Category: Sicily

We were off early to try to get ahead of the Saturday crowds in the center. Ton really liked Palermo yesterday, so she spent some time researching the town. After her research she told me that she wanted to go back to the cathedral and look for the meridian line on the floor. The meridian line is placed on the floor of the cathedral so that at exactly solar noon the light from a window in the cathedral is directly on the line. Solar noon is when the sun passes a locations meridian and is at its highest point in the sky for that day. Palermo has the last functioning meridian line in Europe. When we arrived at the cathedral Ton sent me off to find the line while she shot some more photos. I found it faster than I thought as I had no idea where to look and it is a big cathedral. Fortunately based on Tons description when I saw it I knew I had found it. The line runs at an angle across the floor and there are signs of the zodiac imbedded in it. Our quest for the day completed we could move on to the markets as we had originally planned.

When we were leaving the cathedral Ton stopped because she wanted to get a shot of one of the walls of the cathedral. Yesterday we showed the entrance to the cathedral which is done in a Rococo style. But what had caught Tons eye the day before was that the wall next to the entrance was done in a very Islamic style. She wanted to get a shot because it was a good example of the blending of cultures that is part of Sicily.

Our next stop was the Mercato del Capo which is the fish market for the town. It is an open air market that extends for about 300 yards along one of the streets in town. We always enjoy walking thru these to see the different fish and how they are displayed. The markets are always lively places and we enjoy the vibe.

We enjoyed the fish market, but didn’t buy anything there. The route into the fish market is busy, and other vendors have set up business there. There was about a 50 yard stretch with tablecloths and other linen goods. We did walk away from there with a nice table cloth.

It was a little early for lunch so Ton asked me what we should do. I told her we had not been to the waterfront yet, she looked surprised because in her research of things to do in Palermo, going to the waterfront was not in there, but we decided to head that way. We later learned that the reason no one mentions the waterfront is that it is not interesting at all. But walking down there we made two interesting discoveries.

The first thing we came across was a puppet theater. It was tucked into an ally that was our route to the ocean. As we were looking at the posters and peering into the theater itself a gentleman came out and was kind enough to spend about 5 minutes explaining the art to us.

A little further down we came upon a small square with a church fronting it. Ton was shooting the exterior when I ran up the stairs to take a look in the interior. I immediately waved her up as it was one of the prettier churches we have seen in a while. The interior marble was dark, but the color made a great contrast to the floors. The art work was also very beautiful. It was a real find and we enjoyed poking around inside while they were setting up for a wedding later in the day.

We made it down to the water, took a quick look, found out why no one talks about it, and decided it was lunch time. So we were back up the hill to another outdoor market to the restaurant Ton had picked out for the day. We wanted to taste a dish called Pasta Con le Sarde. They have a saying in Thai that you judge a good restaurant by its Pad Thai because it is a simple dish using basic ingredients that is a staple of the country. Some Sicilians say the same about Pasta Con le Sarde. The dish is supposed to combine elements of Arab, Spanish, and Italian food in a way that is unique to Sicily. When we sat down the waiter was a little gruff but when we told him we wanted Pasta Con le Sarde he smiled and said that was a good choice, and would we like him to pick out the rest of the meal to go with that. We took him up on his offer. In addition to the Pasta con le Sarde we received another pasta with Tuna and a mixed plate of calamari, prawns, and octopus. The Pasta Con le Sarde was a big hit with both of us as the sauce was delicious and very different than the tomato based sauces we associate with Italian food. The other dishes were also very good, and we walked out of the restaurant stuffed but very happy.

We headed up the street to another food market that we had walked thru yesterday. But after our meal I did more people watching than food watching. Ton on the other hand was fascinated with the different food on display and kept stopping to get a closer look.

Fortunately we had a long walk back to François as we had some calories to burn off. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in a very hot François. Thought it is October it is still very warm out.

We made a quick jump along the coast to Palermo. The drive was short, and I was nervous as always when I have to drive in big cities, one missed or wrong turn can lead quickly to some very tense situations. Fortunately this time Greta picked a good route and I did not screw it up. So we arrived in our campground/parking lot for the night with no adventure.

We settled into our Sosta for the day, got a tour of the facilities and hooked up the electricity. After our beautiful seaside campground yesterday with beach bar, big pool, and a great view of the Mediterranean, today we are parked about 3 feet from two other RV’s in a parking lot surrounded by apartments. But the location is fantastic for exploring Palermo and the services are clean and the internet is fast so we are content.

Palermo had definitely gotten mixed reviews. Somewhat like Naples people either tend to love it or hate it. After our first day we are definitely in the love it category.

Palermo is the capital of Sicily and its largest city so we decided to give it two days. It won’t be enough. Our plan today was to take in all of the tourist sites, and tomorrow to take in the markets.

When we first arrive in a city we tend to start at the Cathedral as they are usually the center of the attractions. Ton gave me a list of things to look at including the cathedral, some churches, a couple of fountains and squares. We covered them all today and they were uniformly beautiful and a little different. Sicily has a real mix of influences including Spain, France, Roman, Greek, Moslem, and of course Italian. Because of that the architecture is different than anywhere else we have visited.

The architecture is lively here with the Rococo influence and the intertwining of the various cultures. While the themes are very similar to those we have seen throughout Europe, in Sicily and particularly Palermo they are done with a flair that we both enjoy.

Ton had two foods she wanted to try today. Sicily has a dish called Arancini which is fried dough stuffed with rice and a filling made of cheese, meat or vegetable. They are usually served as appetizers and are bite size, but in Palermo they are meal sized, that was number 1 on her list. The second thing was a desert called Cassata Torte Setteveli which is made from marzipan. As we were walking down the main street in the old town she saw a bakery that served both and had two chairs and before I realized what happened we sat down and had ordered.

Later in the day Ton saw a sign for one of the three markets in Palermo and decided we should take a quick look before tomorrow. When we arrived she was in heaven. The market really reminded her of Thailand. In Sicily they have a restaurant style called cafeteria where they lay all of the food they have prepared for the day on a big table and you point at what you want. They then take it into the kitchen and prepare it for you. She was in heaven just looking at what was available and thinking about what we were going to be able to eat tomorrow. We passed some nice Arancini on display and ended up buying two more for supper.

Our last stop for the day was the theater. We covered a lot of ground on foot today, and the town was teeming with people so at times it was difficult to move. But Palermo has won us over, and Ton can’t wait to head into the market for our lunch tomorrow.

We spent today wandering thru the beautiful sea side town of Cefalu. The first thing we noticed is that the tourists in this town were significantly younger than in any other town we visited. While there were plenty of seniors and cruise ship tours, we were slightly outnumbered by 20 and 30 somethings from all over the world. The beach fronting the town is beautiful and that may explain the attraction for the younger set. Anyway it gave the town a more lively vibe and we enjoyed it.

The old town is pretty small, as these old towns tend to be. While there was a lot of space given over to restaurants and tourist stores, a great deal of the homes were still occupied by people. We enjoyed this aspect of the town as well, as it made the streets more lively.

We saw the vegetable guy going thru town delivering food, the fish guy pushing his cart and singing to let people know he was coming, and a guy going around delivering gas canisters to homes on a scooter.

Another interesting place that we have not seen anywhere else is the laundry for the old town. There was a designated place to wash clothes near the ocean. It was built to purpose and there were different stations in it for particular actions. There was a fast running stream, and several pools, and workspaces with shaped stones. We could not quite figure out what they were but we were fascinated. The exit for the water from the laundry went straight into the sea to get rid of the dirty water.

We spent a couple of hours just walking up and down the streets enjoying people watching. We were getting hungry and Ton had picked out a couple of places she wanted to try. The first was a bakery and when we got there, there was a handwritten sign on the door in Italian and English saying they were on vacation until October 15. The other was a restaurant and they must have went on vacation also, but that is only conjecture because there was no sign, it just wasn’t open.

We found an alternative place for lunch and it was ok. We have become spoiled with the food here in Sicily and our expectations when we eat out are quite high.

We wound up our day trying a couple of the local wines out. After finishing our wine we headed over to the bus stop to take the bus back to the camp, and when 3 pm came the bus rolled up, we all boarded and we arrived at the campground 20 minutes later right on time. Our first uneventful bus ride on this trip.

Today we left Catania and shifted across the island to Cefalu. We were not in a hurry to get going as we wanted to let the rush hour traffic die down in Catania before setting out. Our plan worked as the traffic was much less than we had faced in the previous two days. I also now knew the route out of the city so I did not have to pay attention to Greta to make all of the correct turns.

We had about 180 kilometers to cover today to shift from one side of the island to the other. A lot of the drive was over the mountainous spine of Sicily so I didn’t know how fast it was going to be. It turned out to be a piece of cake as it was all on a good freeway. So we ended up covering the distance in slightly less than 3 hours which is flying for us.

When we pulled onto the side road for the campground we came face to face with two competing campground entrances. We were amused because as we came down the ramp each campground had a person at their entrance vigorously waving for us to pick their campground. We picked the one I had plugged into Greta, but I told Ton that it must be pretty quiet here today.

It turns out the campground was pretty full. The interesting thing for the first time on this trip there are a lot of children in the campground. Everywhere we have stayed up to now has been mostly retirees with a couple of 20 somethings working remotely. Ton was concerned because she wondered why these kids weren’t in school. Then she decided they must be being home schooled.

Today we relaxed, Ton cooked two nice meals, and for the first time on this trip we had rice instead of pasta so Ton was very happy and full at the end of the day.

Today we tried to take in the Val di Noto which is in the southeast corner of Sicily. There are several good sized towns in the Val di Noto, and it would probably take three days to explore them all and it would be worth it. Unfortunately, we only had today so we had to limit ourselves to three of them, and we were definitely on the run to get that done.

Our first stop was Noto which is the city the valley is named after. We arrived fairly early, and parked down the hill from the old town. The walk up the hill from the modern town to the old town was good exercise to get us ready for the day. We came into the old town right at the cathedral. The cathedral was originally built in the 1700’s in the Sicilian Rococo style. The dome to the cathedral collapsed in 1996 causing extensive damage. It has been rebuilt now and it was hard for me to tell what was rebuilt and what was part of the original structure, so kudos to the restoration team.

The main street in the old town is quite monumental with very large and interesting buildings stretching for maybe 500 meters. The town has been used in the past for movies, and the posters of the movies filmed in Noto were featured as street art. The buildings lining the street are also done in Sicilian Rococo which is why Noto is a world heritage site.

We would have liked to have given Noto some more time, but we were feeling under time pressure. So after about an hour of walking the main street we decided to push on to our next destination.

Our next spot was Marzamemi which we had selected because we wanted to experience fine dining. We usually go for street food or moderate priced restaurants, but today we decided to go upscale. We picked a place that was Michelin rated that had been owned by a niece of the last queen of Italy. It was our first experience with a Michelin rated restaurant.

Marzamemi is famous for its tuna, so I leaned heavily towards tuna. Our appetizer was seasoned raw tuna and it was quite good. I went with a tuna and artichoke pasta dish, and Ton had a mixed fish of the day. The service and presentation of the food was very good, and the ingredients were all fresh and first class. Overall we enjoyed our special meal, and though it was more than we usually spend, it was in line with what we would spend at home for a restaurant meal.

We now had to run from the coast up into the hills of the Val di Noto for our last stop of the day in Modica. Ton was really looking to visiting Modica after she read about the chocolate from the city. Her way of selling Modica to me was by telling me a story from WWII where an American pilot who parachuted from his damaged plane was hanging from a tree after he got snagged in it coming down. A local girl from Modica saw him and he offered her a Hershey bar if she helped him. She left with the Hershey bar, but instead of returning with help, she returned with a bar of Modica chocolate for him, because it was so superior to the Hershey bar.

The climb up to the old town was again pretty steep, but since we had just finished a big lunch, we had plenty of energy to pull it off. The town was quite striking with houses perched on steep hills all around the old town. It reminded me of Porto in Portugal which also had a section of town built on extremely steep hills.

We stopped in one of the chocolate stores. Ton bought a chocolate granita that was delicious, and I had a lemon granita which was also quite good. A granita is a kind of like a slushee but nicer, made of ice, sugar, and a flavor such as chocolate, lemon, coffee, …you get the picture. Ton read that it is sometimes served for breakfast in Sicily.

In the end we bought about 15 chocolate bars as gifts for our friends at home. We will see how many of them actually make it back to Oregon.

It was getting near dark and we had about 120 kilometers to cover to get back to the campground. We were doing pretty good until we got near Catania and ran head long into the evening rush hour. It turns out rush hour is later in Italy, we assume because of the siesta, it was going full tilt at 7pm. The last 20 kilometers were bumper to bumper cars, with every traffic circle being an absolute free for all. But we made it back unscathed, but tired.

We are still parked up in Catania, and we made a decision to use Catania as a base to explore this part of Sicily. To make the process easier for me we decided to rent a car, because to see the places we wanted to see it was going to be a lot of city driving, and while François is small as motorhomes/rv’s go it is not a city car and finding places to park can be stressful. Yesterday we arranged for a rental car for the next three days, and promptly at 9am our Lancia showed up. It is the perfect size to drive in Italian cities and find places to park.

Today we visited the Isola di Ortiga which is the historical center of Siracusa, or Syracuse as it is known in the English speaking world. We started here because Siracusa is a substantial city and I thought we would avoid a lot of the week day traffic if we went on a Sunday. I was mostly right but we were glad we were driving our tiny Lancia and not François as we approached the city center as I forgot to account for the fact that a lot of the local families would take advantage of the perfect weather to go downtown and have a nice meal so the traffic was still substantial.

When we arrived we were startled by how busy it was. There were multiple tour groups being guided thru town, and there was a small cruise ship docked, as well as the local people who were enjoying a good Sunday meal and day out. In a few places it was difficult to walk, but as the day went on the crowds thinned out and we enjoyed ourselves more.

Most of the buildings in this region were built in the early 1700’s after a large earthquake caused massive damage thru out Sicily. At the time Sicily was ruled by the Spanish, so the style is different than that found on the mainland because of the Spanish influence.

We spent a great deal of the late morning and early afternoon aimlessly wandering thru town. But our walk was not aimless, we were really looking for the perfect restaurant. After much searching we settled on a sea food place near the cathedral and got one of the last tables. Right after we sat down people suddenly descended on the place and within 20 minutes of our arrival there was a substantial number of people waiting for a table, so our choice was vindicated.

The staff seemed a little overwhelmed by the sudden surge in customers and we had a difficult time getting our order put in. The guy who seated us came by and I started to give him our order, but he told me that he did not take food orders, only beverage orders, so I did manage to get a beer from him. I finally got the guy who took food orders attention and we ordered a mixed seafood platter for two.

I was a little nervous about our choice, but when our food arrived we were thrilled. The platter was immense with a great variety of fish, some served on bread like Pinxtos in Spain, probably the Spanish rule from the 1700’s influencing not only the architecture, but the food. Our Italian neighbors were impressed and asked to take a picture of it. Everything on the platter was excellent and after our two hour search for the perfect meal we were very happy with our choice.

We needed some more exercise after our lunch so we decided to walk the perimeter of the island. Ortiga has been a fortified harbor since the Greeks and it is surrounded by walls all the way around. But the fortifications and walls did not impress Ton as much as the clear green water of the Mediterranean.

As we walked she would stop every few feet to take another picture and talk about the clearness and the beautiful green color of the water, then take another picture because the water had changed to a perfect blue color. She was in heaven. We really enjoyed strolling along the top of the wall and looking at the sea.

We finally decided to head back to Catania for the evening as we had put in a good walk for the day. We really enjoyed Ortiga and while we did not get out into the modern part of Siracusa we enjoyed the old town very much.

Today we used the morning to shift about 120 kilometers to Catania. Catania is the 2nd largest city in Sicily, but is the economic hub of the island. It was founded by the Greeks around the 8th century BC, but like much of Sicily it has had many rulers. We are going to be using it for a base for the next few days while we visit the surrounding region.

It is famous for a fountain with a black elephant on it. The Black Elephant was carved in Roman times from a single block of lava from Mt. Etna. It has been placed in its current location in the mid 1700’s as part of a fountain in front of the cathedral. Having an elephant as a prominent landmark already stood Catania in Tons good graces.

Catania has a reputation of being a little rough around the edges and some of reading on the internet talked about buildings being covered with graffiti and the streets being dirty. So we were surprised that in the areas we walked around and we saw from the bus ride there was very little graffiti and the streets were fairly clean.

Our first impression was of a prosperous and vigorous city with a real positive vibe. We enjoyed walking around and looking at the crowds out seeing the sites on a Saturday. The people were mostly Italian, with a healthy mix of foreign tourists mixed in.

We messed up a little by having a late light lunch before we left François, so we were not hungry when we arrived downtown. By the time we were hungry lunch was over and most of the restaurants were closing down. The restaurants generally close from about 3pm to 7 pm, there were a few places still open but none of them appealed to us.

Since we couldn’t eat, we decided to go look at an area that is devoted mostly to religious institutions and is considered to be one of the most beautiful streets in Catania. Via Crociferi includes the second largest monastery in Europe, and several churches. It was pretty quiet compared to the area around the cathedral. But the buildings were beautiful, and we enjoyed the walk. Someone has done a good job of putting explanations about the buildings in both Italian and English so we took our time reading the histories of the various buildings as we strolled along.

At this point we decided to head back to the campground. It was around 4:30 when I told google maps to get us back home. We walked to the bus stop guided by maps, and there were a group of Italians waiting there. There was a sign that told you when your bus was going to arrive. One of the options google gave us was due to arrive in 17 minutes. It counted down to 7 minutes and then the time to arrival went blank. After a while we noticed a bunch of googling going on among the Italians and after some discussion among themselves the crowd at the bus stop began to disperse. We were kind of confused. Finally, a gentleman from the crowd came over and spoke a burst of Italian into his phone and held it out to me. In English it said that this bus stop was not served after 5pm and we need to move to another bus stop on a different road. He asked where we going and when I told him he said that was the same bus he was taking. He then proceeded to spend the next 45 minutes with us walking to the next bus stop, getting on one bus, and then transferring to our final bus. The whole time he was going out of his way to help us he was apologizing because he an Italian in Italy could not speak English. I told him that since this was Italy, it was our fault for not speaking Italian, but he waived his hand dismissively at this thought.

Once again Italian busses confounded us with there mysterious schedules, but also, once again Italians came to the rescue to make sure we were not left in a lurch. This willingness to help strangers is one of the things that has really struck both Ton and me about traveling in Italy, it is really special.

Catania is a beautiful city with a very lively center that we both enjoyed a great deal. Our only regret is we mis-timed our meals so we did not experience the local food. But, we have many days to make up for that mistake.

Today we finished our drive to Sicily. We decided to get an early start on the drive as we had 300 kilometers to cover today. The drive south was very easy and we made good time. We arrived at the ferry terminal about 12:30. As we were entering the ferry terminal I saw a sign that said ferries to Messina and pulled in there. I was immediately directed to a spot in a staging area, and told by the guy to go in and buy my ticket in the office. Things were going exceptionally efficiently, so I was nervous.

We were loaded and underway about 30 minutes after we arrived so again things were going great. We had taken the ferry the other way from downtown Messina in 2019 and I remember the trip was very quick, maybe 20 minutes. Right after we were underway I noticed we were not going directly across but heading south. It turns out we had boarded a ferry that went to a secondary terminal south of downtown Messina. Instead of taking 20 minutes it took 45 minutes. But, it was a nice day for a boat ride and when we arrived we were on the freeway within 1km without dealing with the traffic in the center of Messina.

We had booked ourselves into an agritourismo near Messina which was highly rated on park4night our go to app for finding places to stay. I had been corresponding with the owner since yesterday. In Europe I only use GPS coordinates to route ourselves. Addresses are frequently not in Greta Garmin’s data base, so the best thing is to use GPS coordinates, but they have to be manually entered in Greta. We were going along happily when we came to a toll booth. I saw a sign for credit cards and pulled into that one. The machine asked for a ticket (it actually asked for a biglietto) which we didn’t have, so I stuck a credit card in, and the gate went up. But we had unknowingly picked the toll booth for the exit ramp, so we were into a small town before we knew it. The next 2.5 km’s included a lot of narrow road driving that frequently had Ton wincing as we just cleared vehicles with 5 or 6 inches to spare. We finally got back on the freeway, and were driving merrily along when I happened to notice that the purple line that marked our route was heading out to sea. I pulled into a gas station and while we were filling up I checked the GPS coordinates I had put in and one of the digits was wrong so Greta was directing us to a point about 4 or 5 miles into the Mediterranean. I usually double check my entries but must have forgot to last night as one misplaced number can have you trying to navigate in the sea. I corrected the error and we ended back in the same little town we had squeezed thru before, but this time it was our destination.

Agritourismos in Italy are farms that allow people to camp or stay on site. They range from very posh to pretty rustic. This one is pretty urban and high tech, but we are parked in a field of tomatoes and mango trees and we were told to help ourselves. We also have the place to ourselves with a nice private bathroom. Right after we arrived Ton was out picking tomatoes with abandon, and I found three mangos. We had both for dinner and they are good.