So we’re off on another adventure, a couple of weeks in Sicily with our traveling comrades Patti and David B. Stay tuned!
We started our evening at JFK with a bit of lounge hopping. We wondered why the Turkish Airlines lounge was so uncrowded; it was only when we went to get a bit of dinner that we realized that there was…no alcohol! The food, though, was pretty good and in any case worlds apart from what we would have gotten on the plane. We then went to the Lufthansa Lounge for a drink. This was considerably more crowded but had a decent beer selection: A Bitburger Pils, a Paulander Hefeweizen, and a Six Points Brooklyn lager.
We boarded our Swissair machine for Zurich with Swiss precision. I managed to get some sleep but Sue was distracted by a kind of show at the front of our cabin: a half dozen hassidic Jews not just praying and rocking, but performing all kinds of rituals in a way that disturbed the entire front of the cabin.
Title credit to Peter Robb and the Everly Brothers…
Modern miracle: we arrived in Zurich in plenty of time to make our connecting flight to Palermo!
As we landed, we had our first glimpse of the mountainous landscape northwest of Palermo: rocky peaks devoid of vegetation rise steeply from the coast. As you approach the city, the landscape is dominated by row after row of more or less ramshackle apartment blocks, most of them presumably built by the Mafia. Our cabby had us in town in about 30 minutes, and we were soon meeting Patti and David in one of the courtyards of the enormous complex called the Palazzo Ajutimacristo. Patti had found a serviced apartment here, and it is spectacular!
The palace sits on Via Garibaldi, what turns out to be a typical street in this part of Palermo: somewhat dilapidated, but enlivened by handsome palazzi, riotously ornamental balconies, and many bars and restaurants. The Palazzo itself was built by Matteo Carnelivari in 1490, with Catalan Gothic elements. Still in the hands of the original family, the palace houses a number of private apartments. Ours has a handsome entry and living room and three spacious bedrooms. It was good to see our old friends, and we caught up a bit in the apartment before venturing out.
A number of people have told me that they didn’t like Palermo, but our first afternoon produced the opposite effect: we all love it here. Yes, the city is raffish and somewhat rundown, but the alteration of the stunningly beautiful and the stunningly crumbling gives it a feeling of a real place. Our neighborhood, at the edge of the district called the Kalsa (a bastardization of its original arabic name), is a network of narrow, winding streets with enormous character. Typical Palermo palazzi have multiple large courtyards around which are grouped homes, offices, and cottage industries.
An astonishing number of buildings have never been restored after the heavy bombing that the areas around the harbor suffered in WW II.
David wanted to start our tour at the Oratorio del Rosario di Santa Cita, reconstructed in the early 17th century. There are a number of oratories in Palermo, places of prayer and worship financed by rich and powerful lay confraternities.
This oratory is approached through a little garden and loggia with, of all things, a Boojum Tree!
The interior of the little church is startling: three of the walls are covered by a riotous collection of sculpture in stucco.
This is Giacomo Serpotta’s masterpiece, created between 1685 and 1717. On the entrance wall is an elaborate representation of the Battle of Lepanto, which commemorates the victory over the Turks in which the Christian fleet was protected by the Madonna of the Rosary. On the two side walls are New Testament scenes in high relief representing the 15 Mysteries of the Rosary between numerous seated allegorical statues. The decorative frames and stucco drapes are supported by hundreds of mischievous cherubs, for which Serpotta used the street urchins of Palermo as models.
We took our time strolling through the twisting streets of the quarter.
We passed the churches of San Francesco and San Domenico before succumbing to temptation and having a spritz (Campari for three of us, Aperol for Sue) on the Piazza San Domenico.
Dinner that night was at a well-known osteria, Ballaro.
The food was good, if not spectacular: a selection of seafood appetizers, gnocchi stuffed with burrata, and various pastas. We splurged on wine, for our first night: a 2018 Contrada Guardiola from the great producer Passopisciaro; splendid!
Restored after a good night’s sleep, we had a nice breakfast at a little bar across the street from the Palazzo.
Our plan for the day included the great Norman Palace and Cathedral and a few other things that we would pass on the way. Google Maps led us through some of the less salubrious streets of Palermo, but we were soon standing in front of one of the more memorable churches of our lifetime. The little Norman church of San Giovanni degli Eremiti (Saint John of the Hermits) was originally a Benedictine Monastery from the sixth century; the Arabs destroyed it and built a mosque in its place; Roger II, the first Norman king (his father Roger I was a count) reestablished the monastery, building it on top of the Arab mosque.
The church sits in a ravishingly beautiful garden with palms, roses, jasmine, acanthus, and pomegranates; paths wind through the garden and only then to the church.
The photo shows the campanile and three of the weathered red domes that dominate the church. Built in 1140, it is now deconsecrated, but retains a remarkable, almost mystical atmosphere.
The original cloister has been beautifully preserved; it was designed around a gorgeous Arab well.
Just around the corner from San Giovanni is the enormous Norman Palace–the secular center of ancient Palermo.
Roger II built the Palace on the site of the Arab fortress that dominated the city; the more or less rectangular building had fortified towers at all four corners, though only one remains today. During the reign of Frederick II, “Stupor Mundi,” the palace was enlarged and, after Frederick was named Holy Roman Emperor, became a center for writers, artists, and scientists from throughout Europe. After the demise of the Hohenstaufen dynasty the palace fell into decay and was revived only by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century.
The main internal courtyard with its three-storied loggia was built around 1600 by the Spanish Viceroy Maqueda. From here rises the grand staircase built for Charles ill’s visit in 1736. But the glory of the palace is Roger’s Palatine Chapel.
Only superlatives suffice for this remarkable little space (it is only 32 meters long): Maupassant called it “the most surprising religious jewel to be dreamed by the human mind.” Upon entering, one is immersed in a shimmering golden light reflected from the mosaics that cover every inch of the chapel.
Although the entire chapel is extraordinary, the apse, with its dominating image of Christ Pancrator with his all-seeing eyes, is riveting. The mosaics here, at the east end, are believed to be the work of Byzantine artisans; they are dated 1143.
We thought that Viv and Ingrid would have been fascinated by these great works of art!
The mosaics in the nave are a bit later, from the reign of William II (1154-66).
The mosaics at the west end are later still, from the fifteenth century.
Just as extraordinary is the ceiling, certainly the work of Fatimid craftsmen–also dated 1143. The ceiling is contoured, divided by muqarnas–stalactite-like formations–made of painted wood imported from Lebanon. If you enlarge the image below, you can just make out some of the extraordinary detail: musicians and dancing girls, banquets at court with servants pouring wine for the guests, warriors and hunters, picnics under the trees. Not a saint or angel to be seen–thought halos were later added to some figures in an attempt to refigure the images as the Christian paradise.
After seeing the chapel, Oscar Wilde wrote to a friend that “One really feels as if one was sitting at the heart of a great honeycomb looking at angels singing.” And he had it just about right.
Before leaving the palace grounds, we took a turn through the royal gardens. Lush and verdant despite the aridity, the gardens are dominated by enormous ficus trees with air roots standing as much as fifteen feet tall.
Although the weather has been generally very pleasant–in the low ’80’s with low humidity–it is hot in the churches and chapels, and we now needed a break. Which we found on the main Corso at the restaurant Enomi. Patti and I had the same delicious pasta with a shrimp sauce (I gilded the lily with langoustines on top), Sue had sardines rolled around an anchovy / mint / orange stuffing), and David spaghetti con Vongole. We had picked the place at random, but it was very good indeed.
Although we were pretty full, we had unfortunately learned that a Gelateria reputed to have some of the best ice cream in Italy was virtually next door. And the nocciolo / pistachio cups we shared lived up to the rep.
Refreshed and restored, we made our way back up the Corso to the Duomo.
The pleasant-looking park in front of the cathedral was the scene of the horrible auto da fe’s or “Spectacles of Faith” of the inquisition, which was particularly severe in Palermo. The original structure dates from 1169-1190. Over the centuries, the cathedral itself has been altered in a way that makes it a bit of a hodgepodge.
The cathedral itself was built by the Archbishop of Palermo, William Offamiglio as an expression of his power within the kingdom. The cathedral of Monreale, which we will visit tomorrow, was King William II’s answer to this threat to royal power.
The interior was redone in the late eighteenth century by Ferdinando Fuga in an anodyne style between baroque and classical. The stark white walls and relative paucity of ornamentation do not make for an imposing interior. It does contain a remarkable collection of dead bodies in the Royal Chapel.
Frederick II, “Stupor mundi,” lies in a huge sarcophagus (along, oddly, with the mortal remains of Peter II of Aragon and a third, unidentified person). Alongside him is the sarcophagus of his father, Henry VI.
Behind the two Holy Roman Emperors lie the tombs of Roger II and his daughter Constance de Hauteville, wife of Henry VI and mother of Frederick II.
After a brief circumlocution of the cathedral, we climbed up onto its roof, at first through a modern, rather narrow square structure, but then through an ancient, twisting circular tower. This is not an activity for the claustrophobic! Emerging on top we got a tremendous view over all of Palermo, into the surrounding mountains, and out to sea. Here’s the crew on the way up.
And at the top.
It had already been a long day, but…with so many churches and so little time, we soldiered on.
Next stop was the symbolic center of Palermo, the Quattro Canti. Two of the main streets, the Corso and Via Maqueda, meet here, and the space is marked by four palaces, each standing at an angle to the small Piazza in between.
This area of the city is full of interest. Just behind the four corners, sits a peculiar sight, an enormous Tuscan mannerist fountain. Originally intended for a Tuscan Villa, the fountain was designed by Francesco Camilliani, and later (1573) assembled and enlarged here by his son Camillo and Michelangelo Naccherino. Although there are various stories about the fate of the fountain in Palermo, in all versions the Renaissance nudes were too much for local piety, and they have been repeatedly defaced over the years.
One side of the Piazza in which the fountain sits is taken up by the gorgeous baroque church of Santa Catarina.
We weren’t at all prepared for the interior. In the German speaking countries, vast number of churches were redone in Baroque style, which generally meant removing Gothic and Renaissance elements, slapping some white paint on the walls, and covering anything that stuck out with gold. Santa Caterina, on the other hand, is ablaze with marmi mischi, polychrome marbles, with rich decorations in stucco.
After viewing Santa Caterina and a couple of other Baroque churches in Palermo, we gained a new respect for the form–after this delirium, most other ornamentation seems mundane.
The effect, even for someone who prefers the simplicity of the Gothic or Classical, is mesmerizing.
Across Piazza Bellini from Santa Catarina sit, elevated on the remains of the old Roman walls, two Norman churches, San Cataldo and Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio, known as the “Martorana.”
Despite our best efforts on two different days, we were unable to visit the Martorana, which has extremely limited hours. San Cataldo, on the other hand, was one of the highlights even of a day so full of extraordinary experiences.
It was founded by Maio of Bari, William I’s chancellor, but because of his murder in 1160 the interior was never decorated. The simple plan of the interior has three aisles ending in apses and three domes high up above the central aisle.
The beautiful old capitals are all different. The original mosaic floor and lattice windows survive.
And the ceiling, with its three domes, is amazing.
Today the church belongs to the Knights of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, whose coat of arms illuminates the central apse window.
We were running out of gas–that was a lot of churches, even for me!–but David was eager to see one more oratorio furnished with remarkable stuccos by Giacamo Serpotta. So we returned to our neighborhood, passing by San Francesco d’Assisi with its beautiful facade from 1302.
In the Piazza San Francesco we found the well-known Antica Focacceria San Francesco; can’t eat everywhere, though!
Just steps away is the late 16th century Oratorio di San Lorenzo, designed by Giacomo Amato. The chapel is decorated with stuccoes illustrating the lives of St Lawrence and St Francis, a master work by Giacomo Serpotta (1699–1707). Ten symbolic statues, eight vivacious little reliefs, and the Martyrdom of St Lawrence situated above the door, the whole encircled by a throng of plump cherubs, make up a well-balanced and animated composition.
The Oratorio is unfortunately as famous for a crime as for its beauty. The . altarpiece of the Nativity, by Caravaggio (1609; his last known work, painted for this church), was stolen in 1969 and has never been recovered. It has been replaced by a digital copy.
We retreated, late in the day, to the apartment for a drink and lots of discussion of what we had seen. And then it was off to dinner, mercifully just five minutes away, at the wonderful seafood restaurant Quattro Mani. I started with swordfish carpaccio with a pool of salted watermelon in the center; David with marinated Amberjack salad; Patti with eggplant polpetti, and Sue with octopus salad. Sue and I both had squid ink spaghetti; Patti had seared red tuna, and David Swordfish alla Trapanese. We drank an utterly delicious Etna Bianco from Passopisciaro.
Wednesday, September 13, 2023; Palermo and Monreale
We started the day by climbing into an Uber and heading up the mountain to the town of Monreale, home to one of the most unusual cathedrals in the world. It was built by William II beginning in 1174 as a counterweight to the growing secular power of the Archbishop of Palermo, William Offamilio; by attaching a monastery of French Benedictines to the Cathedral, he was able to install a competing Archbishop high on Mount Caputo, overlooking Palermo and the sea.
Just as in the Palatine Chapel built by Roger II, Monreale’s interior is lit by golden mosaics on virtually every surface. This imposing basilica, at 335 feet long by 130 feet wide, is slathered with over 68,000 square feet of golden mosaics—a third more than at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. While this is a fine example of the interplay between architecture and visual art, it’s also the perfect illustration of something uniquely Sicilian: the fusion between classical, Byzantine, Arab, and Norman craftsmanship. Although each glass tile contains a layer of gold thinner than a sheet of paper, it’s estimated that the walls of this cathedral hold about two tons of gold.
The king justified the enormous expenditure of this project by telling of a dream he had while sleeping under a carob tree during a hunting expedition. The Madonna appeared to him and told him to dig under the tree and use the treasure he would find there to build her a great church. The mosaics were made with pure gold. Hundreds of the finest craftsmen from Constantinople were employed at great expense to expedite the work. The monolithic granite columns that separate the nave from the aisles are from a temple or temples of the Roman era.
The magnificent series of mosaics in the nave tell in pictures the stories of the Old and New Testaments. It is not known whether only Greek, or local craftsmen trained by Byzantine artists, were involved in this remarkable project, and the exact date of its completion is uncertain (though it is thought to have been around 1182).
The apse is dominated by the mighty half-length figure of Christ Pantocrator, with a solemn and, dare I say it, rather anxious expression.
Despite the obvious similarities, there are profound differences in the experience of the Palatine Chapel and the Cathedral of Monreale. The chapel’s very intimacy ensures that the visitor is enveloped in the golden aura; the cathedral’s grandeur makes for a more distanced, more awe-inspiring viewing.
Next was Monreale’s remarkable Benedictine cloister, with Arab-Norman arches borne by 228 twin columns.
All the columns have carved Romanesque capitals, of which very few are alike. Many of the columns are also decorated with mosaics or reliefs. They are the work of five master craftsmen, each of whom made some of the capitals, assisted by several apprentices, but only one capital is signed. A prolific confusion prevails of birds, animals, monsters, plants and people, representing a variety of scenes, both mythological and religious, with Christian symbolism and even the sacrifice of a bull to Mithras.
The slender marble columns in the cloisters are also Roman in origin, believed by some scholars to have been brought here by the Benedictine monks from the sunken city of Baia, near Naples. There they may once have formed the portico of a villa: some, especially on the east side, show traces of having spent years under the sea, the marble bored in places by a type of mussel, the sea-date (Lithophaga mytiloides).
The monks grew fruit trees in the enclosure (or hortus conclusus): trees symbolising Paradise—date-palms, olives, figs and pomegranates. In the southwest corner, a column carved like a stylised palm tree in a little enclosure of its own forms a charming fountain, used by the monks to wash their hands before entering the refectory.
What a morning! Monreale leaves an impression matched for us only by the great Gothic cathedrals of the Isle de France and perhaps San Francesco in Assisi.
We called an Uber and had a coffee at a cafe alongside the town’s main square. When the Uber finally “arrived,” the driver claimed she could not get all the way up the hill to us (although many cars were pouring out of the uphill street) and that we should meet her at the cathedral parking garage. That turned out to be a hot kilometer downhill. When we got there, she said she was somewhere else another half kilometer away. When we got there she said she had “waited” for 30 minutes and had left! So we did what we should have done originally, jump in a cab; the driver was terrific, knew all the backstreets, and had us in the center of Palermo in a jiffy.
The day before we had stuck our nose into a bakery inside Santa Catarine, I Segreti del Chiostro (the secrets of the cloister) and were only deterred from indulging by the big lunch and gelato that lay only 20 minutes behind us. Today imposed no such barriers, and we each had an incredibly fresh and delicious cannoli filled with ricotta and decorated with pistachios and candied orange peel. Enjoying these things while sitting in the cloister is a genuine and very unusual pleasure.
David was eager to experience the famous Balloró market, with its shouting fish and fruit hawkers; the route led us by the Gesu, the first Jesuit church in Sicily, into which we popped very quickly.
Once in the market, we found only food stands and souvenir shops; the real action clearly occurs in the morning, when the locals do their shopping. We did solve a mystery, though. We had been intrigued by the multicolored dome of a church that one can see all over central Palermo.
It turned out to be the church of the Carmelites.
At this juncture, even I was ready to forgo a church or two and return home for a shower and a siesta. In the late afternoon we headed down to the port hoping to find a seaside bar. We walked down the Corso to an inlet in the harbor that serves as a marina and found…traffic roaring between us and the water. We retreated up the corso and found a very nice outdoor bar for our afternoon drink.
It turned out to be a long walk to our restaurant for the night, Corona Trattoria, which was on the other side of the city center. As we walked from our end of town things became more modern and moneyed. We got a glimpse of the massive Teatro Massimo, the second largest opera house in Europe.
The food had gotten better every night, and this was the best of our meals in Palermo. Corona is a modern, minimalist place enlivened by an amazingly friendly staff and what was obvious a large contingent of regulars. The patrón took our order and chatted with us, half in Italian half in English. We started with their version of street food: sardine polpetti, squid arancini, and baccalá frito; really superb. They had triglie (red mullet) on the menu, and I was directed to the boss’s wife, a fellow Montalbano fan, to ask how Salvo liked his mullet prepared. The answer was fried, and that’s what Patti and I had: two rather small but delicious and delicate fish with white flesh. Sue had bucatini con sarde, and David linguine with mussels. We had yet another Etna Bianco, this one from a producer I didn’t know and can’t remember. Good, though.
Thursday, September 14, 2023; Segesta and Palma di Montechiaro
After reluctantly turning over the keys to the apartment, we jumped in a cab to the airport. Things looked chaotic at the car rental area, but the wait wasn’t too long and our no-name rental agency was quite efficient. We were soon in our snazzy Fiat Tipo station wagon and on the road to Segesta. We had had our worries about driving in Sicily, but the route to the great Doric temple of Segesta was almost wholly on the Autostrada, and we were pulling up below the temple in less than forty minutes. We did notice evidence of the horrible fires that swept through the area in August; videos had made it seem that the Autostrada was on fire. The area around Segesta was badly burned, but the temple itself was spared.
Here’s Patti showing off our wheels.
Segesta was one of the main city-states in Sicily; its population were known as Elymians. Thucydides refers to them as barbarians, but they were often in alliance with Greek cities in Sicily and Greece itself. The city was constantly at war with Selinunte to the south or Siracusa to the east, and it was finally sacked and its inhabitants slaughtered or sold into slavery by Agothocles of Siracusa in 307 BC. Some of the city has been excavated, but the site is primarily known for its temple, one of the best preserved and magnificently sited of all Doric temples. (Credit on all Segesta photos: David Bradley)
The temple has 36 columns (c. 9m high, 2m wide at the base) on a base 58m by 23m. Its apparently perfectly straight lines are in fact curvatures; the corner columns are slightly thicker than the others, and lean a little towards the centre. All the columns bulge very slightly in the middle (entasis); the base and the entablature are convex, by a matter of millimetres. All was carefully calculated to avoid the optical illusion which, if the lines were perfectly straight, would make them appear distorted when seen from a distance.
The high entablature and the pediments are intact.
Like a number of classical temples in Sicily, Segesta was probably never finished.
The temple is stunning, well worth the short detour that we had taken. In its exposed position, though, the blazing Sicilian sun takes its toll!
We had originally planned to stop in Selinunte, an enormous classical site on the south coast, but between the heat and the fact that we would be spending all of tomorrow in the Valley of the Temples, one of the great classical sites, we decided to make straight for our lodging for the next two days, the Agriturismo Mandranova, about 15 minutes southeast of Agrigento.
It was here that Google Maps met its match. It routed us within a few miles of the Agritourismo, but took us up into the town of Palma di Montechiaro. David was driving, and he immediately learned the limits of our Fiat: it has absolutely no torque, even in first gear. We were going up impossibly steep and narrow streets with cars right on our rear bumper. This was our real introduction to driving in Sicily: it’s a breeze in the countryside, hellishly difficult in towns, especially those with steep hills. Here’s the view from the back seat.
We got to a point where we looked up yet another hill and decided that the car would bottom out. So we turned around and figured out that the GPS had totally misrouted us: we hadn’t needed to pass through the town at all. The rest was a piece of cake.
Mandranova is a remarkable place and one of our favorite hotels ever. A huge working olive farm, it makes prizewinning oils, incredible jams and honeys, and memorable almonds. The twelve rooms are in two old buildings, one of which is the still a working mill for the olives. The rooms are spacious and simple; the emphasis is on getting guests outside (no wifi in the rooms for just this reason).
And what an outside it is! Seating areas are scattered around among the olive and palm trees.
Things are extremely informal and friendly; if you want something to eat or drink, you go to the kitchen and ask.
The atmosphere is hard to describe: at once peaceful and open. We had soon met several other couples; when dinner time arrived, someone suggested that we push the tables together.
The folks here are, in order, from England (two lawyers), Switzerland (graphic designer and mechanical engineer), Australia (pilot and former cabin crew), and the four of us.
Did I mention that the food is extraordinary? A cold soup followed by what we all agreed was the best pasta we’d ever eaten (fresh pasta lightly dressed with sun-dried tomatoes and almonds), then pork medallions in a light orange / mint sauce, and a light chocolate cake. A joyous day!
Friday, September 15, 2023; Agrigento and Palma di Montechiaro
Breakfast at Mandranova is as good as dinner: fresh peaches and cassava melon, various breads and tarts baked at the farm, homemade jams and honey, and delicious coffee.
Thus fortified, we headed for what is called the Valley of the Temples. This was actually just the sacred district of the large city called Akragas by the Greeks and Agrigentum by the Romans; the city seems almost certainly to have originated in 580 bc as a colony of the city of Gela, further east in Sicily. The poet Pindar described Akragas as ‘the fairest city of mortals.’ The sacred district stretches for some 2 1/2 miles along a high ridge (those topsy-turvy Italians! Why call this a valley when it is a ridge?); the city of Agrigento, once the acropolis of Akagras, sits on a yet higher, parallel ridge.
We started from the westernmost entrance to the archaeological park. Like many such sites around the world (I’m thinking both of Bagan in Burma and Monte Alban in Oaxaca), there has been a good deal of reconstruction over the centuries here. Rising through an ancient fortified gate, the visitor enters an area dedicated to the chthonic deities, with many small shrines. What you see below is called, wrongly, the Temple of Castor and Pollux; it was put together from various previous structures in 1836. It is picturesque, though, and is visible around the island as the symbol of classical Sicily.
Walking uphill to the east, the path enters what seems to be an enormous rubble field. It is actually the remains of what was once the largest temple in the ancient world, the Temple of Olympian Zeus; it is thought that it was begun in 486 BC using Carthaginian slaves taken in battle, and left unfinished in 406 BC. It once encompassed a space 110 by 52 meters. As you walk through, portions of the base and walls are intact.
Piles of rubble contain capitals, reliefs, and portions of columns.
The exact configuration of the temple is still a matter of debate. Here is a model that represents current thinking.
The entablature was supported not just by columns, but by gigantic “telamones” more than eight meters high; the roofless temple would have stood as high as a modern ten-story building. Two of these giants lie within the temple precinct: one modern imagining in concrete, and a reconstruction using actual components. We could imagine Nathaniel and Alex being fascinated by these giants as they held up the ancient version of a skyscraper temple!
Here is one of those reconstructions alongside a modern giant included for scale.
And here is a reconstruction in the nearby archaeological museum.
And here a few gigantic heads found at the site.
Further west stands the Temple of Heracles, probably the oldest of the extant temples, perhaps dating from 500 BC. Its eight remaining columns were reerected in 1929 by Captain Alexander Hardcastle. This eccentric Englishman arrived as a tourist aged 49 in 1921, was captivated by Agrigento, and lived here with his brother Henry until his death in 1933. The captain provided substantial funds to restore and excavate the ancient city, supporting the work of the archaeologist Pirro Marconi. The Wall Street crash of 1929 caused his bank to fail and he found himself bankrupt; he lost his mind and was taken to the local lunatic asylum, where he died.
The “Agrigento Warrior” of the archaeological museum was found nearby and may have been part of the pediment frieze.
After passing by Horncastle’s home, the Villa Aurea, the most beautiful of all these temples comes into view: the temple of Concord (so named because of an inscription found nearby; it was almost certainly dedicated to a god). It dates from about 430 BC.
The temple is said to be one of the two or three best preserved temples from the classical world; it was probably saved from destruction because it served as a Christian church dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul!
Did I mention that it was a little warm on the exposed ridge?
At the top of the ridge sits the Temple of Hera.
The temple is a little older than Concord. 25 of its original 34 columns stand in their original place.
It had been an extraordinary morning, imagining life lived long ago among such structures. But our visit to the classical age wasn’t over. After a hot march back to our car, we drove up the hill to the archaeological museum associated with the site. It has a beautiful collection of vases, pottery, and statuary from the site.
Sated with culture, we took the rest of the day at Mandranova, lazing about, reading, chatting, and, of course, swimming.
Dinner was as communal, and as delicious, as the night before, highlighted by the main course: sea bass.
Saturday, September 16, 2023; Villa Romana di Casale; Ragusa
Morning saw us on the road into the interior of the island, bound for the Roman Villa of Casale. Our GPS led us astray once again and we found ourselves on a rutted, potholed road. As we rounded a bend, we found our way blocked by a herdsman and his dogs as they guided a herd of cattle down our road.
The herdsman, using a long crop, cleared a precarious path for us down the left side of the road. Cows being cows, they were blithely unaware of us and a couple of them almost wandered into the side of the car. Once by them, we found a second “situation:” a herd of goats. At first we thought they were without a goatherd, but then we realized that two young men in a car were herding them. Just then a truck roared by us from behind, cut off the two herdsmen in the car, and screeched to a halt.
The driver of the truck leapt from his vehicle, plunged into the herd and emerged with a kid held dangling from its back legs. He opened the rear window of the truck and tossed the goat in squealing and kicking…at which point one of the goatherds got in his face and started yelling and gesticulating, which was returned in equal measure by the truck driver. We had no idea what was going on, and we all admitted later that we found the whole thing unsettling and vaguely threatening.
A couple of wrong turns later, we reached the Villa Romana del Casale. I had somehow imagined this to be a largish house; instead, it was an enormous structure with its own expansive baths, social areas, guest rooms, and expansive living quarters for the owner and his family.
Historians speculate that the owner was a high figure in the Roman senate and that the villa was the center of an enormous agricultural estate. The villa dates from the first quarter of the fourth century AD and thus might have been built as a refuge from the increasing turbulence as the Roman Empire neared its end.
The villa is known above all for its astonishingly well preserved and extensive set of mosaics, said to be among the most important in the Roman world. The most spectacular mosaics, known as the Great Hunt, are found in a large corridor that divides the more public from the more private spaces in the villa.
The Great Hunt has given rise to speculation that the master of the estate was engaged in the capture and transport of wild, exotic animals to Rome for spectacles.
Just as famous as the Great Hunt is the “Chamber of the Ten Maidens,” depicting female athletes competing in individual aspects of the decathlon.
The entrance to the apartment of the master and his family is marked by an amusing mosaic depicting cherubs at sea.
The villa certainly conveys a vivid sense of the daily life of a very wealthy Roman family; and the artistry of some of the mosaics is astonishing. We felt very lucky to have experienced this, our Roman diversion from extensive dives into the classical and the baroque.
I took the wheel for the drive to Ragusa, one of the gorgeous towns in southeastern Sicily that were totally rebuilt in the current Baroque style after a devastating earthquake in 1693.
Ragusa suffered near total destruction from the earthquake. The town is situated on a low spine in a landscape dominated by deep gorges and high ridges. After the earthquake, most of the population moved onto a higher ridge, now known as Ragusa Superior; those who stayed behind rebuilt the town as Ragusa Ibla. This is Ragusa Isla from the slopes of Ragusa Superiore.
We drove into Ragusa near the highest point in Ragusa Superiore; the driving wasn’t bad as we descended, first along Superiore’s main drag, the Corso Italia and then through a series of tight curves. But once we got into Ibla, everything turned into a nightmare. The streets are steep, impossibly narrow, and many of them are limited to authorized vehicles. I drove to our hotel without mishap, and we unloaded bags and wives. But driving to a parking place was an adventure I hope not to repeat. We took a wrong turn and found ourselves trapped in a pedestrian area, driving between restaurants, potted plants, and baby carriages. Once out of that we were in a narrow chute of a street with about 3 inches clearance on either side of the car. By some miracle we passed through unscathed and deposited our car far down the hill.
Our hotel, in a restored palace built in 1768, was just off the main square of the lower town, Piazza Duomo. The hotel has been lovingly restored by a young lawyer, retaining telling details and adding a modern touch.
Our room had an 18th century fresco on the ceiling.
And the world’s biggest hotel shower, too.
At the top of the Piazza Duomo is a site familiar to any viewer of the Montalbano mysteries: the cathedral of San Giorgio, with its famous steps and gates.
Ragusa, and Noto, which we would visit tomorrow, are fine examples of Baroque town planning, which draws heavily on theatrical devices for their effects. This is perhaps nowhere more evident than here, with the siting of this glorious church.
After a restorative gelato, we wandered down through the main streets of the town to the public gardens. The streets here are narrow and twisting, rising and falling as the narrow spine changes elevation. This is the church of San Giuseppem of 1590, reconstructed in the early eighteenth century.
As we reached the gardens, a public bus arrived and we hopped on for a ride to the top of Ragusa Superiore. A short walk brought us to the town’s cathedral, San Giovanni Baptista of 1694.
As you can probably tell from the Maserati in front, there was a wedding going on!
The streets around the cathedral are elegant and rather lovely! We thought that Viv and Iggles might get a kick out of the flying umbrellas!
We decided to walk down to Isla. Our way led us down the Corso to Santa Maria Delle Scale (our lady of the stairs), where a series of almost 300 steps plunge off the side of the high ridge and down to Ragusa Isla. The views were exhilerating, and we certainly earned our afternoon drink at a nice bar near the hotel.
Dinner was at a Slow Food osteria called Cucina e Vino.
We broke our habit and had pasta first (rabbit ragu for me and sardines for Sue). Meat was the order of the day, but it was a bit overcooked. So the meal was not bad, but not up to our Sicilian level. The wine, on the other hand, was superb: an Etna Bianco Superiore from Terre Nere was sublime; and the waiter, who was a sommelier, urged us to try a Tancredi, a joint project of the Donnafugata winery and, wait for it, Dolce & Gabbiano. The wine, a blend of cabernet, Nero d’avola, and Tannat, was unusual and delicious.
We managed to navigate the streets back up into Ragusa Ibla to pick companions and luggage up at the hotel, and make our way safely down out of the gorges toward yet another Baroque city, Modica; we had decided, though, to spend more time in fewer places and so drove on toward the best known of these, Noto. Much to our surprise, driving and parking presented no problems and we were soon on the Main Street, the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele.
Noto, without the topographic challenges presented by Ragusa, was designed after the earthquake as an enormous theater set. The buildings along the Corso are of the same limestone, baked golden in the sun; there were height and architectural restrictions, making for a cityscape that is at once varied and harmonious.
We came up onto the Corso from down the hill and found ourselves about halfway along the part of the town designed as a theater. We popped into the church of San Carlo before making our way down the street toward the Piazza Municipio. Noto’s cathedral forms a magnificent stage set above the Corso, reached by monumental steps.
Designed by Rosario Gagliardi and Vincenzo Sinatra, the Duomo was built in the early 18th century. Palermo spoiled us; the interior was pleasant, but it wouldn’t be until Siracusa that we found a church interior that was really interesting.
Across the Piazza is the Town Hall, Palazzo Ducezio , a splendid building of 1746 by Vincenzo Sinatra.
Down the street is another unusual piazza centered on the church of San Francesco all’Immacolata by Vincenzo Sinatra; the Piazza has two different levels, with a statue of the virgin on the “mezzanine.”
The church’s interior has lavish white stucco by Giuseppe Gianforma.
As we reached the end of the Corso, we encountered a seemingly endless line of…Fiat 500’s! A car club had staged a meet for seemingly every vintage 500 in Italy, and the drivers seemed pleased as punch to be strutting their stuff in this old town.
Noto has a reputation for fine gelato, so we investigated…and can confirm its status.
There is of course more to Noto than its Corso, but the Corso is its theatrical centerpiece, and we called it good.
We had a fabulous drive through the hills of eastern Sicily toward the sea and Siracusa. The whole area seems much more prosperous than the west: well tended farms, olive groves, citrus orchards, and lovely manor houses.
We reached Siracusa with little problem, and after a bit of driving around in circles (nothing scary this time), we found our hotel and surrendered the keys for valet parking with no little relief. Once you get used to the rules of the road, driving in Sicily isn’t always terrifying. The rules of the road, though, are not for the faint of heart. Problem number one is errant GPS directions: American systems aren’t designed for ancient, twisting streets that are often little more than alleyways. Problem number two is the narrowness of almost every road, in a country where the preferred mode of driving is to straddle the middle line (where one exists). But the major problem is the aggressiveness and impatience of Sicilian drivers. Turning in front of you and daring you to hit them, riding 3 feet from your rear bumper and blaring their horn, rolling toward you from a side street when you have the right of way and hoping you’ll flinch, etc.
Although we had absolutely loved our accommodations so far, the costs had been modest. We had decided to splurge in Siracusa, though, opting for a grand hotel right in the center of things. The Grand Hotel des Êtrangers was a bracing blend of the modern and the traditional, with lovely public areas and extraordinarily comfortable rooms.
And here’s the hotel in the evening.
Patti and David were ready for a siesta, but Sue and I decided to start exploring the place. Ancient Siracusa rivaled Athens as the largest and most powerful of the Greek cities. Over the centuries, it played host to Archimedes, Alcibiades, Plato, Aeschylus…and the list goes on. The city was founded on the island of Ortigia, separated from the mainland by a narrow channel; a splendid natural spring–now the Fontane Arethusa–supported a growing population.
The site was clearly chosen, though, for its magnificent harbors. The photo below gives some idea of the vastness of this protected harbor, the largest natural harbor in Europe.
Walking around the circumference of the island is pure pleasure.
We walked to the end of the island, where a fortress, the Castello Maniace, guards the entrance to the harbor.
There are a number of bathing spots along the shore.
We met Patti and David late in the afternoon for our now ritualistic spritz on our hotel’s rooftop bar, with magnificent views over Ortigia, the coastline, and the sea.
Views at luxury hotels do come at a price: 25 euros for a spritz! It did come with potato chips and nuts, but… We talked for a while with a very nice Polish woman who was living in Berlin, and spent the rest of the time talking about our day.
The evening brought the only negative experience of the entire trip: we had a very nice dinner at an osteria called Clandestine; mostly fish, several courses. But when the bill came, we were charged for a tasting menu we hadn’t ordered. We had sensed that we were off course midway through the meal, but when Patti had asked for the menu to check, the waiter put her off. We protested the check, quietly, at which point the waiter admitted that we had ordered a different, much cheaper menu, but refused to change the check, claiming that it was only a small difference. An 80 euro difference for the four of us wasn’t chump change, but there was no use making a scene and we left with a bad taste in our mouths. This was really the first example of dishonesty that we have encountered on our trips to Italy since 1996, when we were forced to pay a bribe to a garage attendant in Venice!
We kind of made up for the 25 euro spritz prices at the hotel’s splendid breakfast buffet. Then it was off to explore the island. The fish market was pretty great, with several varieties that we didn’t recognize.
Near the market is the oldest Greek temple in Sicily, The Temple of Apollo. Surrounded by lawns and papyrus plants (one of the few places in Europe where papyrus grows natively), the temple is dates from the late 7th century bc.
Although the fascists tore an ugly core through the heart of the island in order to lay down a monumental boulevard, Ortigia is still characterized by a maze of narrow alleyways.
The claustrophobic nature of much of the island makes the openness of the Piazza Duomo all the more surprising–and welcome. This glorious baroque space serves as the island’s living room. We of course decided to soak up the atmosphere with a bit of refreshment, in this case Sicily’s famous granita, crushed ice with natural flavors. We were in the piazza at midday, when the harsh light doesn’t show it at its best. The pictures below were taken in the evening on our way back from dinner.
The Duomo itself is remarkable. The Norman facade collapsed as the result of an earthquake, and it was rebuilt in powerful Sicilian Baroque style in 1728–54 and designed by Andrea Palma; on the summit is a double-armed Cross, symbolising the presence of the archbishop.
The facade doesn’t prepare the visitor for the magnificent interior. After defeating the Carthaginians at the battle of Himera, the Siracusan dictator Gelon returned with thousands of slaves; they were used to build an extraordinary temple to Athena on the highest point in Ortigia. The temple was known throughout the Mediterranean for its beauty and for the richness–gold, ivory, silver–of its decoration. The Byzantines converted the temple to a Christian church; the Arabs to a mosque; and the Normans, returning it to Christianity, added aisles and clerestory windows.
Stripped of Baroque decoration between 1909 and 1927, the nave arcades were reduced to the plain massive piers formed by the eight arches opened by the Byzantine Christians in the side walls of the cella, which is the original 480 bc construction. Of the temple’s 36 columns, a total of 24 survive.
This was the first church since Palermo that really moved us; not just the great antiquity, but the beauty of the light on stone.
We retreated to the hotel for a siesta to avoid the worst heat of the day. We ventured forth mid-afternoon; as we walked, David saw some unusually attractive bruschetta, and we paused to chow down on tomato, caponata, and sardine snacks. A quick Uber ride brought us to the mainland and the city’s archaeological park. Siracusa had expanded from Ortigia under the Greeks, forming a number of districts on the mainland. That of Neapolis has been the most extensively excavated. The tour of the park starts with a descent into the quarries that were dug to build all of Siracusa…and they are an astonishing site. What you see forming the background are the back walls of the quarry.
But what is really astonishing is this:
As they quarried the limestone, they left the entire quarry covered by a roof. This is the sole surviving column of many that would have supported the roof.
The walls of the quarry are riddled with the entrances to “caves” used by the miners to reach the finest limestone.
The largest of these is the “Ear of Dionysus” (said to have been named by Caravaggio during his sojourn in Sicily), with famous acoustic properties.
On the floor of the former quarry are gorgeous gardens planted with lemon trees, oleanders, and pomegranates.
Climbing out of the quarry you come to the Greek amphitheater. On the remains of an earlier wooden theater, Gelon in c. 478 bc excavated a small stone theatre, engaging the architect Damokopos of Athens. It was inaugurated by Aeschylus in 476 bc with the first production of Women of Aetna; his Persian Women was performed shortly afterwards. The theatre was enlarged in the 4th century bc, under Timoleon, by excavating deeper into the hillside; it was again enlarged under Hieron II (c. 230 bc) by extending the cave upwards, using blocks of stone. It could thus hold an audience of 15,000; some scholars think even more.
Truth to tell, the amphitheater was a bit disappointing. Much of the seating and all of the stage was covered by modern materials; a dance troupe was practicing as we watched.
The path through the park then leads by the ruins of the altar of Heron II, hewn out of the rock. The altar, built between 241 and 217 bc, was used for public sacrifices to Zeus, when as many as 450 bulls could be killed in one day. It was 198m long and 22.8m wide (the largest altar known) and was destroyed by the Spanish in 1526 in order to use the stone for harbour fortifications. The altar was presumably about 15m high and elaborately decorated; the sacred area in front of it contained a rectangular pool for ablutions and was delimited by a colonnade, more or less where the cypress trees stand today.
The Roman Amphitheater is much more impressive than the Greek, probably from the 1st century ad. It was partly hollowed out of the hillside.
Beneath the high parapet encircling the arena runs a corridor with entrances for the gladiators and wild beasts. In the centre is a rectangular depression, probably for the machinery used in the spectacles. The original entrance was at the south end, outside which a large area has been exposed, including an enclosure thought to have been for the animals, and a large fountain.
We had our aperitifs at a nice place by the harbor and then strolled to one of the best meals of the trip at a tiny listeria called Apollonion (it is near the Temple of Apollo). It offers a seafood extravaganza. A huge platter of shrimp, langoustines, anchovies, and oysters accompanied by sardines on mozzarella di buffalo was only the beginning!
This was followed by a huge bowl of mussels, then an equally huge platter of calamari frito, and finally, to our dismay, even more food, a huge platter of pasta con le sarde (pasta with sardines). We could barely waddle when we left and made our way through the illuminated island. Here are David and Patti in front of the fountain of Artemis in the center of the island.
It was a short hop from Siracusa to our next stop, the oddly named but really lovely Zash Country Hotel on the eastern slopes of Mount Etna. The hotel sits in a huge citrus grove.
The main building houses the restaurant and reception. The nicer rooms are in separate modern buildings. Our room was simple but comfortable; Zash is designed for outdoor living, with a gorgeous pool, pool bar, and a great restaurant.
final night at Zash
The views of Etna weren’t bad, either.
We were at the hotel before noon and decided, on the spur of the moment, to try and get a place for a winery tour and tasting–which we managed to do. David agreed to be the designated driver, and we were soon rising onto the northern slopes of the volcano. The roads up the mountain pass through a number of villages, with the usual narrow streets, crazy drivers, and missed turns, but once we reached the village of Linguaglossa (“tongue-tongue,” since lingua is Latin for tongue, and glossa Greek for the same) the road leveled out and began to pass, at altitude, through the vineyards on Etna’s northern slope.
We were bound for the Tenuta Delle Terre Nere (appropriately for wines made under a volano, Terre Nere is black earth), one of the three pioneer wineries that put Etna wines on the international map. Wine had been made here for millennia, but until about 20 years ago, it was rustic stuff intended for local consumption. First the Benanti family and then Andrea Franchetti and Marco di Grazia recognized the potential of the red wine grape Nerello Mascalese to make light but intense and transparent wines that could be compared to the wines of Burgundy and Barolo.
We joined a Norwegian woman and two healthcare professionals from Florida for a discussion of the wines and a winery tour with a terrific member of the staff named Debora.
The vineyards on the north slope are unique: the vines are planted in patches of volcanic soil between veins of lava that have come down from major eruptions.
We then tasted five wines arranged so that we could compare the huge differences between wines grown as little as 100 meters apart, differences due to changes in the soil composition of the individual vineyard.
Debora had offered us a real education in the wines of Etna; every minute was fascinating.
Dinner that night was at the Monaci Delle Terre Nere, a gorgeous hotel spread across a number of buildings on the eastern slopes of Etna. David had very sensibly hired a car for the round trip, since this was one of the very few dinners after which we would need to drive home.
Dinner was really good. The highlights were ravioli in a saffron cream with black truffles and tagliatelle with a rag dusted with carob powder.
We also got chapter two of our wine education from the sommelier, Marco. He was a character: raised in Florence, he started working on cruise ships and gravitated toward wine service. His opinion of the wines of Etna were diametrically opposed to Debora’s. While he acknowledged that the wines of the north slope were wonderful, he insisted that they weren’t typical: they were bigger and, even though lightly touched with oak, they were still oaked. He advocated the lighter, somewhat tart, but fresher wines of the east slope.
We started with an Etna Bianco from the vineyards of the owner of the Monaci, Guido Callo. It was lighter and tarter…though perhaps not as interesting as biancos from the north slope. We then drank an older vintage of one of the wines we had tasted the day before, a 2017 Etna Rosso Contrada Guardiola from the Tenuta Delle Terre Nere. I had assumed, erroneously, that the Tenuta and the Monaci were related. It turned out that the folks at the Monaci were a bit touchy about this mistake, perhaps because they hear it so often! At any rate, the Guardiola was wonderful: light but very deep, very pure, very focused, and plenty complex. We had enjoyed the meal and conversations so much that our driver had to wait for us for ten minutes…after a 2 1/2 hour meal!
