looked forward to dinner at Matricianella, long one of our favorite restaurants. But the meal, while not bad, was a disappointment. Sue and I shared a fritto misto, which was excellent. But the pastas were ordinary, and the main courses (lamb chops for Sue, grilled sweetbreads for me) were good but not more. The service, which had been getting progressively more negative reviews, was indeed brusque and barely friendly. At least we drank well; A 2017 Contrada P, from one of the best Etna produces, Vini Franchetti.
Vladimir was eager to visit the Vatican Museums, and who were we to spoil his fun? He had procured advance tickets which helped us avoid a no doubt horrendous wait. The scene at the entrance was a bit chaotic, since the guards made sure that you entered only at your allotted time…with a couple of thousand other penitents.
Once inside, we were in a kind of cattle chute which surged past great art and papal tchotchkes alike as the guards bellowed, alternately, ‘Silenzio!’ and ‘No Stop!’ It was as far from a ‘cultural experience’ as one can imagine. We were finally herded into the magnificent Raphael Rooms, where we managed to stem the flow of bodies long enough to get a good look at the frescos.
Some, like the School of Athens, mark a kind of apogee of the high renaissance.
We had less time to look at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and none at all to look at the fresco cycle, including work by Perugino and Botticelli, below Michelangelo’s frescos.
The tickets to the Vatican had come with passes for a hop on hop off bus, which Vladimir wanted to try. It proved not to be the most efficiently organized system in the world, but we were eventually aboard and heading across town. First stop: Santa Maria Maggiore.
We grabbed a very light bite and then visited this extraordinary church, one of the four papal basilicas (along with St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, and St. John Lateran).
In the piazza in front of the church, a column from the Basilica of Maxentius in the Roman Forum soars into the sky, crowned with a statue of the virgin.
The basilica almost certainly dates from the time of Sixtus III (432–40), who built it and dedicated it to the Virgin following the declaration of the Council of Ephesus in 431 that Mary was the Mother of God (Theotokos). Nicholas IV (1288–92) added the apse and transepts and completed the cycle of mosaics.
The campanile dates from 1388, while the facade was designed in 1743 by Fernando Fuga; it stands in front of a facade from the 12th century.
As massive as the interior is, the eye is drawn immediately to the ancient mosaics that recount biblical stories.
The later mosaics in the apse are equally moving.
Continuing our afternoon of ancient churches, we cabbed it to the Basilica of San Clemente, one of Rome’s oldest medieval churches (12th century).
The interior is comparatively austere, dominated by a schola cantorum surrounded by a lovely marble screen.
San Clemente also holds some of the earliest examples of Renaissance frescos in Rome. Masolino was commissioned by the titular cardinal of the church, Branda Castiglione, to decorate the chapel of Saint Catherine.
Elements of the frescos like those below lead some scholars to speculate that Massacio collaborated with Masolino on these frescos. They had worked together on the Brancacci Chapel in Florence, and Massacio was known to be in Rome in 1428, when the frescos were painted.
San Clemente is especially interesting because of its preservation of layers of history. Below the upper church seen above lies a fourth century church, and below that a Roman “palazzo” from the first century. We hoped to see all this, and Vladimir went in search of tickets while the others went in search of another ancient church, Santi Quattro Coronati.
The church dates from 1161; it is part of a large Augustinian complex. Unfortunately, everything was locked tight and we were limited to a couple of the convent courtyards.
When we returned to San Clemente, we were disappointed to learn that tour groups had gobbled up all the tickets for the tour of the lower strata.
We consoled ourselves with a circumnavigation of the colosseum, where we parted company with Vladimir, who needed a siesta.
Connie, Sue, and I then took a leisurely stroll through the Imperial forums.
Two apprentice Romans in front of Trajan’s Column and the dome of Santa Maria di Loreto.
A view looking up toward the Campidoglio and Santa Maria in Araceli.
We had a drink at a gorgeous bar in a courtyard of the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj before heading home.
Dinner was interesting. I had built in a break from our usual trattoria fare…at the rooftop terrace Divinity Restaurant. We had a variety of dishes: ravioli with ricotta and lemon, spaghetti with bottarga, even a squid dish with coconut sauce. it was all pretty good if perhaps a bit pricey. We had a delightful server named Antonia, full of life and good spirits. And the Benanti Etna Bianco wasn’t bad either.
We finished the evening with a gelato at the famous Giolitti shop.
Getting to Palermo was a snap: cab to the airport, pretty comfortable ride on ITA, maniac cabbie from the Palermo airport, and before we knew it we were being shown around the same apartment we’d stayed in in September inside the Palazzo Ajutamicristo.
Even though we had a nice dinner ahead of us, it was after 3 before we left the apartment, and were feeling a bit peckish. As an introduction to the neighborhood we headed to the Antica Foccaceria San Francesco in front of the gothic church of, you guessed it, San Francesco. We had a sampling of Sicilian appetizers: a huge, delicious octopus salad for Vladimir, arancini for Sue, a ricotta dish for Connie, and caciocavallo all’ argentiera for me (one of Montalbano’s favorite dishes: melted cheese in a sweet and sour sauce). All terrific, and washed down with an Etna Bianco from Alta Mora.
San Francesco d’Assisi (1255-57) is certainly the most beautiful gothic church in Palermo.
The interior has been left largely untouched, mercifully.
We then took an orienting stroll, passing through our neighborhood and onto the Corso. We tried walking toward the newer parts of town along Via Maqueda, but it was a holiday (May 1) and the streets were packed with participants in the passeggiata, so we retreated to our apartment.
Our walk to dinner was interesting: as we approached the large, grassed over Piazza Magione, we noticed increasing numbers of young people drinking on the street, and we heard music and the roar of a large crowd. The May Day festivities in the piazza had drawn thousands of young people, and we could barely move through the crowd.
Luckily, our table at Quattro Mani, a wonderful seafood restaurant we had visited last year, was inside and very quiet.
Sue and I shared a superb dish of marinated red shrimp on an avocado cream. Here follows an excursus on the red shrimp. The history of  Mazara del Vallo’s red prawn is closely linked to the maritime tradition of the city, a little less than two hundred kilometers away from the coasts of Tunisia. Mazara boasts the largest fishing fleet in Italy and the second largest in Europe. The spearhead of Sicilian delicacies, the Mazara red prawn, ammaru russu in Sicilian, is mainly fished in the Mediterranean waters, south of Mazara, around Lampedusa and Malta, south of Pantelleria or further East, between Cyprus and Turkey. One of the peculiarities is the intense red color, almost coral. The meats are compact and white, with a unique and unmistakable flavor. We followed that with spaghettoni with cuttlefish ink. The pasta was terrific, but the portion was so huge that neither of us could finish it. The wine was a delicious Etna Bianco from Vine Franchetti.
We started the day at the charming tea and coffee cafe across the street; the staff is quirky and enormously friendly.
We were soon on our way to the Ballaró market, which we hadn’t seen at full cry last year. it lived up to its billing, with hawkers hawking, shoppers shopping, and eaters eating for block after block. Crowded, cacophonous, and lots of fun!
The fish are so cheap they’re almost given away.
The street food is famous here; we would have been sorely tempted if it weren’t 9 AM!
Arancini anyone?
The shortest distance between the market and our next goal, the area around the Norman Palace, led us through one of the poorest parts of Italy we had ever seen. We passed by a kind of impromptu flea market, where most of the sellers and customers seemed to be African immigrants.
One of my favorite places anywhere soon hove into view: San Giovanni degli Eremiti, a Norman church from 1132-48, with its five red domes.
The atmosphere in the churchyard is like no other space I know. You enter the church through a shady garden of palms, flowering jasmine, and cactus.
The sanctuary itself is not large; the nave is now bare, as the church is deconsecrated, but the honey colored stone somehow retains an air of intense spirituality. Roger II built the church on top of a mosque; part of the mosque remains, attached to the sanctuary.
The cloister is built around the old well of the mosque.
The Norman Palace is just around the corner. Built on the highest point in Palermo, the palace was originally a Phoenician fortress; the Arab rulers of the city made it their home; and the Normans expanded it far beyond its original bounds. It is thus a bit of a hodgepodge, impressive from the outside largely due to its size.
The central section is built around a fine courtyard.
The glory of the palace, though, is the Palatine Chapel. I wrote about this more extensively last year. So just the highlights now. Roger II began construction of the chapel in 1130, calling in Arab craftsmen for the exquisite wooden ceiling and Byzantine artists for the extraordinary mosaics that cover every inch of the walls. The mosaics in the apse were completed in 1143, some of the most extraordinary ecclesiastical art anywhere.
Standing in the shimmering golden light of the mosaics, you realize that Oscar Wilde had it just about right: “One really feels as if one was sitting at the heart of a great honeycomb looking at angels singing.”
We made sure to visit the royal gardens, with their huge Moreton Bay Ficus (Australian Banyan) and their remarkable air roots.
After a quick bite at the same place on the Corso that we ate last year, we parted ways: Vladimir heading home, while the three of us stuck our heads in the cathedral. The Catalan gothic exterior is imposing; the interior rather dull.
Our next stop was San Giorgio del Theatini of 1612. The sober facade doesn’t prepare the visitor for the exuberant interior.
Even the holy water stoups that flank the entrance give a sense for the liveliness of Palermitan baroque!
Just around the corner from the Quattro Canti, the center of old Palermo, is the Piazza Santa Caterina, with three remarkable churches. Santa Caterina itself, which we’ll see tomorrow, and the two Arabo-Norman churches of San Cataldo and Santa Maria dell’ Ammiraglio, known colloquially as La Martorana because in 1143 it was founded by George ofAntioch, admiral and ‘Emir of the Emirs’ under Roger II.
San Cataldo (1160) shares the lovely Arabo-Norman domes with San Giovanni.
And the interior is hauntingly beautiful. It is still an active church, belonging to the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre.
La Martorana (1143) is part of the UNESCO World Heritage site (along with the Palatine Chapel and the cathedrals at Monreale and Cefalu); it is so seldom open that we have never seen the interior which has mosaics to rival those of its larger brethren. Of the exterior, only the campanile remains from its original Norman construction.
After a short siesta back at the ranch, Connie, Sue, and I headed out for a walk toward the harbor. We stopped first at the Giardino Garibaldi, with even more spectacular ficus trees with air roots.
From there we walked to the Palazzo Abatellis, now home to the museum of Sicilian art. It was built in 1495 by Matteo Carnelivari, the same architect who designed our own Palazzo Ajutamicristo, in a late Catalan Gothic / early Renaissance style.
The harbor was next. Palermo’s harbor is enormous, so large that the Greeks called it “panormus,” “all harbor.”
We had views across to the commercial harbor, where we landed last year on the pestilent hydrofoil from the Aeolian Islands.
The three of us had an aperitif as we waited for Vladimir to join us for dinner.
Dinner was a disaster, certainly the worst meal I’ve eaten in Italy. Buatta Cucina Popolana is actually highly rated. And the Bans ate relatively well. But for whatever reason, our meal was horrendously delayed. We sat down at 7:30 and got our primo at 8:30, just as the Bans were getting their secondo. It was a baked pasta which was OK, pretty much like the baked ziti you get in a red sauce joint in central Jersey. We then waited another 45 minutes for our main courses…which were inedible. Sue had ordered Spedino, an Italian kebab, which had some vegetable and a couple of pieces of gristle. I had “Slow Food” pork which was so fat and chewy that I could eat only three bites. Ouch.
We started the day again at the charming cafe across the street, sampling their cheesecake which probably was the best in Palermo. A very nice Uber driver fought the traffic up to Monreale where there was a festival on the last day of the May Day labor celebrations.
The cathedral was begun in 1174 by William II; by the time it was completed in 1189, he had spent what would today be unimaginable sums of money on it. The result is the apotheosis of Norman architecture in Sicily, the summa of its fusion of Saracenic, Classical, Byzantine and Romanesque styles.
The rather plain facade gives little hint of the wonders to come.
As you enter, you are immersed in a vast glowing space. It is rather different from the Palatine Chapel. The chapel is intimate, spiritual, and somehow mystical. The cathedral is a vast expression of majesty and splendor.
Once you overcome the shock, you realize that the cathedral is a vast missal realized in gold. The stories begin with the creation and proceed through the crucifixion. The artistry, the work of Greek craftsmen from Byzantium, is simply stunning.
The entire church is dominated by the majestic Cristos Pancratos in the apse.
As riveting as the cathedral is, it is almost matched by the tranquil beauty of the famous cloister.
The 228 double columns are the work of a series of artists, each of whom was given considerable latitude in the choice of motifs for the capitals.
At the corner nearest the monk’s refectory is a lovely space that encloses a tinkling fountain.
The views back over Palermo and the harbor aren’t too bad either.
Back down in town, Vladimir retreated from our church obsession. We, on the other hand, asked for more. We started with Santa Caterina, often called the high point of Palermitan baroque. The church is mostly the work of Giacomo Amato, the most important of Palermo’s late-seventeenth century architects. Rather than Rome’s gold, Santa Caterina creates more subtle effects with marmi mischi, polychrome marble with carefully worked stucco and bas relief.
Here is Catherine herself in a late sculpture by Antonello Gagini, the most important Sicilian sculptor; she is holding a quill in one hand while leaning on the wheel that will bring her death.
And here are a couple of the delightful bas reliefs along the aisles. First, Jonah and the whale.
And then Highway 61 Revisited (God said to Abraham kill me a son, Abe said Man you must be puttin’ me on).
And then, from the Baroque to the ridiculous: we indulged in one of the outrageously good fresh cannoli at the little bakery in Santa Caterina’s cloister, I Segreti del Chiostro.
Eating something this good in so beautiful a setting is an experience not easy to come by.
We then set out on a long loop westward, to the edge of the modern, more affluent sections of Palermo. As we walked we passed by the sad site that was once the Palazzo Lampedusa, the home of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, the author of The Leopard (Il Gattopardo), the splendid novel that introduces many readers to Sicily. Its most famous line? “If we want everything to stay as it is, everything has to change.” The palazzo was bombed virtually flat in 1943.
First stop was our favorite of the many oratorios in town. The oratorios were built as private chapels for confraternities, Christian voluntary associations of laypeople created in order to further works of charity or piety. The Oratorio del Rosario di Santa Cita and its lovely loggia date from the late 155o’s, but its renown stems from the stucco work by Giacomo Serpotta undertaken between 1685-88.
The walls of the oratorio swarm with putti, all modeled on Palermo’s street children, in every conceivable form of gaiety and mischief. This is the back wall, where they clamber around a depiction of the battle of Lopanto (depicted here because its victory was attributed to the Madonna of the Rosary).
On the side walls, the frolicking putti surround religious scenes…on a much smaller scale.
The members of the confraternity clearly had things other than piety on their minds
The very nice gentleman at the ticket booth suggested that we also visit the Oratorio della Rosario di San Domenico, around the corner and down the street. The Oratory was built in the grand manner in 1578 by wealthy tradesmen and artisans.Here, too, there is marvelous stucco work by Serpotta; the putti and elegant allegorical statues of women are carefully worked in with paintings of the Mysteries by Pietro Novelli, Matthias Stomer, Luca Giordano and others, and especially with the wonderful Van Dyck painting of the Madonna of the Rosary over the altar. Van Dyke started the painting in Palermo in 1624, but fled the plague and finished it in Genoa three years later.
The area around Santa Cita is pretty scruffy; a great deal of bomb damage remains from the Second World War, and excavations of Norman ruins have made large swaths of the neighborhood unattractive. Once across Via Roma, the main north / south axis near the port, the socio-economic needle shoots up. Alleyways are choked with bars and restaurants, the streets full of trendy shops.
Our travels brought us to the ornate facade of Sant’ Ignazio all’Olivella. Designed by Antonino Muttone, it was begun in 1595 and consecrated in 1622, but work continued until the eighteenth century – the cupolacompleted in 1732. This is a church well worth visiting. The interior is a Latin cross, divided by columns, and remarkable for marmi mischi and the marble pavement.
After passing the Archaeological Museum, which contains a famous collection of Greek antiquities, we arrived at the enormous Teatro Massimo, Palermo’s opera house.
It was begun by Giovanni Battista Filippo Basile in 1875, at the start of Palermo’s great fashionable period, and was finished by his sonErnesto, in time for its opening on May 16 1897 witha performance of Verdi’s Falstaff. It was closed for more than twenty five years during Palermo’s dark, Mafia-dominated days, and reopened only in 1998.
We had wanted to visit Sant’Agostino, but there was a wedding in progress, so we dove instead into the fabric district and eventually onto the pedestrian zone of Via Maqueda.
It was late in the day, but who could resist just one more oratorio? The Oratorio di SanLorenzo is considered Giacomo Serpotta’s masterpiece (1698-1710). We have more riotously extravagant naked putti, but also beautiful full-length figures.
The tragedy here is in the little apse.
The oratorio was once dominated by Caravaggio’s Nativity (1609), perhaps his last work, but it was stolen in 1969 and never recovered. It presumably hangs somewhere in a billionaire’s parlor. What you see here is a digital reproduction.
Dinner was one of the best in recent memory. The Osteria dei Vespri is actually just around the corner from the Palazzo Ajutamicristo, but we had never seen it because it sits alone in a secluded piazza.
We had a lovely table on a kind of balcony overlooking the dining room: this is the view from the table.
Besides the superb cuisine, the Osteria offers older vintages at very fair prices. We had a 2012 Etna Rosso from I Custodi; it was wonderful, with complex, dark aromas and beautiful palate impression.
We started our travel day with an Uber to the airport, picking up our snazzy Citröen C4 X and jumping right on the autostrada toward Cefalú. Like every French car I’ve ever driven, it has its quirks. And like most of them, it has pretty sloppy steering and adequate, though by no means great, brakes and acceleration. It was just the right size, though: comfortable, but small enough to navigate narrow village streets. For which see later.
After an easy drive, we were soon pulling up to the Hotel Kalura, which lies on a bluff overlooking the Mediterranean.
Built only in 2021, it has all the earmarks of a resort hotel, with simple, cheerful rooms but terrific amenities. Sue lusted after a swim in the enormous pool, but it was simply still too cold. The hotel has its own beach, with a bar, reachable down a steep stairway. And it has a large terrace overlooking the water: perfect for an afternoon drink.
We were eager to get some miles on our legs, so we decided to walk along a path near the water into the town itself. Our hotel is on the “wrong” side of the huge rock that looms over the town…and gives it its name. Founded at the end of the 5th or early 4th century bc, the ancient Kephaloidion was named from the head-like shape of the rock which towers above it (kephalos = head in Greek). So the path we took starts behind the rock in the picture below, and we entered the town from the left side of the rock.
The 30 minute walk by the sea was lovely and full of interest.
We were soon moving up the Main Street of the town, Corso Ruggero, and standing in the piazza in front of the cathedral. Roger II started the cathedral in 1141, intending it as his burial place. It was still unfinished at his death in 1154, and not consecrated until 1267. The site is dramatic, with the rock rising directly behind.
The interior has a beautiful simplicity, and, shorn as it is of later decoration, the cathedral enjoys a lovely, tranquil light. The nave’s main features are the arabo-norman arches atop ancient Roman columns, probably taken from the Temple of Diana.
Cefalu cathedral
The mosaics in the apse are earlier than those in Palermo and Monreale. They are probably the work of Greek artists brought to Sicily from Constantinople.
In the conch is the colossal figure of Christ Pantocrator–the first of the three great portraits (Cefalu, Palatine Chapel, Montreal)–holding an open book with the Greek and Latin biblical text from John 8:12 (‘I am the Light of the World: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness’). A deeply moving masterpiece.
The royal porphyry tombs were once in one of the chapels alongside the apse, but Friedrich II Hohenstaufen had them moved to the cathedral in Palermo. He allegedly did so by night and when the archbishop was not in residence, hoping to avoid violence.
The cathedral has a nice cloister, the first of its kind in Sicily; it is neither on the scale nor of the beauty of that in Monreale. It suffered considerable damage in a fire more than twenty years ago and has not yet been fully restored.
Our explorations took us down the Corso; steep streets plunge to the right toward the water and up toward buildings built up against the rock.
We took a cab back to the hotel with a lovely lady named Rosalia; she would bring us to and from dinner later that evening.
After some serious lounging on the terrace, we returned to town for a meal at Cortile Pepe. The restaurant is elegant: sleek modernism in a very old space with a lovely vaulted ceiling. It was a nice meal, though not on the same level as the night before. I had a risotto with local pecorino and anchovies followed by stuffed rabbit with wild vegetables in an agridolce sauce. Sue had cod tortello in a sauce flavored with green lemon followed by the fish of the day with chard and a Mugnaia (meunière) sauce. The sommelier talked me out of the wine I wanted for a different Etna Bianco which turned out not to be great.
After a nice breakfast buffet at Hotel Kalura, we struck out for the very middle of the island, the town of Enna, referred to as the belvedere or omphalos of Sicily. As we followed the autostrada into the mountains, the landscapes became increasingly dramatic, with steeply pitched wheat fields rising toward craggy summits.
When we left the autostrada, the drive up a series of serpentine turns toward Enna provided increasingly spectacular views of the surrounding countryside, with villages clinging to the tops of outcroppings and steep valleys hemmed in by rugged mountains.
We had wanted to see the historical center of Enna with its splendid views toward Etna. Despite our best efforts, we found ourselves funneled into increasingly narrow streets in the old town. We finally came to a dead end in a street so narrow that I had, without exaggeration, two inches on each side of the car. We were saved by an angelic townswoman who guided me into a small cul-de-sac where I could back around, and then gave us instructions on how to solve the maze of back streets and emerge unscathed. I remained pretty cool through the whole thing, and earned applause from my passengers.
We decided, though, that we had seen enough of Enna–the Duomo was visible above us–and beat a retreat eastward toward Etna. From this point on, we always had the snowy summit of the volcano in our sights.
Etna on the way to Zash
The rest of the drive was easy. The roads lead along the southern slopes of the volcano; we turned north near Catania with views of the eastern slopes. On the autostrada we were cheated in a manner so novel that it earned our admiration. As we pulled up in a lane to get a toll ticket, there was a young woman looking somewhat official holding our ticket. “Cinque Euro” she said with a big smile. Although I had a frisson of doubt, I handed her the five Euros and got the ticket. Of course we were being cheated, I thought as we pulled away: you pay the toll as you exit the autostrada. We wondered how this act played with Italians and not thick Americans.
We were soon at the gate to the large citrus orchard that surrounds Zash, that glorious retreat from the world. With views of Etna to the west and the nearby sea to the east, it is hard to imagine a better setting.
We had time for some serious relaxation; although it was a rather cool day, we sat by the pool and read (and wrote).
Soon, though, we were in the car and heading for the hills. We had scheduled a tasting at Benanti, the winery that had started the modern wine revolution on the mountain. The estate is in the wine village of Viagrande, on the eastern slope of the volcano. David and I had both navigated the twisting streets up the sides of the volcano with some trepidation a year ago, but practice had increased my confidence. And, importantly, I had figured out how to work Apple Car Play in the Citroen, which meant that I had directions on a nice screen instead of someone screaming “Turn now!”in my ear.
He led the exceptionally congenial group–an American couple from Monterey, CA, and a young Turkish couple living in Paris–into the vineyards to explore the different methods of training vines on Etna.
The trip down was as easy as the trip up, I’m glad to say. Vladimir even accused me of becoming a Sicilian driver. High compliment, indeed!
By eight PM we were hungry enough for a slice of pizza, so we headed into the nearest village, Giarre, and found a table at La Spiga, clearly the local hangout. The restaurant was full of very happy locals, the food was great, and we ran into Antonio, the bellboy from Zash, who introduced us to his wife and darling kids!
We started the day with a long, leisurely and above all delicious breakfast on the terrace at Zash. The table groans with fresh baked treats, ranging from the savory (arancini) to the dolce (cornetti, tarts, cakes, etc.), fresh fruit, and juice; and you can then order a main course. Connie and I went with the poached eggs…and we were set up for the day.
By mid-morning we were on our way to Taormina…to get our fair share of abuse. We had found a garage near the level of the main street last year; this year I dove into the first garage I saw…which turned out to be down the hill. But it offers a shuttle service, and turned out to be very convenient. The corkscrew ramp between floors turned out to be considerably less convenient, just wide enough to move our car forward, with inches to spare as we turned.
The shuttle left us just below the Greek theater, which we had missed last year because we were having too much fun elsewhere in town. First erected in the Hellenistic period (4th century bc), it was almost entirely rebuilt under the Romans when it was considerably altered (1st–3rd centuries ad). This is the largest ancient theatre in Sicily after that of Syracuse. It is carefully sited so that Etna is framed by the gap in the stage.
It held 10,000 spectators in its day, though none so modern as this couple.
Situated as it is above the town, it offers wonderful views.
After visiting the theater, we strolled down Taormina’s main street, the Corso Umberto, with a few thousand of our closest friends. It is a lovely place: the architecture is probably no more beautiful than a dozen places in Sicily, but the spectacular site overlooking the sea makes it special. We stopped, as we had last year, at the “Wunderbar” alongside the famous belvedere with its boldly checked paving stones. A lemon granita was restorative.
After a visit to the Duomo, we were soon on our way back to the shuttle bus stop and then in the car heading south.
Although a few hours lounging around at Zash were tempting, the Benanti sommelier’s description of the north slope of Etna had intrigued the B’s, so we set our sites for Linguaglossa, the entryway into the high mountain road that leads through lava fields and vineyards. This turned into one of the greatest days in our long acquaintance with Italy. The mountainside was simply spectacular: hillsides ablaze with bright yellow broom and every color of wildflower, with the snowy, smoking summit of Etna above.
There are enormous lava flows here, some of them no older than fifty years. And most remarkable was the mountain sorrel growing right out of the lava.
I remembered from our tasting at the Tenuta delle Terre Nere last year that there was a great Enoteca in the town of Randazzo, high up on Etna. And sure enough, Il Bon Gustaio was a dream of a wine bar.
Connie asked for a wine list, and the young man behind the corner simply pointed.
After due deliberation, we decided on a 2016 Contrada Guardiola Etna Rosso from the Tenuta delle Terre Nere, since the B’s had had only a couple of contrada (single vineyard) wines. Accompanied by some local cheese and bread, it was a terrific way to spend an hour talking about Etna.
The ride down to Zash was as beautiful as the ride up from Taormina.
We had booked a table at the restaurant at Zash. We had eaten there last year, but only ordered a couple of dishes a la carte (although they treated us to all sorts of goodies before and after). Tonight we opted for the five course tasting menu…and what a meal it was. We were flooded with wave after wave of little bites to start (and with extraordinary homemade bread) before the meal proper began: Red scampi and sea urchin in almond milk with strawberry / tomato soup; a crispy poached egg with mulberry in provola cheese sauce (a signature dish, and no wonder); Tortello stuffed with pork in perigord sauce with truffles; Roasted tuna belly in teriyaki sauce with pickled red onion and eggplant mousse (another signature dish; the tuna is cooked sous vide and then finished in the Big Green Egg); A lemon palate cleanser combined a granita with a gelato; and Carrot cake with candied carrot slices and saffron gelato. There were of course delicious bon bons, which we really couldn’t finish. This is a genuinely talented chef. Yes, there are lots of the kind of tricky flourishes that please Michelin reviewers (and earned the restaurant its star). But every dish has deep, memorable flavor. Chapeau!
