Sicily: Hot on the Heels of Montalbano

Italy 5


The main reason we wanted to visit Sicily was because - some years ago - we fell in love with Inspector Montalbano.
I know - I know - his fans are multitudinous, but we couldn't help ourselves.
And strictly speaking, I fell in love with Inspector Montalbano, the In-Charge just fell in love with the series.
Many a Saturday night we'd happily stay in with Il Commissario - Il Dottore - Salvo, call him what you will. We felt practically fluent in Italian, and totally fluent in the art of the Latin grunt.
We longed to see his stamping-iground for ourselves.

Inspector Montalbano  Pic online images Italy Magazine.com

So you can imagine how happy we were to wake up on Sicilian soil.
In fact, we were woken long before dawn by torrential rain sheeting off the roof and thunder resounding off the mountains like canon fire. It was all very spectacular.
But the next morning we wondered if we'd dreamed it.
We wandered around San Giorgio Montforte in hot sunshine, had breakfast in a cafe and at length headed off towards Cefalu.

Despite Angelica's renewed attempts to keep us off motorways, we did eventually find one. (We wondered, en passant, if she is just parsimonious and doesn't like paying out? Which would explain why she let us onto the Autostrada through Calabria - it was free, whereas, in Sicily, as further north on the mainland we had to pay.)

Angelica didn't like paying for the Autostrade

The motorways on Sicily are not for the tunnel-phobic, but they are good, and when you're not buried beneath a mountain, the views are spectacular.
So was Cefalu.
It looked Biblical, and Greek. And it was packed.

Cefalu

We wandered around the old town, drank more Prosecco, had lunch and shopped in the market and then carried on to Palermo, but - with hindsight - we'd rather have just headed south east.
We didn't spend time in the capital, but we did at least stop the next day to see the Valley of the Temples, although - the temperature being in the high thirties still - I wasn't sure that I wanted a long walk around a 1300 hectare site in the heat of the noon-day sun.
But the main places of interest cover just a few kilometres, and the area is full of shady olive trees, so it was well worth the walk to see such amazing ruins, many of which date to the 5th century BC.

The Temple of Concordia

The sculpture of Icarus was interesting too.
We couldn't decide whether the total lack of expression on his face lent it more meaning or less.
In one way we felt that his failed break for the stars could only have left him gnashing his teeth as he fell to earth, but on the other hand, who can say what acceptance a close encounter with the sun might bring?
I stood looking at him for a long time, trying to read what might have been going on behind his closed eyelids.

Icarus, fallen and broken, yet emotionally unscathed

I couldn't help but notice how fascinated most tourists were by his eye-level penis. Most touched it, or went to touch it but drew back coyly and simply posed beside it for a photo, or laughed and made some comment. 
What a funny lot we are.

The centre of the island had taken us by surprise. We'd expected mountains and more mountains, but instead were greeted by a dun coloured agricultural scene; and on the south coast, by mile after mile of commercial polytunnels.

Agricultural interior

We did also find ourselves on a road that had somehow been - well, squished. We had to turn around and retrace our route. We're still puzzling over what could have happened to it.

A squished road

In the end, we only had a day to explore Montalbano's 'manor'.
We stayed in a pretty seaside town on the south coast, and set off promptly the next morning for Scicli and the mountainous scenery that suddenly we recognised.
We stopped on the outskirts of the picturesque town to explore the cemetery. We'd passed many on our travels and I wanted to have a look around.
It was beautiful, the older mausoleums as imposing as the British Victorian equivalents in places like Highgate and Nunhead, or Pere Lachaise in Paris. The Italian cypruses could have been bred with cemeteries in mind, they lend so much atmosphere, rather like the British and Irish yews.
One old tomb bore a sculpture of a woman desolate with grief. I could still feel it, 100 years later.
The newer parts reminded me of Spain, the photographs on each plaque lending a particular poignancy, and they were bedecked with fresh flowers, far more so than at home.  

Lots of flowers

Weeping forever on the tomb of her beloved

Scicli was beautiful. After Amalfi, it seemed ridiculous that we could park for free.
And it was weird walking down the street we have seen so often on TV (although I wasn't sure about the large plastic tubs that have replaced the line of police cars.)

 Inspector Montalbano would have had those  plastic tubs removed immediately

Sadly, Luca Zingaretti didn't stride down the steps of the police station (it's actually the town hall) as we approached, but then life is full of disappointments. Still, we did get to see the room that is used as his boss's office in the series.
Not adequate recompense, but there you go.

We went to Modica and Ragusa too, both of which were beautiful, especially the latter.
250 steps down to the old quarter from Ragusa's high town, but you can get a bus back up. 

Modica

Modica

Ragusa with the blue glassed cupola of Duomo di San Giorgio

We wished we'd skipped Palermo and had longer to explore these spectacular, baroque towns in the south east. I did visit the Duomo di San Giorgio in Ragusa, but I didn't find a place where I could see the blue glass of its cupola properly.

I took a photo of the lovely marble flags on the floor, though, patinated, smoothed with age. But not the dome.
Regrets regrets... 

Beautiful, old floor

More regrets that we had to by-pass Syracusa altogether. 
'Idiots!' I hear you cry.
I know. 
We'll just have to go back.

I had to content myself with photographing a poster outside the tourist office in Modica

We left Sicily the next day, after staying in a little coastal resort nestled under the fuming Mount Etna.
No one seemed in any way bothered by the funnel of wispy smoke emanating from its peak.
I suppose it does that all the time. 

I was conscious of giving it a wary glance or two as we drove north towards the Messina ferry.
You just never know, with volcanoes.

Mt Etna smoking quietly to itself

(My hopes for more dancers on the return journey had been dashed when the In-Charge spotted a newspaper article reporting that the dancers were celebrating the ferry's 50th anniversary. We were lucky to be aboard that day.)

But our regrets were tinged with anticipation too.
We had booked the lovely hotel on the beach at Fiumicello for our last two nights in Italy.
Quite frankly, we needed some down-time after over 2000 km, and before the 5 hour drive to Rome for our flight home. 
We couldn't think of a better place to relax.
And I couldn't wait to be lulled to sleep by the sound of the sea below our balcony

The sea below our balcony

This is the final part of our trip to Italy.
You can read part 4 here: Tango-ing to Messina
Part 3: Amalfi: The Road More Travelled 
Part 2: Sipping Limoncello in Sorrento
Part 1: See Naples and Die 

The Wild, Wintry West

The In-Charge came home last night and said, 'It's all white on the hills along the road. And we're going to get 60' waves tomorrow.'
'Goodness,' I replied. I was diligently working the border of Tina's blanket at the time (Tina is waiting to collect it and send it off - it's a Christmas present for her sister), so I wasn't concentrating very hard.
'Where's the snow?' I asked, far more interested in set-dressing than water. 'Up around Skreen?'
It was indeed around Skreen that winter has descended, perhaps a little early for Christmas, but it's getting the right idea.

Adding the border

We have been in the teeth of a storm for the last three days. Bitterly cold winds screaming in from the north like banshees on broomsticks - tearing the face off you if you're daft enough to be out. Hail flinging itself at the roof and windows like gunfire, odd snatches of sunshine luring you to a false sense of security. I was at a craft fair with my friend the Goddess of Plenty on Sunday. By mid-morning, in a blitz of thunder and lightning, the power had gone, never to return, and at the end of the day we were both so numb with cold it's a wonder we managed to pack the car and drive home.

But this morning lying in that half world between sleeping and waking, listening to the trees moaning around the house, my brain snapped on like a light switch.
60 foot waves? That's not a storm, that's a tsunami.
We are only 70' above sea-level ourselves, we can see the sea from our upstairs windows. The river runs practically past our door.
What does he mean, 60' waves?
I pictured walls crumbling, cars floating, trees like flotsam, the bridge swept away on an angry, churning tide.
Lying there, I suddenly wondered if the distant roaring I could hear was the sea, preparing to strike.
I decided it was time to get up. The hens wouldn't stand a chance.
But later, as I headed out of the village, the sea just looked grey and cross and murky.
I noticed that the sea road was closed though.
And this evening the wind is still roaring. Hail has come and gone and come again.
It isn't over yet.

I hated the wind when we first moved here. There are times when I still hate it, but by and large I like the connection it gives me. Lying in bed, cocooned in my warm nest, safe within the thick, 200-year old stone walls of this house, there is something wonderful about the wind and the trees battling it out all around me.It is like being in the centre of the vortex - the eye of the storm - or at the bottom of the sea. Something wild and elemental is happening, but just beyond my reach. And I am not quite as fearful for the trees as I used to be, after years of watching how they dance to the wind-demon's whim.

It isn't always like that, of course. Sometimes a gale finds its way inside the roof, you can hear it whirling around in apocalyptic rage beneath the slates like a dervish, trying to get in, in - in to the heart of the place, hungry to lay waste. It has managed that, once or twice, slates spinning off like fish-scales - but hopefully not today. Today it doesn't sound personal, not like the night that still haunts me, when I woke to hear the wild beast of heaven swarming overhead like a demon on the rampage.


It's my hens I feel most sorry for. Who would be a hen in this weather?

A brief moment of sunshine - it didn't last!

Poor little dotes. They are blown hither, thither and yon. They look bedraggled and cold, and spend all day hiding in the shrubbery below the wall.
At least they get a hot breakfast and supper. From the indecent speed with which they gobble it up, I think they like it! Simple to make, but it makes all the difference to their day - half a kettle of hot water in their 'cornflakes' and then I splat it about on the grass for them.

Hot mash makes for happy hens

But at least they are all there at bedtime tonight. Cold, damp and blown but otherwise unscathed.
As are my roofs. And my trees.

To come away unscathed is to be blessed.
So mercifully, just a normal wild, wintry day.
Let's hope the 60 foot waves will only feature in the annals of local folklore.

Demons

We were awoken long before dawn by the demon of the heavens.
Jolted out of sleep, I lay quaking, with a a vision of some vast, dark being swarming through the skies directly above me, roaring - racing, chasing, in furious pursuit of I knew not what.
I understood why small creatures quiver under stones and hide in undergrowth.
It is suddenly essential to be invisible in the face of such uncontainable rage.

Is that what it's like on a battlefield?
The barely controllable instinct to turn tail, to burrow in, to be anywhere except in the line of such cataclysmically terrifying sound. Heavy guns, coming out of nowhere.
They say we are born with a fear of loud noises.

Today it was just thunder. The worst I remember.
And the speed with which it rolled away only augmented the unbidden picture in my head, as if the beast had merely trodden on my lair as it sped through the halls of heaven in pursuit of other prey.

Not so for everyone.

As the crossfire took over from the big guns - the breath-stopping staccato of wind-driven hail exploding against the roof - I turned over in my warm, dark nest and snuggled down again - my heart beating faster, but my body and lair unscathed.
I closed my eyes, but other unbidden visions came to mind.
Of ordinary people, just like me, around whom demons roar, but who are not unscathed.
In Syria.
Afghanistan
Mali
The list goes on...



Since posting this I have heard of two houses nearby - one belonging to friends - that were struck by lightning even as I lay shivering in bed. In one, skirting boards, floors and pipes exploded, in the other wiring, electrical equipment and computers were trashed.
Mercifully, no people or animals were harmed.