One last cannoli...

Here it is- the final posting about our trip to Sicily a few weeks ago.

We left Agriturismo Savoca near Piazza Armerina and headed to Siracusa (Syracuse) via Caltagirone. Caltagirone is famous for its ceramics, especially tile. To be honest the town was nice, but not the tile paradise we envisioned. The highlight was a massive staircase just off the main piazza where the rise of every step was covered in a different artisan tile. Eli and I hiked up the entire way (I carried Eli for most of it), and we checked out a few ceramic shops on the way down. There was beautiful stuff, but alas it was not in our budget. We got back to the car, took in the view of Mt. Etna from the parking lot, and made our way to Siracusa through the rocky hills of southwestern Sicily.

One oddity relating to this leg of the trip- Caroline and I had been talking about the movie "Wonder Boys" with Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire and how much we wanted to watch/buy it since the local video selection at Wonder Video in Viterbo is lacking to say the least. While we stopped for gas and panini out in the middle of no-man's land on the way to Siracusa, we found a rack of DVD's with, you guessed it, "Wonder Boys" for sale for all of 7euro. Not only was it odd that we found it in this of all places, but also it was cheaper than we ever could have hoped. As it turned out this was a harbinger of good things to come in Siracusa. We pulled into town, got a little lost, then settled into our last hotel of the trip.

Our hotel (really it was a mini-IKEA apartment) was located just off a main drag between two of the prettiest piazzas on Ortygia, an island and the oldest part of the town. One piazza contained the significant remains of the temple of Apollo (the oldest peripteral Doric temple in the world) and the other had a beautiful fountain and more exquisite buildings than you can shake a stick at. The more we explored this island, the more we fell in love with it. A lot of the island was destroyed in an earthquake in the 17th century, and it was rebuilt quickly in the Sicilian Baroque style which is very romantic and beautiful. We spent a lot of time wandering down the narrow streets and taking in the views of the water. Our three days there were relaxing and fun.

In terms of sites and highlights, we visited the duomo which has a beautiful baroque facade and two rows of massive columns on the inside that were once the outer part of a Roman temple to Minerva. This stands out as one of the most interesting and breathtaking churches we have seen in Italy. To make it more dramatic, the piazza outside is absolutely gorgeous. We spent a fair amount of time there letting Eli run around and taking in the atmosphere. We also took a small boat ride to see some of the natural grottoes just up the coast from Ortygia. The water was unbelievably clear, and we were out on a glassy morning which made the underwater view all the more dramatic. The last tourist note during our time there was a visit to the Archaeological Park which contains a Roman and Greek amphitheater (we only went to the Greek one), an ancient quarry where Athenian war captives were sentenced to labor, and lots of other stuff that we didn't visit. This was a great spot and it was a fitting end to our tour of ancient Greek history on Sicily.

As you might expect the real highlights for us in Siracusa were the food. First of all the pastries were amazing. Cannoli to die for, and fried foods like arancine (fried risotto balls filled with meat sauce or other stuff) and bombe (doughnuts stuffed with ricotta) that were the best we've tried. The real winner was a seafood restaurant we went to two times while we there. It was recommended by the manager of our hotel/apartment place, and we were skeptical at first. We have been burned with recommendations in the past, but this time the place was called a "cooking school." We have had good luck with cooking schools in the States, and we thought we'd give this one a try. We walk in, and they said that they were full. We pushed a little bit, and they moved a table or two and made room. To our surprise there were no menus. Food just started showing up...and it kept showing up. All in all our meal consisted of nine courses, eight of which were fresh seafood. Our jaws dropped and drool pooled as each new dish made it to the table. All told we were there for over two hours, and Eli made it through like the little champion he is.

Our meal there was so good that we decided to return the following day for our anniversary meal (the big 7!). This time there were only seven courses, but one was a lobster (that was still crawling when they took it to the kitchen) accented by a flambe. The wine was spectacular too (a Sicilia Rosso IGT called "Tripudium" that tasted like an amazing Zinfandel), and we left that meal feeling like we had been treated like royalty two days in a row. Almost too much...but not quite.

The last day we headed back to Palermo to the ferry. We stopped for Eli's first Happy Meal at a McDonald's in Caltanissetta. In Palermo we simply sat by the water, took in some sun, and waited for the time to board the ferry. The trip back to Civitavecchia was pleasant and uneventful. This ferry was not quite as nice as the previous one, but we enjoyed the view from our cabin and arrived home well rested and eager to stay put for the next several days.

The trip was a huge success, especially thanks to all of Caroline's careful planning. We definitely would like to get back to Sicily at some point. We'll see how things go. Here are some more pics:



Above: the view of Mt. Etna from our parking space in Caltagirone
Below: Eli and Dad climbing the tile steps in Caltagirone


Above: the facade of the duomo in Ortygia
Below: the piazza outside of the duomo


Above: Eli and Caroline on the boat tour of the grottoes
Below: the water view (the water was about 20 feet deep here, and amazingly clear)

Above: a heart formed by the waves along the coast
Below: Caroline and Eli walking through the archaeological park in Siracusa.


Above: Caroline and Eli at the Greek theather
Below: Caroline and Eli at the seafood restaurant (don't mind the toilet in the background)

Above: a hilarious sequence of road signs. Note the way to Siracusa on the one in the foreground, then look at the one in the background. Typical Italy.
Below: Caroline in Eli with a water view in Ortygia.

On the farm with Giovanni (and more Greek temples).

So, I think Sam left off in Selinunte (which I kept pronouncing as Selunite annoying Sam to no end...so of course I kept on doing it). Next we headed to Agrigento. The site in Agrigento is Sicily's shining star in terms of Greek ruins. It is impressive. It's also more traveled and more guarded than the other sites we saw so it left me cold despite it's importance in terms of ancient remains.

Before I describe the ruins though, let me take a moment to rave about the B&B we stayed in. It was located right in the middle of the archeological site. We assume the house was grandfathered property, so it was allowed to remain privately owned. We had a beautiful view of the temples from the breakfast terrace. It was also a farm of sorts. There were peacocks, ducks, geese, dogs, cats, chickens, fish, and several exotic birds. Eli was in heaven. He really honed his animal sounds on this trip.

Anyhoo, back to the ruins. Three enormous temples line a ridge near the water and have been reconstructed or partially reconstructed. The most complete one was saved to serve as a church in the middle ages. This one was the most interesting for that reason. We found out that reusing temples in their original form was fairly unusual due Christian superstitions surrounding Pagan worship and rituals. That's why some temples are fairly easy to reconstruct (unless they're looted for building materials); they've been completely abandoned throughout Christian rule .

As I said the operation at Agrigento was pretty slick, so we saw the temples and the remains of the ancient forum without lingering for long. (I, Sam, am taking over writing the post at this point. Just to keep you all informed.) Eli was in quite a mood and showing the signs of travel frustration at this point in the trip. We were glad that our next stop was at an agriturismo in rural central Sicily with only one item on the sightseeing agenda.

Let me pause at this point to say that Caroline did an awesome job planning all the places we stayed on this trip. She has become an expert of sorts at researching various types of reasonably priced lodging in Italy, and this trip was in general a tour de force of trip planning. At some point we might compile a list of the places we stayed (that we would recommend) during our time here. Let us know if you are interested. Now back to the trip.

We high-tailed it from Agrigento to Piazza Armerina, or rather four km outside of Piazza Armerina, and got to Agriturismo Savoca to find a secluded farm with horses, peacocks, pigs, sheep, a goat, and a few dogs. The weather was nice, and Eli had a blast. The son of the owner of the place, a twenty-something guy named Giovanni, took a shining to Eli right away, and the two of them had a lot of fun playing with the horses and the various tractors and farm machinery. At times Giovanni would whisk Eli away for twenty minutes or more as they explored the wonders of the working farm. Eli had a blast, and Giovanni was a highlight of our stay at this place. On our first day there we got Eli a proper nap, poked around the grounds of the agriturismo, and had a marvelous meal at their restaurant. Everything we ate was grown on their farm. For the first time in a long time we had some green vegetables that weresubtly cooked and truly delicious.

The next day we set out to see the Villa Romana which is the main attraction in these parts. No one knows whose villa it was, but the mosaics there indicate that it must have been someone ridiculously wealthy, maybe even an emperor. The mosaics are almost perfectly preserved because the villa was destroyed by a mudslide before any real damage had come to them. I can't even begin to describe the extent of these mosaics. They were huge and everywhere. Unfortunately, the site is currently undergoing lots of restoration projects which meant that the entirety of the mosaics were covered in a coating of dust from the various sorts of work on the mosaics that were going on. Nevertheless, we could see the outlines and in a few cases the brilliance of the colors. Despite Eli's numerous melt-downs as we visited this site, it stands out as one of the best Roman remains I have ever seen. Truly extraordinary.

The rest of that day was taken up with Eli's nap and another round of family farm fun with Giovanni, the horses and the rest. Caroline cooked us a great dinner that night, and we got plenty of rest for the next day's trip to Siracusa, the final leg of the trip and the topic of the next blog entry. Ciao. Enjoy the pictures.


Above: the peacocks that greeted us as the B&B in Agrigento
Below: the view at breakfast



Above : the ridge with the temples at Agrigento
Below: the Savage family at Agrigento (Eli is on Daddy's back.)


Above: the best preserved temple at Agrigento
Below: Eli and Giovanni in the tractor at the agriturismo near Piazza Armerina


Above: Eli having fun at the agriturismo.
Below: Eli and Giovanni playing with the horses.


Above: Out for a walk at the agriturismo.
Below: A worker restoring the mosaics at the Villa Romana. You could imagine what this would look like if there weren't a thick layer of dust over the floor.

Greeks and Smurfs

Here is the second installment of the Sicily trip recap.

We left Palermo in the pouring rain on day 4 and made our way through crazy traffic to Monreale a few kilometers outside of Palermo. (For those of you who have not driven a car in Italy, crazy traffic in Palermo is crazier than traffic in most of Italy, and traffic in Italy is generally like an exercise in social Darwinism using heavy machinery.) Monreale is small town up on a hillside with one of the most striking churches either of us had ever seen. The outside is standard enough, but the inside is crusted from floor to ceiling with gold mosaics. The beams of the ceiling are painted in gold as well. Several influences were at work, most clearly Byzantine, Roman, Norman. The church itself represents the time in Sicilian, specifically Paltermitan, history when the Normans ruled politically but welcomed the cultural exchange with their arabic predecessors in the area. The overall experience of being in this church was exceptional. With the rain coming down outside it had the added feel of a sanctuary, even for us not so religious folk. Also, while we were inside we were treated to a mini organ concert when a teacher who was leading a group of Italian students pulled up to the keyboards and pounded out some great songs, including that great thing that Captain Nemo plays in the movie of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

We left Monreale and got stuck in another traffic jam. This one was caused by a couple of people parked in illegal spots on a narrow road. As cars tried to move around each other they got stuck, and gridlock ensued. Everyone was honking their horns and shouting, but since it was pouring out, no one got out. Eventually someone took control, backed up the two dozen or so cars that had lined up and created the necessary space to alleviate the jam. A little flustered we pushed onward toward Segesta, the site of one of the finest examples of Greek temple architecture. The ride was wet and cold. We passed through all sorts of towns made up of ugly concrete block architecture, and we wondered when we were going to see the charming side of Sicily.

We got to Segesta and hopped out of the car. Segesta was one of the great Greek city-states in Sicily (although some suggest that the founders of Segesta were actually descendants of Trojans, maybe even Aeneas, and therefore not Greek.). They built but never finished a temple perched high on a hillside and did complete a theater perched even higher on the hillside. We didn't make it to the theater because the wind and rain were too heavy for us to invest the extra 5 euro ($65) to take the bus ride up to the theater. The temple, however, was truly spectacular. I was giddy as we walked around the site. The sun even made a brief appearance while we were there, but as the next storm rolled in we high-tailed it back to the car just in time to head for Marsala, safe from more intense rain.

On the way to Marsala Eli napped while Caroline and I got crankier and crankier, hungrier and hungrier. We didn't want Eli to wake up if we stopped, but we desperately needed food. We even tried to find a place in a small hill town near Segesta, but everything was closed and we got lost while trying to get out of the town. Needless to say that did not help our moods. Even as the storms passed and the sun came out, we became more and more desperate. We followed a few road signs for restaurants, but they were all closed. Finally as we approached Marsala, we couldn't take it any more, and we followed some fancy signs towards Donna Franca, an agriturismo and restaurant. The signs took us further and further away from the road to Marsala, and as we proceeded neither Caroline nor me wanted to consider the possibility that this place might be closed. We arrived to find it open and we settled into the restaurant which looked too fancy for the likes of the rain-drenched and travel-weary Savages. The food was AMAZING. Caroline had spaghetti with ricci (sea urchin), a sicilian specialty, and I had seafood ravioli with a sea urchin sauce. For the second course we I had tuna marsala, Caroline had a beef cutlet served with wine sauce. We drank a bottle of the house white wine and found out that the agriturismo was also a vineyard. The manager offered us a tour of the wine production facilities after lunch, and we gladly accepted. The highlight was barrel tasting a 40 year old Marsala wine that had been aging all those years in French oak. It was truly spectacular. The other highlight of that place was the slide and see-saw that they had set up in a courtyard. Eli had a blast playing in the sun. It was exactly what we needed after a tiring morning of sightseeing and driving in the rain.

We got to our place in Marsala shortly after lunch. The Villa Favorita was a place I had come across in a magazing at the dentist's office here in Viterbo. The had a picture of these pods that you can rent, and Caroline found the place and incorporated it into the itinerary of our trip. The pods were cool, and the grounds of the hotel were beautiful. After an hour or so stretching our legs and playing with Eli we got back in the car and went into Marsala to see the museum that contains the scant remains of a Carthaginian ship that was sunk of the coast of the port in the massive naval battle that concluded the First Punic War with the Romans. The museum was very cool, actually. It had tons of amphorae found in the local waters and all sorts of Greek, Carthaginian and Roman artifacts. After picking up some pizza to go we headed back to the pod, ate dinner, and crashed hard.

The next day we had an amazing breakfast at the hotel and headed out of Marsala towards Selinunte. Selinunte was another powerful Greek city-state that was a rival of Segesta in ancient times. All of Selinunte was destroyed in the 5th century b.c.e. when Segesta enlisted the help of the Carthaginians to attack their rival. The temples were destroyed and the town deserted. Two of the temples have been reconstructed and the others are still piles of rubble that were left behind 2500 years ago. It was a fanstastic site. The wildflowers were in bloom, and we were allowed to roam everywhere. Pretty awesome. We had another great meal with a view of the ocean in the town of Selinunte. Eli played on a pier with his cars. Then we headed to Agrigento for some more Greek ruins and some quality time with peacocks. More in the next post.

For now, here are some pics from this leg of the trip:


Above: Eli and Caroline dining at Donna Franca outside of Marsala
Below: Eli and Caroline on the see-saw at the agriturismo


Above: the view from Donna Franca, the agriturismo/vineyard outside of Marsala.
Below: the sea of pods at Villa Favorita in Marsala



Above: Caroline and Eli in our smurf house.
Below: an actual smurf house.




Above: Eli in the middle of an impressive rant with his cars on the pier at Selinunte.
Below: Eli and Caroline at the reconstructed temple in Selinunte.


Above: Eli and Caroline next to a column.
Below: Eli and Dad checking out the view from the temple.

Above: Eli and Dad amid the rubble in Selinunte.
Below: a glimpse of the duomo at Monreale.

Above: the mosaic in the apse of Monreale's duomo.
Below: the unfinished temple at Segesta.

Above: Eli playing in the puddles in Segesta
Below: Eli and Caroline in the temple. Note the view in the background. That's the "bad" side of the view. The more dramatic view is the other way.

The Mob Rules

Just returned from the motherland of italian pastries, frutti di mari, and, of course, the mafia. Sicily was a winner. We started our trip by driving down to Naples to catch a ferry to Palermo. Our plan was to eat some of the best pizza in the world and then walk it off by taking in the sights. The pizza search was a success. We sought out a pizzeria that was a finalist in the international World's Best Pizza competition (4 of the finalists and the winner are located in Naples). We did some diligent research and found out that the contest winner only serves their award winning pizza once a year so we settled for a finalist instead. The best pizza of our lives. I should actually let Sam recap the meal because he makes it sound like epic poetry the way he tells it. The pizzeria was very modest in appearance: floor to ceiling white tile with white formica tables. There was also a light dusting of sawdust on the floors. There were only three types of pizza, tomato sauce with cheese, with extra cheese, and without cheese. It was pizza in it's purist and most unadulterated form. Then there was the crust. Incredibly, it was something close to naan - but better than the best naan I've ever had. It was ultra thin and soft without being soggy. The edges of the dough were just crispy enough to offer some contrast and give the pizza structure. The rest of the afternoon was literally a wash since it was pouring out, so we don't have any pictures from that day. But we did love Naples despite the weather, and we highly recommend Pizzeria di San Michele to anyone planning on making the trip.

The ferry trip that night was a lot of fun. We think that the ferry companies may use old cruise ships for their overnight trips because our boat was bigger than expected and looked like something out of The Loveboat. We rode in dated style and relative comfort. I was impressed. Eli had a blast with the new mode of transportation.

We arrived in Palermo in the morning. We had heard that Sicily was poor, and the ruling mafia could care less about civic pride, but the historic center of Palermo was crumbling away. In fact, I would say the old city is practically gone. There are a few beautiful sights, such as the Duomo and the Teatro Massimo, but much of Palermo's population live in condemnable slums right next to these beautiful monuments. It was a bit of a downer to say the least. You could tell though that Palermo was once a beautiful and fascinating mix of Greek, Arab, Norman, and Spanish influences. There are only traces left.

Hate to end on a downer, but I don't want to overwhelm. We stayed in Palermo for two days and then moved on the western coast of the island. From there the sights got more impressive, and the surroundings more pleasant. We'll include that portion of our trip in the next post.


Above: The ferry lounge.
Below: The fam hanging out in our cabin.

Above: Sam and Eli on the ferry.
Below: Eli is taken in by the gold and glitter of the flashy Italian soccer shoes.

Above: Door within a door construction. We posted this one for Blake. Hobbit doors galore in Sicily.
Below: The fish markets were fantastic. We checked out whole swordfish, moray eels, sea urchin, tubs full of roe and so on.

Above: A sightseeing break at the port.
Below: The Teatro Massimo. There was a seen from Godfather III that was shot inside. It was closed for the two days we were there so we didn't get to go inside. It's supposed to be one of the best theaters in Italy though.

Above: The streets of Palermo were paved with marble.
Below: The Duomo.

Above: An example of the buildings that are crumbling away in the city center.
Below: This is the best English sign we've found in Italy. What makes it even better is that the awning for a nightclub.