Bonsai in Sicily

Bonsai in Sicilia

Today we have come to the beautiful hill town of Modica. We are here for their patron saint's day, the Festa di San Giorgio. Tonight, the statue of San Giorgio, riding on his horse, will be brought out of the church and paraded around town. Lots of fireworks will accompany San Giorgio on his ride around town.

We arrived here after a 2+ hour bus ride from Siracusa. The first thing I saw was a poster for a bonsai show, from the Bonsai Club of Messina, Modica Chapter. After checking into our hotel, we found the show on the main street. There were really nice bonsai, many yamadori (collected trees from the wild) including olives, oaks, rosemary and carob. They had amazing trunks, with lots of deadwood. I asked them if they knew a bonsai master I have learned from, Marco Invernizzi, and indeed they knew him.

For lunch today we were recommended to go to a nearby place that had a 19€ many course meal. Trattoria A pulia ro vino. It was full up, and ordering a la carte was not allowed but who'd want to?

the antipasti course had eleven items: a very thin sliced grilled eggplant, marinated lightly in balsamic, with italian parsley; a fried ball of rice with cheese and peas and tomatoes inside; a very thin savory lasagna, 3 layers separated by light cheese, and the very top layer was thin light baked wheat; a local very soft delicate cheese that felt like it melted into your mouth like a whipped cream cheese but of course much better; a perfect dry light thin well cured salame; whole wheat bread toast with melted butter and minced fresh parsey; triangular white bread very lightly fried not oily at all; a tender omelette spread with greens and cheese, rolled up, sliced into thin rounds; boiled brown eggs; and green olives.

This was followed by primi and there were 3 of these: First a thick soup with thick, rope-like pasta called lolli, and big, flat brown broad beans, in a thick broth. This was followed by two pastas, a ravioli filled with cheese in a tangy tomato sauce, and a shell like twisted pasta with a tomato sauce with tiny pieces of savory pork sausage.

Then the main secondi course, there were two of these, pork and pork sausage in a tomato sauce, and boiled beef, with a "contorno", a side of yummy scalloped potatoes with sweet onions and lots of very good olive oil.

There were two desserts also, a traditional tender gelatinous thing made of wheat that tasted fragrant, so hard to describe, very subtle, and much better than it looked ; and crispy cannoli with a creamy ricotta middle and chocolate bits.

This was all washed down with a local red house wine and finished off with a thick,sweet espresso.

A great meal!

Time for a nap and the off to the festival!...........

.......okay, we're back from the big procession. We've perched ourselves on the roof terrace of our nice hotel, Le Magnolie (at only 70€, a very nice find), with a lovely bottle of Cerasuolo di Vittoria (a wine from here in Modica, a delicious, fruity, very easy down the throat wine), a plate of the local cheese, some dry salami and some bread. We were going to go out to dinner, but why bother? We have a view of the whole town and fireworks are going on above the town as San Giorgio is making his way around town, eventually going back to his church, when there will be more fireworks.

It all started this afternoon when the statue of San Giorgio, Modica's patron saint, was carried out of the church by many strong men. There were hundreds of locals (we were two of the very few tourists attending) watching when there were loud booms and giant fountains of blue, red and yellow confetti were blown into the air. San Giorgio, saint george, is on horseback waving a glittering sword, and his horse is trampling a green dragon which looks very uncomfortable with a spear sticking in its gullet. Since he is riding horseback, he has to move fast! The men carrying San Giorgio were followed by a marching band and they, along with the huge crowd that included us, literally ran up the streets into the upper town. They wear red t shirts (which on the front advertise the "Thousand and One Nights Bar" and on the back is a picture of S. Giorgio) and flow upstream like a red river. The marching band (mostly high school aged kids, both boys and girls) kept playing the same song, over and over, the song of San Giorgio. We marched through the streets, where people on their balconies would shower San Giorgio with even more confetti. Eventually, we kind of ran out of steam and let San Giorgio and his followers go on their merry way. We were by this time way up in the high reaches of the upper town, but made it back down for a nice gelato of the local chocolate and amaretto.

Back at our hotel, we discovered that they have a wine bar (in an actual cave, carved in e cliff behind us) and the hotel's concierge, Giuliana, brought the wine ( red Cerasuolo di Vittoria, winery is Cantina Avide, 2006) in beautiful glasses up to the terrace, with the cheese and salami, so who needs dinner? We are now looking out over the whole, beautiful town of Modica, waiting for San Giorgio to come back to his church, where there will be a huge fireworks display. Hopefully, we won't have run out of wine by then.

We can't rave enough about this hotel. It is an old house on one of the tiny walking streets/stairways off the main "road"', Umberto I (which used to be the creek until 1902).... The room has vaulted ceilings, the bathroom is huge and has very stylish Italian ceramic fixtures, the bed is a perfect firm King, the sheets are so smooth. The upstairs terrace has gentle sconce lighting low down so you can see each other and still see the glories of the town on all sides. We also love Modica, with it's hundreds of curvy streets, arches, gateways, balconies, wrought iron, gargoyles. Everything is light colored sandstone, and here and there the old stone will have weathered so much that it looks like ropy coral while the carvings on the other side of the doorway are still as sharp as if they were sculpted last week. Many buildings must be empty, with the doorways rotting, others are restored. Our side of the river canyon was for ordinary folks, the far side has magnificent palaces and churches.

I Hope You Like Lemons...

After a wild day in Naples, we've spent the last couple of days on the beautiful Amalfi coast, in the town of Sorrento. The first thing you notice as you come into town on the train (called the Circumvesuviana because it runs around Vesuvius) are the lemon groves. Here, where there is some of the most expensive real estate anywhere, lemon groves grow right in the middle of town and on all the hills along this beautiful coast. And what kind of souvenir can you buy here? Lemons! Lemons in all shapes and sizes including one that is almost as big as a grapefruit. Also, lemon soap, lemon candies, lemon plates, bowls and cups, clocks that look lemons, porcelain lemons, wooden lemons, lemon jewelry and probably the best of all, lemoncello, that delicious after dinner drink that is so famous here.

Besides the lemons, another reason to come here is that it is close to the ancient Roman town of Pompeii. You probably know that Pompeii was a prominent town that had the unfortunate luck of being located right next to a big, nasty volcano named Vesuvius. No one knew that this was actually a volcano until in August, 79AD, it literally blew its top. A big, hot pyro clastic flow reached Pompeii in a few minutes and covered the town in ash. After a few days of this, the town was covered in about 30 feet of ash and was perfectly preserved. Flash forward about 1700 years and Pompeii was discovered and has seen continuous excavation and study until this very day. The town is huge and had about 20,000 residents and is by far the best place to see what a Roman town looked like. We arrived on the train when it opened and practically had it to ourselves for the first 2 hours.

Travel note...it's always best to arrive in these types of places as early as possible, as the big tour groups rarely arrive until well after breakfast.

It was great just walking around the town, going into the old houses, seeing beautiful mosaics and paintings, all original. You really get an idea of how people lived here, at least the rich ones. There are even bodies of the inhabitants you can see. When the person died, the ash covered him and he was preserved. Eventually, the body deteriorated and created a cavity in the now solid ash. This was discovered by archaeologists, plaster was poured in the cavity, and a perfect impression of a body was created, including hair, clothes, etc. A bit spooky to look at, for sure.

Pompeii gets about 5 million visitors every year and I think about 2 million of those were there the day we visited. After two hours wandering around on our own, all of Pompeii was inundated by hordes of school kids, every one of them constantly screaming at the top of their lungs. This, plus the fact that I hadn't been drinking enough water or eating much food, gave me a slight case of heat stroke and it was hard to enjoy the last hour or so of our visit.

A ten minute train ride from Pompeii is the other buried town of Herculaneum. These unfortunate folks didn't get smothered by hot ash, but by 60 feet of slimy, boiling mud. This somehow preserved the buildings much better and many even have their original wood parts, although a bit charred.

Okay, enough about ruins and dead bodies. What you really want to know is what we are eating. The food so far isn't as good as the food in the north of Italy, but we've had a couple of memorable meals. In Naples, we ate at the second most famous pizzeria there, Cafe Trianon. (The most famous, Pizzaria Michele, had a one hour wait). We had a Margarita pizza, the most simple with just tomato sauce, mozzarella and basil (the color of the Italian flag) and another with 7 (yes, seven!!) types of cheese. They were delicious, especially the cheesy one with its bubbling, gooey goodness! The other great meal was in Sorrento, at the Leone Rosso (the Red Lion). Our first course was a carpaccio of octopus with Florentine fennel. This was marvelous, as somehow they pounded the octopus into round pieces and then cut it into incredibly thin slices. With some very good olive oil and the fennel, this was unreal. This was followed by a rigatoni with a tomato sauce with eggplant, basil and sausage. YUM!!! Last, but not least, was a frito misto...fresh fish, calamari and shrimp fried to crunchy perfection. With the little sardines you could eat the whole fish, head, bones, everything. Next door was Gelateria David. The best flavor was called Veneziana, which was dark chocolate with A LOT of rum.

Today, Saturday, we are on the train to Siracusa. It's a crowded, old train that has seen its better days. We are in a cabin with some nice Italians and a drunk, crazy guy, but nice guy that apparently doesn't enjoy bathing. But earlier today we took the 6:30 am bus to Amalfi. The famous Amalfi road is closed for repairs, so we came over the mountain, which was amazing. The last 10 kilometers or so goes straight down a 1000 meter mountain with incredible views. The town of Amalfi is beautiful, but only a 15 minute walk away is the town of Atrani, which has somehow escaped the touristic craziness of the rest of the towns here. A nice little piazza with little restaurants and beautiful buildings climbing up the hillsides on both sides of the canyon. Hardly any tourists and very typical of what you would hope to find here. We had an omelette with farm fresh eggs and melted, yummy cheese, washed down with a thick, sweet doppio espresso. I wouldn't mind coming back here someday and spending a few days.

As I am typing this, they have put our whole train on a huge ferry for the 3 kilometer ride over to Sicily. The train will drive off the ferry and head down to Siracusa, passing by the currently erupting Mt. Etna. Tomorrow we'll head up to the town of Modica for the big Festa di St. Giorgio, the town's patron saint. Should be a good party!

So here are some pictures, not in order...

Much Better Than Sorrento

I am writing this, hurtling backwards towards Sicily in the compartment of an old style Italian train. Our seat mates, all from calabria, are having an animated discussion of the remembered pleasures of falling In Love. Outside our compartment of six, a seventh man, I will call him Mr. Stinky, is leaning in, eager to join the conversation. When able he is also eager to join our compartment. Each time someone detrains, he pops into the newly opened seat, eager to be one of the party. Luckily so far the compartment seats have been completely sold out, and as the train pulls out of the station they show up to displace him. But he is sure he is part of our changing train family, always welcome. Probably would be, but for the stench.

But I digress. We are hurtling towards Sicily, fresh from the nicest morning of our trip so far. Taking a bus in the dawn light, we were the only ones on a huge bus that made its way in hairpin turns up, through and down the mountains of the Amalfi coast. The coastal hairpinned road from the northernmost town of Sorrento, to the next, Positano, is washed out. So we went on the mountain hairpin road, instead. Was so beautiful, and also dramatic, as our mild bus driver turned manic when stuck behind a large truck, turning to us in italian exasperation to fume with both arms when he was not blowing the horn.

We expected after Sorrento, which is sort of suburban Carmel style over consumption, not to enjoy the rest of the Amalfi coast. But the town of Amalfi happily surprised us. It has castles, ruins, shiny mosaic fronted Greek style cathedrals up huge flighs of stairs, with a wedding no less. It has tasty food, endless small squares, and hidden passageways.

Hidden passageways---We were able to walk from amalfi, completely around the point to the next valley, the town of Atrani, completely shielded from the sea in twisty passages of stairways through the warren of houses that cover the point, with no signs, if you didn't know you could go through you'd neve have found it, because Atrani does not want to be found i guess; just like the signs to Bolinas! but luckily once you are in Atrani, they do want you to find your way back to the big city of Amalfi so they DO sign your way home.

Both towns have lovely walks, through lemon orchards. In Atrani, we were walking up the narrow roadway, past ladies hanging wash out above, when we noticed the most delicious aroma. What was that! Jasmine pikake? No! It was lemon blossoms! It was so sweet and cool.... It drifted down from the groves above. After that in both towns, we noticed the nice fragrance was everywhere. SO nice.

In both towns also we hiked and hiked, lots of stairs, trickling streams, lemon groves. And walked out along the piers where fishermen tie up right next to the yachts of rich hotties. Makes me hungry and sore just thinking of how much we walked, although just now my butt is on a soft cushion for the next 8 hours as the beaches of Calabria flash by. Also we spent a great 25minutes flashing by on a speedy ferry from amalfi down the coast to the not so very impressive city of Salerno. Missable.

Food... This morning in sorrento we enjoyed standup breakfast, cappucinos (mine with a little cocoa heart) with croisssants and chocolate; in Atrani we enjoyed another set of coffees splitting an omelette with fresh farm eggs and local cheese; in Amalfi we had fresh salad and bruschetta with tomato, basil and anchovies; in Salerno, before our train, I bought little savory tarts sort of like flat pop tarts, one with chips of Italian ham and cheese and one with green herbs and feta; on the train Craig promised a hot meal just like on the French trains of his memories but instead we got a nice bag of vanilla cream wafers. Remarkably good. I must be amazingly hungry from all this morning's hiking.

Ruins and food....

Time zone change has messed with our minds. Never hungry... Always hungry ... Anything at all , as long as its sugar...and top notch.....
Luckily today time zone sleep brought both of us out early to bundle onto the train and arrive at Pompeii , just a wee bit before opening. What that meant is not only were the early morning lights on the beautiful homes and temples of the city just awesome , but even better , no one was there! For 2 hours Pompeii was practically just ours. Was that incredible! Sure, by ten, the groups were everywhere , but by then we'd peered into many of the famous homes.

from Vesuvius.... the Haleakala of Europe....

Anyone who feels they do not have enough time to travel should know how it feels to be a continent away. At dinner Craig and I realize, we have not yet been in Italy 24 hours; we have not been away from home for 48 hours yet; and yet we are already so very far away and so many new experiences up.

we got in the holiday mood right away because of Lufthansa. what a difference a culture makes in terms of service and politeness.
We had a terrific flight on Lufthansa. Frequent flier miles or not, coach or not, they did not care... Individual screens at our seats. we watched The Artist and The Descendants; ate tasty food and free Campari and red wine and coffee at our whim; slept a lot and joked a lot. when we landed in Munich to learn the rather startling news that our Italy flight was oversold and we were 6 and 7 on the waitlist, their services helped us get right away onto a flight to Frankfurt so we only landed in Naples an hour late with 2 more adventurous flights. We really did fine.

Naples airport is so close to town, that within the hour we had taken a shuttle to town (3 euros), found our hotel the Mercure which is 2 short blocks off the square where the shuttle dropped us , checked in and walked a block or two down to a slate night pizzeria to ishare a pizza 'Quattro stagione': pizza (which naples invented) with one quarter Margherita which is their own tastier tomato sauce, one quarter 'fruits of the sea', one quarter 'four cheeses', one quarter artichokes. and local wine red which was tangy, a little on the raw side, but great with our tangy food. Ate on the sidewalk, on tables with Valentines day red tablecloths and a spunky little waitress. At midnight, still a lot of street action, north African guys walking past, a cute Algerian French couple next to us smoking and flirting, little Fiat 500s stopping to get their pizza to go, lots of laughing and chatting in the local musical south Italian where every sentence ends with a trailing down descant. Don't know how to write that down. 'arrividercciiiiiiiiii' cascading down the scale'
In the moonlight, we could see that our clean modern italian design type room's balcony looked down on a little formal patio with tables, next to the train tracks: the local Circumvesuvians, the "around Mt Vesuvius" suburban train, depot. The moon was a beautiful sliver with a very bright Venus. We Thought there may be train noise, but no, our sliding door windows had perfect sound proofing and we slept real well. In the morning we made ourselves get up early in the first rays of sunlight, the only way to switch time zones fast. and we were off and running.

Today we have done so much. In the early am we walked two blocks over to watch the local street fish market be set up. Its in a little narrow street, well all the streets are narrow, next to a giant stone gate to the original city from the 14th century. The handsome men set out, on ice, up large trays of so many species, most of them alive: clams from fingernail sized to fist size, snails, inky squid, octopus, sardines, silvery flashy eels, little silvery fish tied in little live action half circles, and live swimming fish, eels and shellfish everywhere. We had local breakfast: hot cappucino and flaky croissants with gooey chocolate while standing at the local bar's counter, much cheaper that way, 2 euros each for breakfast about $2.50 much better than Starbucks!

In the next few hous we explored all over Naples on foot, ending up, after dodging traffic which never stops, down a narrow pedestrian street which dates back to the original Greek town. We went into huge ornate frescoed churches; shopped for cheap fakes of luxury CDs purses and clothes; checked out palaces from all centuries, and glass roofed "Galerias" from the 1800s; sawthe glories of pompeii and herculaneum at the archaeological museum; ate the local pizza again, this time with Margherita sauce and with "7 cheeses".
A little comment on the beautiful mosaics from pompeii: we did not realize made from minute minute glass. Each portrait is much smaller than life size. not huge like we'd imagined. So beautiful! So detailed!
Finally we have taken a cute suburban train covered in graffiti an hour south to our next base for the next 2 nights, Sorrento, while being serenaded by local accordian "bands " on the train. Wanted to pay them, to make them go away.
Sorrento sits on limestone cliffs very sheer dropping into the bay of Naples. The main portion at first seemed soooo touristy compared to Naples but now we are in the swing of it. We were able to hike down from the cheesy tourist village into the authentic fishing villages, and back... By that time the local economy got into major action, really fun. Bought some murano glass, sampled lemon liqueurs, ate yet again.

all of this is in the bay of Naples, where Vesuvius, not that big but certainly fierce, presides, uneven and sharp, over a big ocean caldera which is surely going to blow again.. one of these days. Lots of boats of all sizes...

Our hotel here the Linda is actually a pension in an apartment building. A nice price 62 euros.

just wanted to discuss our menu tonight. At the Leone Rosso one of twenty restaurants in Sorrento. for openers: carpaccio of fresh octupus with fresh florence fennel, finocchio, which was in some light marinade, the octupus was in six inch disks a millimeter thick very good; with local white house wine from here in Sorrento, the town we are in, very good. the second course was a dish of rigatoni perfectly cooked with eggplants and sausage in a sauce of tender fresh cherry tomatoes, washed with red wine; both with fresh bread and fresh pizza crust dipped in golden fresh virgin olive oil, very fruity; folloed by a main course of fresh flash fried shrimp, squid tentacles, sardines and a local white fish; with more of the white wine; end of formal meal followed by gelatos of pistachio, dark chocolate, hazelnut and chocolate rum, from the gelateria next door. Meal for 2, 36 euros about $48. Gelatos not sure maybe $6.50 for both of us. Not too bad! Quality excellent

Tomorrow...which is now today since, due to jet lag, I'm up at five polishing this back up and listening to outrageous pre dawn birdsong...we go back on the same train, to the buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Next day, along amalfi coast to Salerno where we will pick up our fast train down to Syracuse in Sicily.

Bella Sicilia!

In 2009 we traveled to northern Italy...Tuscany, Umbria, Cinque Terra, etc.  The landscape, food and the people were fantastic and it was one of our best trips ever.  So this time we've decided to travel to the hotter, more colorful, crazier south...all the way to as south in Italy as you can go: Sicily!

In southern Italy we will visit a Roman ruin buried for 2000 years, eat pizza in its birthplace, travel along one of the most amazing coastlines anywhere, visit a town famous thoughout Italy for its chocolate, attend a festival for a local patron saint, a festival where they cart around an ancient painting of the Virgin Mary, and festivals dedicated to the strawberry, local flowers and the cannoli. We will eat seafood fished out of the Mediterranean (hopefully that very day) and drink some of the best wine anywhere, including from vines right on the slopes of Europe's most active volcano (which, we've heard, is very active right now).  We will see mosaics located in churches and Roman ruins that are purported to be amazing.  We will drive and walk through mountain parkland with beautiful villages. 

It should be fun, so please check in every once in awhile to see what we're up to.